- Sermon - Mickey Anders

"Eat and Live"
By Dr. Mickey Anders
South Elkhorn Christian Church
Lexington, Kentucky
August 19, 2009

Text: John 6:41-51

The Communion Table is perhaps the most reassuring and comforting feature in any Disciples of Christ Church. We love our Communion. We insist on having it every single Sunday. I have always heard that the people in the pew could do just fine without a sermon, but they would not feel that they had been to church without Communion.

For Disciples, the Table is like a comfortable easy chair at home. It gives us cozy, warm feelings and calls to mind the many wonderful experiences we have had with Communion's past. Perhaps we think of our first Communion service. Or we may think of Communion services from the time of our youth, or perhaps Communion in fondly remembered churches. We may even remember favorite pastors or beloved elders. Most of us recall elders who said especially effective prayers at the Table.

And we can all recite from memory those oft-repeated words, "This is my body; this is my blood; do this in remembrance of me." Perhaps we can still smell the bread from last Sunday as we recall Jesus' words that he is the Bread of life. Yes he is, we think. We love that bread.

Considering the importance of Communion to Disciples of Christ, it is a bit disconcerting that the Gospel of John does not record that scene on the night before Jesus' crucifixion in which he instituted the Lord's Supper. In John's description of that scene, he mentions an incident that none of the other gospels record - the washing of the Disciples feet. In the other gospels we find the words of Institution, and in Luke, Jesus adds, "Do this in remembrance of me." But in John, it is the washing of the feet that is instituted by these words from John 13:14-15, "So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you."

We have been studying the sixth chapter of John for four weeks now, and we are running over with bread imagery. This section of John is the closest thing we have to a Communion meal in the Gospel of John. Someone has said, "The sixth chapter is soaked with Eucharistic imagery." Jesus fed bread to the 5,000, then picked up on the manna theme from Exodus, and repeatedly talked about himself as the Bread of Life. In metaphor, Jesus describes himself as coming down from heaven like the manna did in the wilderness. He makes clear that believing in him leads to eternal life.

But then in verse 51, the imagery gets gory. Jesus makes overly clear the connection between the bread and himself. "The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." Suddenly, we are not talking pleasantly about bread metaphors. We are talking about flesh and blood.

No wonder the Jews responded with their question, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Perhaps they were wanting Jesus to explain himself a little better. After all, to eat someone's flesh in the Bible is a metaphor for great hostility. The drinking of blood was looked upon as an abomination forbidden by God's law.

Rather than answering their question, Jesus gets even more explicit, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life… for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them… so whoever eats me will live because of me."

Those are hard words. Most of us want to change the subject because it sounds like cannibalism. One pastor came to the Table and repeated the familiar words, "This is my body broken for you. This is my blood shed for you," and a small girl suddenly said in a loud voice, "Oh, yuk!"

This little girl's reaction is what all of us would have if we were hearing this for the first time. It is graphic imagery. Gone are the pleasant images of bread, polite words about believing, and abstract concepts like abiding in Christ. Jesus' words call up pictures of people with blood running off their chins and bodies with bites taken out.

The historians help soften this image by reminding us that the writer was confronting the false theologies of the day proposed by the Gnostics and the Docetists. The Gnostics said that Jesus only used the body temporarily so that he could attain to real existence as spirit. The Docetists said that Jesus only seemed to be flesh. Both were comfortable with Jesus as spirit but had trouble with his fleshly existence. In order to combat these false ideas, the writers of the New Testament frequently emphasize that Jesus was flesh and bone.

I always find it interesting that the early followers of Jesus found it easy to believe that Jesus was divine, but they had trouble believing that he was human. Contemporary followers have trouble believing that Jesus was divine, and easy to believe that he was human. John was reminding the readers and us that Jesus was indeed flesh and blood. He harkens back to those incarnational words at the beginning, "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us."

Communion presents a theological divide between the denominations. Most Christians everywhere agree about almost all of the classic theological doctrines of the faith. But Communion is one of those sticking points where there is significant difference.

Some theologians have taken this passage and developed a doctrine called "transubstantiation." They take this verse quite literally and say that we must eat the flesh of Jesus. So they suggest that a miracle happens every time Communion is taken. In Communion, the normal bread and wine miraculously converts to the actual flesh and blood of Jesus. The substance is transubstantiated into the real body of Jesus. Jesus is literally present, and this literally becomes body and blood. At least their doctrine rings true to this passage from John. We would accurately say that for them Communion is a sacrament.

