Only a short message this week, as some people were needing to get off early to go to an event at a sister church.
“I am the
Bread of Life,” said Jesus. “Those who come to me will never be
hungry; those who believe in me will never be thirsty.”
But what, exactly, did he mean? His
followers were totally unsure: “But he can't be – don't be silly!
We know his Mum and Dad, he's not something that came down from
heaven!”
The thing is, we are used to these
words. We have heard them so often, and we associate them with the
Sacrament, where the minister says over the Bread: “This is my
Body, given for you”, and over the Cup: “This is my Blood, shed
for you”. We don't actually hear them any more.
Those who were listening would have had
no idea that he would take the Jewish Friday-night ritual and lift it
and transform it into something very different, yet essentially the
same. For them, when he said, “You must eat of my flesh and drink
of my blood,” what they thought was cannibalism.
And, of course, that was seriously
offensive to them, as it would be to us. Perhaps even more offensive
than it would be to us, since we have no taboo against eating blood.
But the Jews, like the Muslims, do have a terrific taboo against it,
believing that the “life is in the blood”. I'll come back to that
in a minute – and so to them it is probably not only unheard-of to
drink blood, but rather sick-making, too. Whereas other cultures –
the Masai, certainly, drink blood as a matter of routine. And even
we have our black puddings, although I think we'd blench at being
offered a nice warm glass of fresh blood.
And, of course, there are things that
we wouldn't normally think of as food that other cultures eat
routinely – think of the Chinese and their dogs and snakes, for
instance. Or even the French with their snails, which are actually
delicious if you like garlic butter! And I know that many West
Indians follow the example of the Jews and Muslims and eat no pork,
and probably feel rather sick at the thought, just as I expect Hindus
do about eating beef.
You may well know that Jack Rosenthal
play, “The Evacuees”, where the two Jewish children are presented
with “delicious sausages” for their supper and expected to eat
them. And although they've been told and told that as it is a
national emergency, they may eat food that is normally forbidden,
they simply can't bring themselves to try. The taboo against eating
pork runs so deep, for them, that they simply can't overcome it.
And Jesus' followers certainly felt
most uncomfortable at his words. To start with, they simply couldn't
understand what he was on about: “How can this man give us his
flesh to eat?” Visions, there, of Jesus cutting great chunks out
of his arms, I shouldn't wonder. Or of people cutting up a dead body
and preparing to eat it - in some cultures, that would be considered
quite normal, and the correct way of honouring the dead, but not for
the Jews, any more than for us.
St Paul, or
whoever wrote the epistle to the Ephesians, takes this concept –
although he was, of course, writing long before the Gospels had been
written down, but he would have been familiar with the teachings –
he takes this concept and runs with it. He gives us that list of
instructions as to how Christ's people are to behave, and summarises
it: “Since you are God's dear children, you must try to be like
him. Your life must be controlled by love, just as Christ loved us
and gave his life for us as a sweet-smelling offering and sacrifice
that pleases God.”
Jesus said that his flesh is the Bread
of Life, which he is giving so that the world may live. We think of
Holy Communion, but his first hearers couldn't think what he meant.
Jesus tells them that what God wants is for them to believe in the
one who was sent. But, as I said, they can't see that at all – how
can he possibly say that he came down from heaven when he is Joseph's
son, and they know his parents quite well.
It is, of course, one of the famous “I
am” sayings in John's Gospel. The thing is, of course, that it
wasn't just Jesus saying something about himself, because it echoes –
and his first hearers may well have heard those echoes – it echoes
the bit in Exodus, where Moses asks God his name when confronted with
him in the burning bush. And the answer is “I am”, or perhaps “I
am who I am”. And here, Jesus appears to be using the same
phraseology:
I am the bread of life
I am the living bread that came down
from heaven.
I am the light of the world
I am the gate for the sheep
I am the good shepherd
I am the resurrection and the life
I am the way, and the truth, and the
life
I am the true vine.
Jesus is claiming to be divine. All
very strange, because on another level I rather think Jesus was
trying to put things into words that won't really go, like so much of
Christianity doesn't quite go into words – even what happened when
he died on the Cross; even what happens when we make our Communions.
We all have a mental picture of it, which is certainly partly true –
but none of us will ever know the whole of it, as the more we know,
the more we know we don't know. And I think this Bread of Life
discourse is something a bit like that. And yet, it was a definite
claim to the divine. But how are we to come to him, to eat of his
flesh and drink of his blood? There is Holy Communion, of course –
but is there not more to it than that? Wesley would say that Holy
Communion, one of the means of grace, is only helpful insofar as it
brings us closer to God. It is not, in and of itself, something
magical!
Paul is more practical, of course. Tell the truth, don't steal,
help those in need, don't be angry in a destructive way, and don't
feed your anger. “Get rid of all bitterness, passion, and anger.
No more shouting or insults, no more hateful feelings of any sort.
Instead, be kind and tender-hearted to one another, and forgive one
another, as God has forgiven you through Christ.”
Hmmm, well,
I don't know about you, but I'm not good at most of those things!
But it isn't really a matter of outward behaviour, as I'm sure you
know. It really is much more about allowing God's Holy Spirit to
change us, to make us into the person he designed us to be. St Paul
reminds us that “the Spirit is God's mark of ownership on you, a
guarantee that the Day will come when God will set you free.” The
day will come when God will set us free. So we are not yet free from
the things that harm us, the things that bring us down. We are not
yet able to live wholly surrendered lives as God's person – and
yet, one day we will be.
Jesus said “I am the Bread of Life,
those who come to me will never be hungry; those who believe in me
will never be thirsty.” So let us come to him again, let us
recommit ourselves to him once more. Amen.
