John 6:56-59
August 23rd, 2009
"Thanksgiving—The Eucharist"
In last week’s message I spoke about how Jesus in these verses claimed to be God using a metaphor from the animal sacrificial system of his day.
Last week I said, “The metaphor Jesus was using of eating his flesh was “quite normal to anyone brought up in ancient sacrifice. The animal was seldom burned in its entirety. Usually only a token part was burned on the altar, although the entire animal was offered to the god. Part of the flesh was given to the priests as their ‘perk’, and part to the worshippers to make a feast for themselves and their friends within the temple precincts.”
“At that feast, the god himself was held to be a guest. More, once the flesh had been offered to the god, it was held that he had entered into it; and therefore when the worshipper ate it he was literally eating the god.
When people rose from such a feast they went out, as they believed, literally god-filled. We might think of it as idolatrous worship, we may think of it as a vast delusion; yet the fact remains that these people went out quite certain that in them there was now the dynamic vitality of their god. To people used to that kind of experience, a section like this presented no difficulties at all.” Barclay p. 258 John Vol. 1
So in other words those listening to Jesus caught on rather rapidly that he was claiming to be none other than a God and in fact when you take the words of verse 57 into account Jesus is making it rather explicit.
Jesus said, “Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father so whoever eats me will live because of me.” In this verse note that Jesus drops the use of the words “flesh and blood” and instead directly refers to himself by using the word “me”.
Here in these verses Jesus is claiming to be God!! It wasn’t just the offense of saying you have to “eat my flesh and blood” that turned many of his audience off; it was by doing so he was claiming Godhood.
Now this infuriated the crowds, the Jews and many of his disciples on two levels. First, they weren’t looking for God. They were looking for a messiah, a man, a human being, who would grant them universal health care, (keep up the healings), feed and provide for the poverty of the nation (drag us out of this economic mess) and kick out the occupying Romans (provide national security).
Jesus’ listeners did get it and as it says in verse 61 “his disciples were complaining about it, so he said to them, “Does this offend you?”
Jesus goes on to say by dropping all the images of the metaphor of drinking his blood and eating his body, “Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
Now the sentence where Jesus says, “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless” seems totally out of place unless you realize that Jesus was speaking metaphorically within the thought system of animal sacrifice.
It would seem that he was contradicting himself by saying first you must eat my flesh and here that the flesh is useless, unless you realize he is speaking metaphorically and what he is speaking about is his spirit being within us.
By doing this Jesus is stating explicitly who he is. He is the Word of God who has descended from heaven and will ascend back to heaven. Jesus is emphasizing that it is not his physical flesh he is talking about entering us, it is his Spirit. That is what he means by the phrase “the flesh is useless.” Jesus is saying it is his Spirit that will bring us life.
Now at this point many of his disciples “withdrew” or “turned back”. The “crowds” had already turned aside because they realized he was not going to provide them primarily with healings, food and political muscle. He wasn’t going to be their king.
Jesus went in their minds from healer, provider and king to dangerous, unhelpful, nutcase!!!!!!
How could this carpenter claim to be God???? This was the second and deeper level of offense.
So the people’s response ran the gamut of responses we see to Jesus to this very day.
In verse 61 they “grumbled and complained.” How many have lost their faith by grumbling and complaining rather than praising and thanking God?
In verse 64 Jesus was met with “disbelief” and knew who would “betray” him. Today Jesus is met with disbelief and even those who believe at times betray him in word and deed.
In verse 66 many “rejected” Jesus. They withdrew or turned away from him. It is not that they misunderstood him. They realized he was claiming to be more than a good man, a messiah. He was claiming to be God, the source of life now and in the future and they rejected this.
But finally, Jesus was met with faith in verse 68 with Peter’s confession, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Now did Peter understand in fullness what it was going to mean to still keep following Jesus? No!!!! but the 12 still determined to follow Jesus and for doing so they were granted a mission and purpose in life.
They were granted spirit and life along with suffering and for 11 of them eternal life in the end.
They did this by continuing to practice the presence of God. They stayed in Jesus presence and this granted them life.
My heart breaks for those who like the crowds and many of Jesus disciples we see in this scripture today who through disbelief, complaint, rejection or betrayal abandon the presence of Jesus.
In our day and age there is such pressure to abandon the practice of our faith and to abandon practicing the presence of God. I have spoken to you about the realities of our age where worship attendance in all churches and denominations across our land has been declining.
As I thought the other day, our age is a deeply spiritual age but not a very faithful age, faith being defined as “loyalty.” We usually think of faith as believing in things we can’t see or prove but here I define “faith” as “loyalty” like being “faithful to your spouse.”
We today as a society lack faithfulness to Jesus and his church. This is something we all need to examine in our hearts and overcome.
And to do this I believe we need to practice the presence of God through Jesus in our daily lives to overcome this generation’s lack of faithfulness.
Part of what the gospel writer John was doing in these verses was “expanding the experience of Holy Communion to every meal. In every meal we can experience the presence of Jesus Christ in Thanksgiving; in the breaking of bread and drinking of wine.” Barclay John 6:56-58
‘John has no account of the Last Supper in his gospel, though; he uses the wording of the Great Thanksgiving so…. In John’s thinking and writing every meal has become a sacrament.’ Ibid
In John the closest to the Last Supper or Holy Communion is the feeding of the 5000 of which this chapter in John began.
Now I want to introduce you to a theological word for Holy Communion it is the word “Eucharist”. It is not used much in our tradition as Methodists but is common in other Christian traditions. “Eucharist” means “Thanksgiving”. Originally Holy Communion was called “The Eucharist”. It was a sacrament of thanksgiving for the life that God gave us through Jesus Christ.
