12th Sunday
after Pentecost, Yr. B, August 19, 2012
Proverbs 9:1-6; Psalm
34:9-14; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58
Sermon preached at St.
Stephen’s Episcopal Church
Last week, I went
to church at St. Patrick's Church in Brewer, ME. I've been there a number of times, always in the summer, and
usually when the priest there is on vacation ... like I am. This time the Associate Priest was presiding and
preaching at the service. He
started his sermon by saying that he had intended to make this sermon a two
parter. Beginning with last
Sunday's lessons and finishing with this Sunday's readings. But things hadn't worked out
exactly as he had planned, so he actually ended up condensing last week's sermon
and giving us a preview of this week.
He shared with us
two poems, and he talked about the way poetry often communicates a message that
is difficult to articulate in everyday language.
Poetry uses images and metaphors. He told us that the word metaphor comes from the Greek words
meaning "to carry" and "across". So a metaphor is something that "carries us
across". Metaphors help us
bridge the gap. They help us
express the inexpressible.
But that also
means that metaphors have to be pondered.
You can't take them at face value.
You can't take them literally.
Their meaning is hidden; it takes a little wisdom to understand them. When we hear Robert Burns say that
"my love is like a red, red rose"[1]. We know that love isn't actually a
rose, and love isn’t really red, at least not red that we can see with our
eyes. So what does Burns mean by
saying that love is a red, red rose?
Perhaps that love is beautiful like a rose. Maybe that love is deep like the redness of a rose. Maybe even that we experience moments
of perfection, or perfect completeness in love, like the perfection we see in a
rose blossom at its peak.
Something similar is going on in our gospel reading today.
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." This is poetry.
This language of flesh and blood, of bread and wine is metaphor. Early
Christians were accused of canabalism because of these words. If you say you're going to eat another
person's flesh and drink their blood that sure sounds like you’re feasting on
someone else’s body, if you take it all literally! But this is metaphorical language. We're supposed to ponder the meaning of what Jesus is
saying, to tease it out.
It's no wonder the Jews are disputing among themselves. They're trying to understand what Jesus
is talking about. They know he
can’t be saying what they’re hearing.
His words hold a deeper meaning, something not apparent on the
surface. So in typically Jewish
fashion, they argue over what the words might mean. For the first few centuries in the Christian church, we did
the same thing. It took the early
church fathers and mothers quite a long time to articulate what they thought he
might be saying.
Today I think it's
easy to take this language for granted, thinking we know what it means just
because a lot of us have heard it since we were young children. If you come to church on Sundays you
hear it every week when we say the prayers of consecration. You hear it every time you come
to the altar rail and receive the bread and wine. "The body of Christ,
the bread of heaven. The blood
of Christ, the cup of salvation." But how often do we stop to think about
that? To think about what Jesus
meant when he said “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.”
Do we really need to
eat his body and drink his blood?
Did he mean for us to actually take him literally? I don't think so. I think he meant that if we want to be
like him; if we want to know God in the way that he did; if we want to have the
capacity to funnel God's power through us and into the world like he did ... we
have to be willing to let God inside us.
We have to be willing to invite God into our flesh to work within us ... willingly, freely,
intentionally. We have to want to
embrace with our whole selves the life that Jesus exemplified and let it live
in our fleshy existence. We have
to eat it up! And when we do, with
Jesus we are taken into God. God
is incarnated in us.
It’s easy to keep
God at arm’s length, to spend time thinking about God, to keep God out there
somewhere safely away from us ... but Jesus’ whole life was about showing us
that God is right here IN the world.
Our God is an incarnate God, part and parcel of the created world … in
the stink of poverty, and the hollowness of hunger, in the ecstasy of
childbirth and the weight of loss, in the brutality of war and in the yearning
for peace. God is there in it all,
and strange as it may seem to us, God likes it that way!
If we want to
believe in a God who wouldn’t be caught dead with dirty hands or a runny nose …
then we’ve got to think again about calling ourselves Christian. In Jesus, God lived among us. In Jesus, God experienced humanity, the
good and the bad. God lived joy
and suffering. God came into our
world through the labor of birth.
God ate and drank with friends and strangers. God met a human end in the agony of betrayal and
crucifixion. It doesn’t get any
more fleshy than that. And now God has prepared a banquet for
us, and we are all invited to eat and drink at the table.
Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven
pillars.
2 She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her
wine,
she has also set her table.
3 She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls
from the
highest places in the town,
4‘You that are simple, turn in here!’
To those
without sense she says,
5 ‘Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have
mixed.
6 Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of
insight.’ (Proverbs 9:1-6)
No matter who we are … butcher, baker or candle stick maker
… or where we are … in Rochester, NY or Brewer, ME or London, England … if we
seek to know God and gain insight into God’s working in the world we are
welcome at God’s table. All of
us. Each and every one of us. No matter what. In that Eucharistic feast, the metaphor
is unwound. Those who eat my
flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. We are carried across
the thin space dividing us from God.
In the bread and the wine that we believe is filled with the presence of
Christ … we take God into our own flesh and blood, and live.
Amen.
By Robert Burns
O
my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's
newly sprung in June:
O
my Luve's like the melodie,
That's
sweetly play'd in tune.
As
fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So
deep in luve am I;
And
I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till
a' the seas gang dry.
And
the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While
the sands o' life shall run.
And
fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And
fare-thee-weel, a while!
And
I will come again, my Luve,
Tho'
'twere ten thousand mile!
No comments:
Post a Comment