'Jesus said, “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 crowd 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 your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”'
--John 6: 51-58
More bread, huh? Well…that’s just prime As I had into my final days as Interim Rector of St. James' Church in Skaneateles, this lameduck preacher is starting to run out of material but we can always count on Jesus to give us something, and in this third week of Gluten-tide, he shifts from talking about bread to talking about flesh. I saw maybe worst church meme ever this week, which was a picture of the resurrected Jesus that had the caption: the only zombie who lets you eat him. Just the worst. This is the material we’re left with, y’all.
To recap: Jesus fed 5000 folks in Tabgah three weeks ago, he left to go to the town of Capernaum where, two weeks ago, that same crowd tracked him down demanding more bread, but he told them that the real bread they wanted was the bread that came down from heaven, and last week folks began to turn on him, getting crankier and more confused as he rattled off all this jargon about bread from heaven. Once again, the final line in last week’s Gospel is the first one today: “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.”
It's worth pointing out that that line right there has been really problematic. Maybe it’s obvious to you, maybe it isn’t, but Jesus is alluding is to the Holy Eucharist, to the bread that we say is his body and the wine that we say is his blood. The community that produced the Gospel of John was steeped in the practice of the Eucharist, so for them this line made perfect sense: it was about full participation with Jesus, a sharing in his life and his love. But if you think this sounds a wee too much like cannibalism, you’re not alone. For what’s it’s worth, cannibalism is, in fact, forbidden by the Bible in the book of Leviticus, so many of those in that crowd that day who faithfully abided in the Judaic law, felt that Jesus had crossed a line, and as we’ll see next week, folks will abandon him because this teaching is just too hard. Remember that what the Gospels are saying and doing are reflective of what is going on in the real world for the communities from which they sprung, and for John’s community the whispers kept stirring – “those Christians eat flesh, have you heard this?” “I think they drink some guy’s blood. Disgusting!” It’s true that folks really did believe Christians were cannibals, that Jesus literally expected people to eat flesh and drink blood in order to be his followers. Literalism, man, it ain’t a good look.
Without spending this whole blog post rehashing one of my favorite Episcopal 101 classes, I want to mention how the institutional church finally got around this pesky cannibalism issue. Let’s be clear, the earliest followers of Jesus understood that he was present in the celebration of the Eucharist. Both Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr – that wasn’t his last name - said so less than 200 years after Jesus was gone. It wasn’t just in the hearts and minds of those gathered, no, he was really there in the meal; after all, he did say this is my body, this is my blood. So how is it possible? It wasn’t until shortly before the turn of the first millennium that the Church found an answer in an unlikely place: Aristotle. That's right, in order to understand the Eucharist, you have to understand Aristotelian thought! The Greek philosopher who lived some 400 years before Jesus, said that all matter is composed of two properties, accidents and substance, which communicate who and what they are. Accidents are things like a person’s, height, hair length, or whether or not they wear glasses. These tell others who you are, but they change. Substance, however, doesn’t change. It is the unseen thing residing in all matter. Aristotle called it a soul, the spirit within you that makes you who you are but never changes. Accidents change, substance doesn’t. The miracle of the Eucharist, then, is the flipping of the natural order. When we eat the bread and drink the wine the accidents – the outer texture, the taste – those remain the same, they stay bread and wine. But the substance of bread and wine – the soul of the bread and wine, if you will – is transformed into the substance, the soul, of Jesus. We call this transubstantiation, and I’m willing to bet many of y’all who’ve heard it thought it meant you were literally crunching on Jesus’ bones. It doesn’t. Rather, it means that you are feeding on the very soul of Jesus, mingling his life with yours, so that, as the bread and wine are transformed, you will be.
The guy who helped give birth to theology for a religion that wouldn't exist until he was dead for four centuries.
Transubstantiation provides the middle ground between taking Jesus literally or thinking that it’s all just metaphorical. I had a seminary classmate who got irate when folks spoke about meeting the living Christ in the bread and wine, and he would yell “It’s just a memorial!” He never ended up becoming a priest, by the way. If it’s all just done to remember something Jesus did, then how can that be a full sharing with Jesus? How can that transform our lives? We Anglicans, being the product of both the ancient teaching on the Eucharist and the reforms of the 16th century, usually resign ourselves to saying that we believe Jesus is in the meal, but as one of our Archbishops of Canterbury, Lancelot Andrewes, once said, “we are not so arrogant as to explain how.” Transubstantiation is not an official doctrine of Anglicanism, though many of us believe it. The how of Jesus’ presence with us in bread and wine made holy doesn’t matter as much as the fact that he is present, and to know that deep down is empowering.
You have heard me say that Sunday morning is the dress rehearsal for the rest of our lives. What we do in church is meant to not just give us a good feeling as we leave and head into a new week. It’s meant to transform us, to change us evermore into the likeness of Jesus. This is what he means when he says those who do not share in his flesh and blood have no life in them. It’s less of a condemnation of folks who don’t take Communion, and more of an acknowledgement that when we come to the Table of the Lord and we are given food and drink for our journey, we share in the loving, liberating, and life-giving essence of Jesus Christ, so that we can go and break bread with others, and in doing so, share in their life, their essence, their love. Mingle our hearts, minds, and spirits with theirs. That is how the world is transformed and turned upside-down, or rather, rightside-up.
St. Augustine of Hippo said that we eat the Body of Christ so that we may be the Body of Christ. St. John Crysostem said that in the Eucharist we unite our flesh with Jesus’, and in so doing unite ourselves to his presence and his love. As I asked folks on Sunday: I wonder what the saints of St. James’ would say? What is the altar, the holy Table and its Great Thanksgiving, to you? Is it the place where heaven and earth meet? You will meet Jesus there, but are you prepared to take him with you as you leave?
He said if we eat and drink of him we abide in him. Jesus always abides, just like the Dude from the Big Lebowski. Another, older way of saying it is we tabernacle with him, we live with and rest in him. Saint James' Church in Skaneateles is such a gift, a place where saints and sinners come to live and rest with Jesus! But as I told them, they must remember that the church of Christ isn’t the building, but it is them, the ones who will take Christ from the Table into a world that is so hungry to meet him. I can’t wait to see all the ways that they do.
Maybe from here you will teach someone the real meaning of transubstantiation. Or not. Wherever you go, whatever you do, be sure to get some food and drink for your journey.
