{"id":268,"date":"2012-08-19T19:58:26","date_gmt":"2012-08-20T00:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/?p=268"},"modified":"2017-10-26T22:20:32","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T03:20:32","slug":"sermon-difficult-teaching-august-19-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/2012\/08\/19\/sermon-difficult-teaching-august-19-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Sermon: Difficult Teaching August 19, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texts:\u00a0 Proverbs 9:1-6; \u00a0Psalm 34:9-14; Ephes. 5:15-20; \u00a0John 6:51-60<\/p>\n

May the Holy Word be a light for our path and a lamp for our feet, and the truth for which our hearts yearn.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

Four scripture readings:\u00a0 One from the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures; a Psalm in response; an Epistle reading; and a Gospel reading, the fourth assigned from this sixth chapter of John in as many weeks.\u00a0\u00a0 What did you hear in them?\u00a0 What was difficult?<\/p>\n

Now, I know I have an advantage over you since I have worked with these texts all week.\u00a0 But I was very aware that several of these teachings are very difficult for me:\u00a0 first, from the psalm:\u00a0 I know that the hardest thing for me is to \u201cKeep your tongue from evil\u201d.\u00a0 I have a sharp tongue and it reveals a judgmental streak in me that indicates an egotistical arrogance, and a \u00a0selfish sense of personal perogative.\u00a0\u00a0 The second most difficult teaching in these readings, for me, therefore, would be the injunction to seek peace and pursue it, for I like to stir up controversy and argument, out of that same place in my personality, no doubt, \u00a0that has difficulty bridling my tongue.<\/p>\n

But imagine, if you will, that you had never read or heard the Gospel of John, and had no basis to understand the language that Jesus uses.\u00a0 It\u2019s a theological bombshell, and offensive.\u00a0 In fact, it was so offensive, even when the words were first written, that it deepened the horror at the gall of this itinerant preacher amongst his own people, and caused some of the crowd who had been following him about, to stop and turn away.\u00a0 The \u201cteaching is difficult\u201d to say the least:\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 claim that he IS the \u201cbread that comes down from heaven\u201d is provocative enough, but\u00a0 becomes outrageous\u2014to both ancient and modern ears, and for differing reasons that we don\u2019t have time to explore\u2014that he says:\u00a0 \u201cunless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I have a family member who cannot hear these words, nor watch a celebration of the Lord\u2019s supper, without thinking that there is something here that alludes to cannibalism.<\/p>\n

This passage prompts a short detour, therefore, into some Bible study and into the field of historical theology, for these words have been fighting words, ever since they were, perhaps spoken, but at least since the Fourth Gospel writer put them in the mouth of Jesus.\u00a0 Most scholars doubt that Jesus actually said these words.\u00a0 They represent a theological articulation of who Jesus is, for this writer of the Gospel of John.<\/p>\n

First, for the first readers, John\u2019s Gospel was \u201c\u2026written for insiders, for the beleaguered little group of believers whose allegiance to Jesus has brought them to the crisis of separation from their neighbors and families, \u201cthe Jews\u201d who now hate them.\u201d\u00a0 [Meeks, Wayne.\u00a0 \u201cExegetical Perspective\u201d, John 6:51-58, Feasting on the Word, <\/em>Year B, Vol. 3, pp. 357-358]<\/p>\n

As Jews themselves originally, they would hear an allusion to part of the most important events in the history of the Hebrew people\u2014the Exodus, and the wilderness wanderings when there was no bread, but the manna that came down from heaven, and no meat, or flesh, to eat but the flesh of quails that were provided, miraculously.\u00a0 They are reminded of the \u201ccraving\u201d of the Israelites in Moses\u2019 time, when they demanded flesh to eat.\u00a0 Wayne Meeks in his commentary on the John passage, says that many of the ancient manuscripts of John 6:52, omit the word \u201chis\u201d, and so read \u201cHow can this man give us the flesh <\/em>to eat?\u201d thus making the allusion to the Exodus experience more direct. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Professor Meeks notes that \u201cIt is absurd enough that he promises to give his own flesh instead of the flesh of quails; now he [also] speaks of drinking blood.\u00a0 Even leaving aside the cannibalistic sound of it, the notion transgresses one of the most fundamental taboos in the food laws of Israel.\u201d\u00a0 [Ibid., p. 357]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Leviticus 17:10-14 says:\u00a0 \u201cIf anyone of the house of Israel or of the aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood, and will cut that person off from the people.\u00a0 For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement.\u201d <\/em>If you have a Bible with you, look again at the words of Jesus in John 6:51-60:\u00a0 \u201cUnless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood you have no life in you.\u201d\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