The sacramental view can almost be too magical for me. And I certainly don't like transubstantiation. I had a friend in college who said he could never be a Catholic because it made him feel like a cannibal.

Augustine of Hippo defined a Christian sacrament as "a visible sign of an invisible reality." I do like his definition. And I do believe that grace is always present in Communion. Something happens beyond human understanding. There is mystery at this Table. It is a sacrament for me.

Other theologians have had a symbolic view of Communion. They like Luke's version, "Do this in remembrance of me." The bread and wine symbolize the body of Jesus; they don't have to actually become the real body of Jesus. In taking the elements, we remember Jesus and especially his death and resurrection.

Sometimes we tend to say, "It's just a symbol." Just? We sometimes devalue the meaning of a symbol until we take God completely out of it. The symbolic view may rely too much on the mental ability to understand metaphors. We have to understand the symbol for it to have meaning.

In a church I once served as pastor, the most devout person in church was the 40 year old Downs Syndrome lady. She loved God with all her heart. But she would never be able to understand abstract ideas like metaphors. Hers was a simple faith. If the faith was only about the mind, then she was left out. But if it was about experience, she definitely had that.

A woman suffering from Alzheimer's who cannot grasp a point in a sermon long enough for it to make any real difference can still hold the cup to her lips and receive the presence of Christ. A child for whom theological affirmations about Christ are as incomprehensible as molecular biology can still receive the blessings of the table.

Finally, let me ask you what is required to make this meal Communion? Do we have to have the right elements - the right kind of bread and wine? Do we have to have a priest or minister? Do we have to have it in a church? Do we have to have the right words?

Disciples are usually proud of the time that they observed Communion on a camping trip with teenagers and they had to use hot dog buns and Kool-aid for the elements. Was it Communion? I think so.

There is another significant note from John 6 that affects our understanding of Communion. Back in verse 11, we find the story of the feeding of the 5,000, which has been the launching pad for all this discussion about bread and now about Jesus flesh. John tells one detail of this story differently from the other gospel writers. When that happens there is usually a significant theological point being made. I believe that is true here. Verse 11 says, "Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted." Did you notice who served at this table? Jesus did.

The other gospel writers have a different message in their telling of the feeding of the 5,000, and they all record that Jesus gave the bread and fish to the disciples who then gave them to the crowds. In those stories, the disciples served. In John's version, Jesus served.

This is a very significant detail for John. If the point is that Jesus is the bread, and this is a kind of Communion service, leading into all the talk about bread and eternal life, then there are no intermediaries. He did not give this gift to an elite group of twelve who then mediate that gift to others. Jesus gives himself directly to the people, and to us.

That is why we frequently say in Disciples churches that this is the Lord's Table. It does not belong to the church. It does not belong to the denomination. It does not belong to the persons at the Table saying the words of Institution. It belongs to Jesus.

And when we come to this Table we meet Jesus directly. He gives himself directly to us that we might believe and have eternal life through him. We have no right to say who can come to his Table. We welcome all as Christ as welcomed us.

Some people want to put fences around the Table with themselves as the gate keepers. You cannot come to the Table if you do not belong to that church. You cannot come to the Table if the wrong person, an unqualified person, is officiating. You cannot come to the Table if you believe the wrong things about doctrine.

But Disciples have proudly proclaimed an Open Table, because it is Jesus who issues the invitation, "Whosoever will may come."

Consider the story I heard about an Easter Sunday in a large prison. There were more than 10,000 political prisoners detained there by the country's repressive and cruel regime. A group of prisoners wanted to celebrate the Eucharist, but they had no bread, no wine, no cup, no service book, no Bible and no priest. The non-Christian prisoners offer to help by gathering around them and talking quietly so that the guards would not notice.

One of the Christian prisoners said, "We have no bread, not even water to use as wine, but we will act as though we have." So he began to lead the others through the liturgy, surprised at how many of the words he remembered, having heard them so many Sundays since he was a child. When he got to the words Jesus said at the Last Supper, he turned to the prisoner next to him. He held out his empty hands and said, "This is my body, which is given for you." And so they went around the circle, one by one, each man turning to the next, opening his palms and repeating Jesus' words, "This is my body, given for you." Was it Communion? Sure it was.

The only requirement for Communion is that Jesus be present, and he is always there.