John 6:51-58
“You Are What You Eat”
Preached August 18, 2024
How many of you are familiar with the sugary fruit snack Gushers? As a kid I wasn’t allowed to eat these and because I was six years old and had the reasoning ability to match, I thought it was because of the commercials. The Gusher commercials always showed cool looking kids eating Gushers...and then their heads changing into the fruit of whatever flavor Gusher they were eating. As a young kid I thought...does that really happen? Would my head turn colors when I eat Gushers? Is THAT why my parents won’t let me eat them? It only took a few more years, and a disappointing first Gushers experience at a friend’s house, to realize that no, Gushers wouldn’t turn my head fun colors or fruit shapes. My parents probably didn’t want me eating them because of the 10 grams of sugar and food coloring in every package - and they were a little pricey.
But as a young child, these commercials made my brain take the idea of, “You are what you eat” quite seriously. Did any of you ever hear this phrase going up? Show of hands? Yeah? As a kid I thought it was a stupid reason not to eat Gushers and an even lamer reason to have to eat those three green beans on my plate before I was allowed to leave the table. “You are what you eat” my parents would tell me as I pushed my vegetables around my plate with a fork... But as I have gotten older, and have been working on re-learning the skill of listening to my body, I have been thinking more about the term, “You are what you eat” - in terms of what foods give me the most energy, are good for my body, or even bring me joy, sugar count taken into consideration or not.
So today I’d like us to take into serious consideration the phrase, “You are what you eat” in relation to the Eucharist, the meal of bread and juice that we share together on Sundays at our altar table. What does it mean to eat this bread, to eat the body of Christ? What does it mean to share this cup, to drink the blood of Christ? And what effect does it have on us, those who consume it, those who become what we eat?
As we begin to examine this question, let’s start by looking at the Scripture. Remember, this is now at the third Sunday we’ve heard Jesus talk about bread - I preached on bread twice, we had a guest preacher, and now we’re back to bread again. This is part of a multi-week Bread of Life discourse in the Revised Common Lectionary. It all started with Jesus feeding the crowds, multiplying loaves of bread and fish to feed the 5,000. And from there the crowds followed him, wanting more bread. Jesus told them to look not for food that perishes but food that endures for eternal life. They talked about manna, the bread that God sent from heaven to feed the Israelites in the desert, and Jesus claimed that he is the bread of life and those who come to him will never be hungry or thirsty. But this wasn’t necessarily an easy concept to grasp so the conversation continued. There were those who asked how Jesus, a normal man, could claim these things about himself? Once again, Jesus answers, “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.” And the response to this statement from the detractors, from those questioning Jesus was, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Now, I want us to pause a moment and realize that this question makes PERFECT sense to ask. Some of us may be going, “Um..like, duh! The body and blood of Christ, the Lord’s Supper? How could these guys not get it?” But remember, to Jesus’s listeners, that event hadn’t happened yet. Now John, the writer of this Gospel, wrote this after Jesus’s death and resurrection and this story is, in many ways, John’s reflections on the last supper...but his listeners would have had no clue what he was talking about. They did not have the reference of Holy Communion to interpret Jesus’s words through. When we hear scriptures like this one, when we hear Jesus talking about bread and flesh, about drinking blood, we have 2,000 years of understanding of the Eucharist to help us understand it. His listeners would not have had that. And so while we hear these words through the lens of this table, of breaking bread and sharing the cup, as a kind of metaphor, as imagery, as a symbol that is more than a mere symbol...Jesus’s listeners would have heard his words much more literally.
The question, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” would have been filled with disgust, dismay - perhaps even outrage. Giving us his FLESH to eat? This man is talking about cannibalism! And Jesus here, he doesn’t respond, “No, no, guys - it’s okay, it’s really just bread!” Nah, Jesus is committed to the imagery and, I think, he kind of liked that people were freaking out. Jesus knew how to stir the pot and wanted to see people’s reactions to his words. So he says, “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.” I imagine that the looks on the crowd’s faces were just pure disgust. Because by saying this, Jesus upped the ante in two ways.
First, he is now also talking about drinking blood, an idea that, being repulsive by itself, is against Jewish Law. Leviticus 17:10-11 reads, “If anyone of the house of Israel or of the aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood, and will cut that person off from the people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement.” So first, ew. Second, big no-no according to God.
But Jesus also adds another level that may have freaked out his listeners, but to us who read this passage in English, we miss it. So the first time Jesus says to eat his flesh, the word used for eat is a basic, common word - basically just “eat.” But the second time Jesus says “eat the flesh of the Son of Man,” the word he is using for “eat” is different. It’s basically an onomatopoeia, a word that conveys a sound. A better equivalent might be ‘munch’ or ‘gnaw.’ It’s a noisy kind of eating, it conveys desperation, attacking one’s food like an animal might. Can you imagine how this would have sounded? “Unless you gnaw the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”
Now, why would Jesus phrase it this way? I mean, other than to elicit looks of surprise or dismay from his listeners? Now, we know from the Leviticus quote that blood is related to atonement, it’s related to life - it’s necessary for life. And to gnaw food, to eat ravishingly, like a hungry animal - there’s a basic need being met here. A hungry animal eats because, well, it’s hungry! It gnaws on flesh because its life depends on it. And isn’t that what Jesus said? That if you don’t eat his flesh and drink his blood, you won’t have life in you? But for those “who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life!” We are to eat Jesus’s flesh as if our life depends on it - because it does!