This was a bombshell for the Jewish community, outrageous and offensive because of their holy law.\u00a0 Thus, the first arguments over these words were between Jews and Jewish Christians.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s take this historical exploration a bit further:\u00a0 how many of you have heard the word \u201ctransubstantiation\u201d and know what it means?\u00a0 Most Catholics\u00a0 or those with some Catholic background and education probably know the word, and understand that it means the \u201cdivine mystery\u201d whereby the substance of bread and the substance of the fruit of the vine, be it wine or grape juice, are changed into the real substance of the Body and Blood of Jesus.\u00a0 From the early days in the life of the Christian community, it seems that the elements of the Lord\u2019s Supper conveyed to the believer the body and blood of Christ, or, in later theological terms, the real presence of the risen Lord.<\/p>\n

In about 150 C.E., Justin Martyr wrote of the Lord\u2019s Supper:\u00a0 \u201cNot as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise we have been taught that the food which is blessed by prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, the early church leaders argued intensively that Jesus was the incarnation, in the flesh\u2014which is what the word incarnation means\u2014of God\u2019s very Being.\u00a0 Thus, to \u201ceat his flesh and drink his blood\u201d\u2014which we have already seen from Leviticus represents the life force of a creature\u2014is to take the eternal, the holy, God\u2019s very being into the self.\u00a0 Two more historical notes:\u00a0 The earliest known use of the term \u201ctransubstantiation\u201d occurred in about 1079.\u00a0 In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council used the word transubstantiated<\/em> in its profession of faith. \u00a0And in 1551, the Council of Trent (in response to the growing Protestant Reformation) officially defined, with a minimum of technical language, that \u201cin the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood.\u00a0 This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transubstantiation was a divine mystery that occurred when the priest spoke the words of institution, how on the night when Christ was betrayed, he took the bread and gave it to them and said, \u201cTake, eat, this is my body.\u201d And the cup likewise, after supper, saying:\u00a0 \u201cThis is my blood in the new covenant\u201d.\u00a0 In ancient times, blood was often used to seal a covenant (an agreement between two parties).\u00a0\u00a0 Or, for some other portions of the ancient church, it occurred in the prayer of consecration by the priest, known as the epiklesis, <\/em>saying, \u201cnow may this bread and this wine become for us the body and blood of our Savior.\u201d<\/p>\n

A result of all this was that the consecrated bread and wine became the eternal presence of Jesus in the midst of the people.\u00a0 It could not be handled by sinners, nor could crumbs fall to the floor, lest someone walk on the body of Jesus.\u00a0 The left-over wine could not be throw out, but had to be consumed by the priest.\u00a0 No one wanted Jesus to be thrown into the sewers or gutters.\u00a0 Today, the bread and wine\u2014known as the host, meaning Jesus as the host of the table\u2014are kept in a tabernacle on the altar at most Catholic and Orthodox Churches.\u00a0 Some Catholic Churches even have chapels of perpetual adoration of the host.<\/p>\n

