Christopher Thomas
Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 15, Year B – 8/15/21
1 Kings 2:10 – 12; 3:3-14
Psalm 111
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58
“I AM the bread of life. “I AM the bread of life.” “I AM the bread of life.”
(If something’s repeated, it’s most likely important and may be worth some attention!)
As we enter the third week (with another to come) of this ongoing metaphor, I ask, Jesus, again and again, is there, Jesus, another metaphor that you might use, to make your point, with me? For if you know me, you know that I am not a “foodie,” and so images of food, implementations of great banquet feasts do not particularly motivate me. I am nonplussed. I have never been one who eats for sheer pleasure, or joy, or fun; no, eating, for me, has been simply the fulfillment of the need, the goal of survival, taking this breath into the next.
And so, imagine my (and maybe all our) great surprise to realize that the survival to which you call us today, the banquet feast of our souls, minds, bodies, flesh, and spirit, the totality of who we are, rests firmly and solely in dining on – you? What is it about this experience, this sacramental moment that at first blush sounds down right cannibalistic to outsiders, eating of your flesh that surges forth this fountain of new life, again, and again, and again? What am I missing here?
When you keep telling me to eat of you if I want to have new, unending, eternal life, what, for God’s sake, does that mean?
For I love God. I follow the ways of God. I do what is right, and good, and a joyful thing, most of the time. I come to church (when I don’t have something more pressing to do). I let folks cut in front of me at the grocery store. I usually say “Please,” and “Thank You.” I send my mother a card on Mother’s Day. I don’t rob, or steal, or kill. I like to think of myself as a good person.
Go along to get along, Christianity as a form of social lubrication.
Is that the hunger that you are calling me to satisfy, the thirst you beg me to quench, when you invite me, week in and week out, to this table, to eat of your flesh and drink of your blood? If it is, that doesn’t seem altogether very sacramental, in my estimation.
For what is sacrament, after all, but holy, divine intersections of time, space, and place, where humanity and divinity line up as witness again of the power, majesty, and great goodness of God at work not only in our world, but more importantly, beyond me. For it is in sacrament, the partaking of sacrament, that we see human time, past, present, and future, Chronos, collapse into God’s time, Kairos, yet again. Eternity become reality when we consume the divine.
And so, what that bread and that cup of wine stand for must be, have to be, so much more than elemental Earth. They are not cosmetic, but “cosmotic,” cosmos, in time and space and place, because they “re-present” the intersection of eternity! Oh, the hunger, oh the thirst that is quenched with that single realization. Taking a bite of Jesus!
If this sort of eating, the eating of Jesus, is sacramental by its very nature, then where, oh where, do I find sacramental hunger? Where do I find hunger that is so scandalous that it warrants the very flesh and blood of a savior, our Savior? For this kind of hunger is the only hunger worthy of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. If this meal goes no further than satiating my stomach, my hunger, then it is pure blasphemy, and should be spat out!
No, the body and blood of Christ, if you take it in, if you consume it, requires a much higher bounty, the higher price that has been paid, freely given, and yet becomes necessitated. The hunger it satisfies within you is more than any social lubrication, “going along to get along,” could possibly be! That is not the Christianity of our Lord Jesus Christ, just being nice, respectable people.
But sacraments, holy collisions of humanity and divinity in time, are like that. They fill us up and empty us out, at the same. That which feeds you makes you hungry, you want more, and then you get it, and then you hunger for even more. It’s the queerest of equations, and yet, if you have partaken, you know it to be true. And you know it to be exponential, ever-growing, ever-expanding, ever-encompassing.
An outward and visible sign, of an inward and spiritual grace. (St. Augustine) The miracle of Jesus Christ. Feeding. Healing. Changing. Loving. Sacrament.
There’s a reason why the two official sacraments of the Christian faith, Baptism and Holy Eucharist, anchor the physical space that we occupy. The Baptismal Font lies at the west end of the room, the entry point of our journey of faith, and the Altar in the east, the place we continually “re-member” Jesus Christ’s resurrection again and again. We’re constantly participating in, living out that kenotic process of emptying and filling, hungering and satiating, God’s eternal, co-creative procession of life.
This morning, we are going to “birth” another Christian into the family and household of God, one Emmett Sanchez-Brown. We are all going to “mid-wife” Emmett’s entry into the Christian faith, bearing witness to the fundamental cellular change in his DNA, his identity, that occurs when he too springs up through the waters of new life, is filled with the Holy Spirit, and hears those words, “This is my child; in him I AM well-pleased!”
This faith that he is coming into, the one that we already occupy, is an active faith. It is not “go along to get along.” It is not “just be nice people.” The faith that he is coming into is defined by the food of the five questions of the Baptismal Covenant. These are the things that, if your DNA has been truly and irrevocably changed, you hunger to do. You simply cannot help but do.
- Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
- Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
- Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
- Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
- Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
These questions form the hunger/satiation process, the food for the body of Christ that is the foundation of the Christian story. When you do these things, they will know you are a Christian, by your love. When you do these things, they will know that you have eaten of the flesh and drunk of the blood of Jesus Christ.
And your motivation will be that you want more, that you hunger for more, of all of these things.
You will know you are doing this Christian thing right when all you want is more of these five things, the things of Jesus Christ, I promise you!
You can hold yourself accountable for an active, alive, vibrant Christian faith. These five questions ARE the bread that Jesus Christ gives us to feed upon, in this day, in this hour, in this moment, to nourish us, so that we can abide in him, and him in each one of us. Whoever eats of this kind of bread and drinks of this kind of blood, this sacrament, will discover the wellspring of eternal life!
Are you doing these things? Do you want to do more of these things?
Amen.