It was not only a reference to the words of Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed taking bread, breaking the bread and giving thanks to God like faithful Jews did before every meal. The totality of the sacrament was a thanksgiving to God for the gift of our salvation and life through Jesus.
Our Eucharistic prayer, our Great Thanksgiving, or words of institution are spoken by an ordained elder or pastor. They celebrate the presence of Jesus Christ at his table in the midst of a worship service, but we can in the same manner practice the presence of Christ in any meal we participate in and in that way grow in our faith and ability to avoid grumbling and complaining, disbelief, rejection and betrayal of Christ. All actions we see in today’s scripture.
Every meal can begin with thanksgiving and practicing the presence of Christ and through this we can be blessed with life.
Thanksgiving must truly be a part of our lives. I came across an old Afghani folktale on the DPS site shared by a Pastor Roberta.
THE KING'S LOAVES
Once there were two beggars who went daily to the palace to beg at the king's gate. Every day the king gave each of them a loaf of bread. One of the beggars would always thank the king for his generosity. But the other thanked God for giving the king sufficient wealth to give charity.
The second beggar's words always hurt the king. So the king decided to teach him a lesson. The king ordered his baker to bake two identical loaves, but in one he had him conceal precious jewels. Then he instructed the baker to give the loaf with the hidden jewels to the beggar who always thanked the king for his charity.
The next day the baker went to the king's gate and handed the two loaves to the beggars. He took great care not to confuse the two, for he feared the king's wrath if he should make a mistake.
When the beggar with the special loaf felt how heavy and hard it was, he concluded that it was poorly made and asked the other beggar to exchange loaves with him. The second beggar, always eager to help a friend, agreed. Then they went their separate ways.
When the second man bit into the loaf, he discovered that it was filled with jewels. He thanked God for his good fortune, grateful that he would no longer have to beg for his bread.
The next morning, the king was surprised to find only the first beggar at the palace gate. He had the baker brought before him and asked him, "Did you mix up the two loaves I had you bake?"
"No, your majesty," answered the baker. "I did exactly as you commanded."
Then the king turned to the beggar and asked, "What did you do with the loaf you received yesterday?"
The man replied, "It was hard and poorly baked, so I gave it to my friend in exchange for his."
The Afghani moral is (Then the king understood that all his riches had indeed come from God, and that only the Holy One can make a poor man rich and a rich man poor. Not even a king can change the will of heaven.) Well as a Christian I would take this folk tale as pointing more to the importance of Thanksgiving to God.
Do we begin our meals with thanksgiving to God or do we jump right in and praise the microwave? I know that as a child when I would start eating before grace my dad would say, “Even dogs bark at it before they eat.”
A joke is told about “a little old lady who would come out every morning on the steps of her front porch, raise her arms to the sky and shout, “Praise the Lord!” which was her version of “thank you God!”
Well, one day and atheist moved in next door. Over time, he became irritated at the little old lady. So every morning he would step out onto his front porch and yell after her, “There is no Lord!”
Time passed with the two of them carrying on this way every day. Then one morning in the middle of winter, the little old lady stepped onto her front porch and shouted, “Praise the Lord! Lord, I have no food and I am starving. Please provide for me, oh Lord!”
The next morning, she stepped onto her porch and there were two huge bags of groceries sitting there. “Praise the Lord!” she cried out. “He has provided groceries for me!”
The atheist jumped out of the hedges and shouted, “There is no Lord. I bought those groceries!”
The little old lady threw her arms into the air again and shouted, “Praise the Lord! He has provided me groceries and He made the devil pay for them!”
Do we grumble and complain and entertain and encourage disbelief and draw away from Jesus or do we in all circumstances give Him thanks? Do we in the circumstances of our ordinary meals turn them into times of Holy Communion, Thanksgiving, the Eucharist?
Christ promises us that he is present with us in the breaking of the bread. When we give thanks before meals it witnesses to our hearts as we give thanks and practice the presence of Christ and it witnesses to those around us.
I close with this story. It is a true story that I have told before but the point it makes is sure and true. Today I am encouraging you to practice one of the oldest spiritual disciplines, means of grace, ways of practicing the presence of God and that is saying grace or thanksgiving before meals.
Thanksgiving turns every meal into the Sacrament, the Eucharist, into the presence of Christ with you as you give thanks. The living presence of Christ will be with you.
My first trip with youth was to New Orleans to the French Quarter. They wanted to eat in a 5 star restaurant. New Orleans is renowned for their food.
We went to this elegant restaurant with the linen table clothes and napkins along with not one but three servers for only 10 of us at one table.
Right before we began to eat, much to the embarrassment of some of the kids we all held hands, bowed our heads and prayed.
The head waiter was so impressed by that that at the end of the meal right before we were getting ready to leave; he offered the restaurant’s signature dessert to us for free—“Mile High Pie.” It was about one foot tall and served folded over on a dinner plate.
This man said he had worked at that restaurant for years, a 5 star restaurant and we were the only group he had ever seen that had said thanks to God before we ate.
Our simple prayer witnessed to those around us the presence of Christ there in that place.
This may be a profoundly deep scripture, but it has a simple message and a simply action to follow and that is to pray before every meal, return thanks to God and celebrate and enjoy the presence of Christ with you in the breaking of the bread.
May all of you as you leave this place to eat in restaurants, dining rooms, at home tables, with many others or all alone by yourself; may you practice the presence of Jesus as you give thanks in the breaking of your bread.
For as you give thanks you are never alone you are in the very presence of God!
In Jesus name Amen.