Along came the Protestant Reformation and controversy around these words and their meaning exploded once more.\u00a0 In one of his sermons on John 6, Luther said:\u00a0 People are \u201c\u2026to investigate what He was driving at with this peculiar speech.\u00a0 What could He mean?\u00a0 Is one man to devour the other? Surely this cannot be the meaning.\u201d\u2026Luther argues that when Jesus in verse 51 speaks the words, \u201cMy flesh\u201d it is the \u201cmy\u201d that defines the \u201cFlesh\u201d, not the reverse.\u00a0 This not \u201cthe sort of flesh from which red sausages are made\u201d, he noted in his typical earthy fashion.\u201d\u00a0 [Morse, Christopher.\u00a0 \u201cTheological Perspective,\u201d\u00a0 Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol 3, p. 356] <\/em>Luther calls the Lord\u2019s Supper a \u201csacramental union\u201d, because, he said, \u201cChrist\u2019s body and the bread are given to us as a sacrament.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another reformer, Huldrych Zwingli, who was of great influence on the founders of the Christian Church, Thomas and Alexander Campbell, believed that the \u201csacrament is purely symbolic and memorial in character\u201d, arguing that this was the meaning of Jesus\u2019 instruction, \u201cDo this in remembrance of me.\u201d\u00a0 So, on the communion table in most Disciples\u2019 churches, the words:\u00a0 \u201cDo this in remembrance of me\u201d are carved into the front board of the table.\u00a0 Zwingli and Luther both abhorred the superstition that surrounded the elements of communion.\u00a0 For Disciples, the communion of which we partake is not understood to be \u201ctransubstantiated\u201d, but rather a symbolic remembering.\u00a0 But even that word:\u00a0 \u201cremembering\u201d means to member again, to re-flesh something.\u00a0 And we have always said, that \u201cwhere two or three gather together in Christ\u2019s name, there he is in the midst of them.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Thus, in a convoluted way, even we Disciples who believe that the Lord\u2019s Supper is a remembrance, also affirm the \u201creal presence\u201d of Christ in this sacrament.<\/p>\n

History lesson is over, and now I have only a few words left to squeeze into my allotted time, so let me conclude with this word of interpretation.<\/p>\n

Yes, the Gospel is scandalous and offensive.\u00a0 To think that God has come to us in the life of Jesus\u2014and perhaps in other lives as well\u2014suggests so many different ideas that we are almost overwhelmed with possibilities.\u00a0 It means that God, the Holy at the heart of being, \u00a0is not unchangeable, immutable.\u00a0 It means that God can be touched, and did touch, and does still touch creation.\u00a0 An incarnated God made flesh means that God desperately loves the creation and human beings so passionately as to give up God\u2019s self in sacrificial love for us.\u00a0 And sacrificial love becomes the means for the salvation, or the wholeness, or the fulfillment of the destiny of earth and human souls.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0This suggests that such a God is available to all, that such love is available to all\u2014not just to the few who participate in some secret ritual or who possess some powerful gnosis, knowledge, or only to those who rightly believe or rightly behave, or even to those who partake of rightly consecrated bread and wine.<\/p>\n

These strange offensive words of Jesus, from the theological standpoint of the writer of the Gospel of John, for whom Jesus is the word made flesh, proclaim that Jesus intends to have all of us, body and soul.\u00a0 His truth wants to burrow deep within us, to consume us as we consume the bread and wine symbolic of God\u2019s ultimate sacrifice of love, and for it to flow through our veins, to be digested, to nourish every nook and cranny of our being.\u00a0 This God is so scandalously, intimately available to us, and whoever knows this, knows what it is to live in eternity\u2019s sunrise.\u00a0 The life stronger than death that God gives to the world in what happens with Jesus Christ always comes to us in the flesh.\u00a0 Indeed, \u201cthis teaching is difficult\u201d, and the world has not wanted to accept it, not then, and not now, when people want to make God some puppet-master off in some other sphere of being.\u00a0 So may we have eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to understand, and the desire to taste the wisdom that God sets before us.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Texts:\u00a0 Proverbs 9:1-6; \u00a0Psalm 34:9-14; Ephes. 5:15-20; \u00a0John 6:51-60 May the Holy Word be a light for our path and a lamp for our feet, and the truth for which our hearts yearn.\u00a0 Amen. Four scripture readings:\u00a0 One from the<\/p>\n

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