And I want to pause here to draw attention to the disconnect. There is definitely something missing from this frenzied, life-dependent eating...and the practice we share together, where we come forward, receive a piece of bread, and dip it in the cup. The first is the image Jesus is painting for us, the second is our polite and reserved Communion practice. But I want to ask if there is a disconnect not between our table manners and animals eating...but in our hearts and what Jesus says as we approach the table? Do we approach this table, do we hunger for the bread and the cup, Jesus’s flesh and blood, as if our lives depended on it? Or is it simply a “nice” practice, that which we wouldn’t miss if we were unable to get to church the once a month or so that we actually practice it? Is it something that we long for? Or is it something that we do and hope it doesn’t make the service go fifteen minutes longer...Is there a disconnect in your heart between the life-dependent hunger that Jesus describes and what you feel as you approach the Lord’s Table?
And there might be a disconnect. I think, in some ways, the Church has failed to keep this meal central to our Christian practice, that which Jesus commanded us to do in remembrance of him, that which Jesus said is necessary for life! We’ve failed to keep it central, to teach of its importance, even to talk about the need and hunger we have for it. Instead we’ve relegated it to once a month or special occasions, or a mere symbol when it is so much more. So I want to talk about the need now, the need for this life-giving meal.
The need is simple. The need is Jesus, the divine Savior who we all need. Jesus says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” What does it mean for us to abide in Jesus and for him to abide in us? I think abide is pretty churchy language, we hear this word in Scripture but don’t really use it in our lives. So I want to share not a definition of abide, but what it means for me to abide in Christ and for Christ to abide in me.
For me to abide in Jesus...that’s the comfort and strength that I rely on every day for my journey. For me to abide in Christ, I imagine it like Christ is holding me. When I cry, Christ wipes away my tears. When I’m angry, Christ brings me peace or channels my anger for justice. When I’m tired or weak or feel I can’t continue, Jesus carries me forward, pushes me, strengthens me, offers me rest, never leaves me. Whenever I am at a point in my life where I feel I can’t do it alone, I just have to remember Jesus and he’s RIGHT there. I just have to turn to him. To abide in Christ is to know that you are never alone, you are never forgotten, you are never not loved.
And for Christ to abide in me...well, that’s necessary for me to do this job without losing my sanity! But really, all jokes aside. For Christ to abide in me is necessary for all of us as human beings and Christians. For Christ to abide in me...that means that all those traits Jesus has: Love, mercy, forgiveness, justice, humility, goodness - are given to me. For Christ to abide in me, it means that I can reflect those traits to others. Because Christ is at work within me, I can forgive instead of seeking retribution. I can seek justice in an unjust world. I can love when it would be all too easy to hate. Because I abide in Christ and Christ abides in me, I can foster and develop traits to make me more like Jesus. Now, not saying I’m there - I am a long way off, but I can seek what God seeks, I can set my heart to what God loves, I can continually work on becoming more Christ-like.
Because isn’t that the goal? Not just for me but for all who call themselves followers of Jesus? To BE the body, the flesh, and blood of Jesus Christ to our world? We are the only body Christ has in this world! WE are to be Christ to others, to love, to seek justice, mercy, humility. We are the hands and feet, the body, the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.
And it’s not easy work to be followers of Christ, to seek to be Christ to a hurting world. It’s hard. We often forget. We lapse. We mess up. And that is why we NEED this meal. We need the flesh and blood of Jesus. We need the constant reminder of who and whose we are! We are Followers of Christ! We belong to God. We NEED God, we have a deep seated hunger in our souls for all that our Savior, our God is. And as we take Communion, time after time, Sunday after Sunday, we are reminded of the sacrifice Christ made for us. We are reminded of the call that God has for our lives, that we are to live according to Christ’s self-sacrificial love for the whole world. Now, it’s not like everytime we take this bread and dip it in the cup we are automatically and magically renewed, made more holy, more right with God...but it certainly helps. It’s a physical, tangible reminder that God is still with us, present in the bread, present in the cup, present, abiding, in our bodies and hearts. And the more often we do it, the more we are used to recognizing the hunger inside of us and coming to the table, turning to God instead of other worldly things, to fill that hunger, the more we come to realize our dependency on abiding in and with our God.
Do you feel that hunger inside of you this morning? Do you long to be with Christ, to feast at his heavenly table? To eat his flesh and drink his blood? For him to abide in you and you in him? Do you accept the promises that Christ offers us in this meal? That we who eat and we who drink will have eternal life? This is what it means to eat and drink at the altar table. To satisfy a hunger that only Christ can subside, to live in this life with the abiding power and presence of Christ Jesus, and to claim the promise of salvation and life eternal with our Triune God.
If you are what you eat, then I want, I need, I hunger, for the body and blood of Christ. Will you join us in the feast?
Amen.
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