“Trying to Define the Indefinable” 

(John 6:51-58) 

 “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, 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, and I will raise them up on the last day, 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.  Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which the ancestors ate, and they died.  But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

            One thing that a preacher must not do is try to water down the powerful images and words and parables of Jesus in the Gospels.  We must not try to make them more comfortable for us or “less weird.”  This passage in John’s Gospel is an example of weird though, isn’t it?

            There are a lot of metaphors in the Gospels that will get us hung up if we allow it.  For example, Jesus uses the “I am” statements, and they are a hallmark of John’s Gospel.  Jesus says “I am the vine or I am the living water or I am the Way.”  We must resist the temptation to go to the logical, concrete thinking place, as in “How can a human being (or even a God) be an inanimate object like a road or a loaf of bread?  Or how can Jesus be a plant?”

            …And we must not soften the message as in, “Oh he didn’t really mean he’s an actual vine.  It’s not like you can go to the garden and see Jesus (though many would say they often meet him there “In the Garden!”)  We really are supposed to sit with these images for a while and see where they take us, see where God wants us to go.  If we explain away the power of these texts in a fashion that will make them more comfortable for us, we have already diluted their meaning. 

            Which brings us to today’s text.  This one is really hard to not water down.  This business of Jesus as the bread of life who insists that, in order to live, we must eat his flesh and drink his blood is a bit too graphic for some of us.  I, for one, want to go in and tidy it up just a bit.

            But, alas, I have continued to tell myself that the power is in meeting the text as it stands and letting it speak.  The reason I chose to preach on this text (even after I told somebody last week that I was done with the feeding and the Bread of Life stuff, hence I chose to preach on King David), the reason I picked up on this one was Jesus’ statement, “Unless you eat and drink of the Son of Man you have no life in you.”  This reminded me of how it is that sometimes we can be like the walking dead—seemingly alive, yet having no life within.  “Unless you eat and drink of the Son of Man you have no life in you.”

            …If you have ever felt like you have no life in you, like a walking dead person, you know that this is a very important scripture passage.  If your soul has ever been starved for nourishment, if you have ever been without hope, wondering what there is to live for, then it is worthwhile to see what Jesus has to offer us.  If your whole life has ever revolved around some artificial means of happiness and satisfaction, then this text gives us an opportunity to uncover the real thing, the real soul food.

            Jesus is offering the possibility of being alive in the fullest sense of the word.  He is presenting himself as a way to no longer be among the walking dead.  He is giving the 1^st century CPR for souls, a means of bringing our souls back to life.

            So, how do we do that, how do we become fully alive?  …Well, it’s a bit of a strange thing.  Jesus says, “I am the living bread, come down from heaven.  Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 

            Well, the religious leaders asked the question that any sensible person would ask, “How can this man give his flesh for us to eat?”

            How indeed?  Weird, right?  First, though, let’s just acknowledge that ancient people were much more comfortable with the bloody sacrifice motif than are we.  But it’s not just that.  People from other eras were quite clear about WHERE their food came from.

            Now, I know there are a number of you who are not meat eaters.  I find myself eating less and less all the time, but our ancestors survived primarily because they were able to hunt animals and eat the meat.

            They did the killing, the dressing and the preparing of this food–so they witnessed the death of the animal, and it was no small matter.  We know that folks from the distant past were so respectful of this process that after they did the killing, they thanked the animal for giving its life so that they could live another day.

            We, on the other hand, are so removed from this process that sometimes children don’t even know from what animal the meat they consume comes.  We don’t see the killing (for which I am grateful, I admit), there’s very little blood by the time we grab the plastic container in the supermarket.  We handle it and smell it as little as possible before it’s cooked so we kind of forget how our bodies are really sustained by this food.  There’s no chance to consider the animal who gave itself for our physical sustenance.

            So, perhaps Jesus’ words may make a bit more sense in this context.  He said, “You live because I give myself for you.”  This text, of course, is anticipating the crucifixion and all the meaning therein.  In our rituals we DO talk about how he gave himself so that we can live.  Out of death comes life.

            We know this to be true about our earth and about the growth cycle.  The old foliage dies down and creates the compost which produces the rich soil which can support our vegetables and fruit to grow.  Our trees fall down and commence to decompose so that the soil is always recreating.  From death comes life.

            But there’s an extra part to it in our text.  Jesus insists that we take his flesh and blood into ourselves.  That is how we can Live (with a capital L).  That is how our souls can be sustained.  Of course, this is the basis for the Lord’s Supper (our communion).  In the Gospel Last Supper scene Jesus says: Take and eat, this is my body, given for you.  Take….  Take and drink.  This is my blood, poured out for you.  Take….

            It requires an action on our part.  We cannot be passive in our desire to have Life.  We are not to be wimpy little fools waiting until someone gives us permission to have crumbs from the table.  We cannot wait for permission to live.  We are to grab life, to take….  To eat and to drink.

            …I and my brothers and sister loved going to our grandmother’s house, and we did it often.  Now, we knew that Grandma always had candy in her cupboard, and we knew she wanted us to have it.  Besides the fact that she loved candy, she bought it for her grandchildren to enjoy.  But we four grandchildren had strict orders from our mother that we were not permitted to go to the cupboard and get it, nor could we ask for it.  It had to be offered.

            This may have been alright for nice little girls and boys, but I’m saying to you that this is not good training for being at the Lord’s table.  There we are told to take and eat.   It’s clear that Jesus wants us to reach out for life in all its fullness.  Think of someone eating a juicy peach.  Most of us don’t care that it’s messy, going everywhere into stickiness.  We just love to eat sweet, juicy peaches.

            I wonder if we can translate today’s text into that sort of seeking life in all its fullness, the life eternal that Jesus promises.  It comes from going to God just as we are and taking into ourselves what God offers knowing it will nurture and sustain us as nothing else can.

            It is the bread and drink of our souls.  Now, folks, we’re not going to get involved in a debate about what food and what drink is holy and who may dispense it.  Those kinds of conversations are where our human foibles get going.  I am saying that Christ gave himself so that we may Live and that we can celebrate and observe and live that reality every time we pray, every time we break bread together, every time we connect with our God.  It is also a solemn reality that the cycle of life is such that it is through death that we have life.  One generation comes, moves through the life cycle and, then, moves on.  Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.  From death comes life. 

            But the life, the reality that God gives us, is eternal; it’s beyond anything that we can imagine here.  Jesus offers all that we can imagine and all that we cannot even imagine.  If we just sit in our own little, safe, limited worlds, eating only the crumbs off someone else’s plate, we will limp along, our souls will be dehydrated, longing for something else, but what?

            Jesus tells us—it’s the bread that comes down from heaven.

            Now, remember this text is a wonderful, metaphorical gift.  When we begin to try to make it into a program, to write a curriculum for it, to hire staff to process it, we will lose it.  It’s not God-in-a-can.  No, it’s the full meal deal for a searching and empty-hearted people.  It’s the gift of life, there for us to take.

            Yes, we offer communion on the first Sunday of each month, but you can indulge in God’s generosity anytime by connecting in prayer, by sitting down with others and sharing the bounty of God’s goodness, by sharing your story with another, by living as one who has Jesus in her or his life, by earnestly trying to stay close to the One who offers life in all its fullness.  Amen.