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Devouring, Digesting, Assimilating, Indwelling

Corpus Christi : 22 June 2014  : John 6: 51-58

Have you noticed how often metaphors of eating and drinking run through our everyday conversation. George Beasley-Murray was on to it when he wrote, "we "devour" books, "drink in" a lecture, "swallow" a story; we may "ruminate" on an idea or poem, we "chew over" a matter, we "stomach" something said, or find ourselves unable to do so, and sometimes we have to eat our own words! I have heard fond Grandmothers declare they could "eat up" their grandchildren, whereas to bite off someone’s head conveys a different notion.

Yes, we love our food, and apart from the tastes that emotionally colour our day, we also draw these substances inside us, and in an amazing assimilation process, turn them into fuel to run our bodies. In fact what were animals, vegetables and fruits become a part of us, we incorporate them into our being.

Hold onto that thought as we turn our attention to today’s gospel reading. Jesus is in the middle of a dispute with some of his Jewish contemporaries. They have been talking about the manna that fell from heaven when the children of Israel made their way through the desert wilderness of Sinai. This you may recall was the bread like substance that couldn’t be stored, you had to eat it that day, but that didn’t matter because there was always a fresh supply providentially supplied by God every 24 hours. And of course it stopped falling the moment the Israelites entered the promised land.

The people on the other side of the dispute with Jesus assume that this was a sign of the specialness of the Jewish people, of their closeness to God. For them the manna wasn’t just a means of physical sustenance – it was also a way of symbolically taking into themselves the law delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai. The law amounted to more than the 10 commandments – it was a deal, a covenant, a relationship of promise and of mutual obligations that marked the Jewish people out as being particularly close to God. As they ate this unique food they linked themselves by association with this amazing transaction between heaven and earth.

So those in dispute with Jesus assume that this was as good as it got – there was no need to further develop the relationship between God’s special people and God – there wasn’t going to be a further revelation. And that of course is just the point at which Jesus makes his mazing counter claim. In my ministry, in my person, a quantum leap forward is taking place in the relationship between you and God. This is even more important than what took place on Mount Sinai, and even if you oppose this and reject the further revelation and me, God’s purposes will still prevail.

In fact Jesus anticipates a fatal collision between an entrenched current religious opinion and his mission of elevating humankind to new level of relationship with God. And just at this point of the destruction of his body by judicial murder will come a heightened means of human beings plugging into the life of God. His body and blood will become a metaphor for the communicating of his risen life to his followers. His friends in every time and place will be able to access the outcome of his ministry by taking part in a sacred meal that will have echoes and parallels with the meals he ate with his followers. The Last Supper becomes the Lord’s Supper,and Jesus not only hosts the meal, but also provides the main course in a very direct way.

Just a minute ago I said that those who partake of this sacred meal receive the risen life of Jesus. What do I mean by that? That in turn means asking what makes for human happiness, from where and what comes the ultimate pleasure, and satisfaction, and contentment, and fulfilment that human beings can experience?

Just before his saving death an extraordinary conversation takes place that is recorded in the 17th chapter of John’s gospel. Jesus speaks directly to the Father, and allows his followers to eavesdrop. They are listening in to a conversation between the persons of the Trinity. And the substance of this conversation is about the close abiding between between Father and Son, it is about their intimate style of relating to one another. This is relationship talk flowing out of the shimmering depths of being of the ultimate being who moves the stars, and makes the world go round, and who created the affective responses that we call happiness, pleasure, satisfaction, contentment, fulfilment. What will happen in the life of the world to come is that human beings who have become God’s friends will be permitted to share in an appropriate way in this source of intimate relating. They will become junior partners in this Triune relating. They will get close to the intimate relationship that redefines all intimate relationships.

And that is what Holy Communion, making our communion at the altar rails, gives us a first anticipation of. The food and the drink, the bread and the wine are taken into our bodies in a process of devouring, digesting, assimilating so that they become part of us, both our fuel for life, and an incorporated part of our physicality. This is a metaphor for the close abiding between Father, Son and Holy Spirit that we have thereby taken unto our selves. As they indwell one another, they also identify themselves with the bread and the wine placed on the Holy Table at the Eucharist. They then flow into it as the priest says the Great Thanksgiving Prayer over the bread and wine. These significant parts of the chain of human sustenance have become a medium of communication between heaven and earth.

The Jewish contemporaries of Jesus looked back on the heavenly manna as a way their ancestors directly took the law given on Mount Sinai into their physical beings, and incorporated it into themselves as closely as they could. Now in this new dispensation of Divine life something even more significant and amazing has taken place. I often say as I place the sacrament in your hands, "The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven." It is the bread of heaven for it communicates the contents of the life of heaven. It opens up an access point for us into the close and loving relationship between the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The great breakthrough that Jesus achieved in the relationship between God and humankind in his saving death, and by the Father raising him from the dead through the mighty operation of the Holy Spirit, is made available to us as we make our communion. What he achieved becomes a part of us in the most direct way possible for embodied beings.

Given all this we should hunger and thirst to get to the Eucharist as often as possible. We should feel as though we have missed our breakfast if we haven’t taken Communion on Sunday morning. We should regard this as the high point of the week.

Nor should we ever allow this to become a routine, or a humdrum thing we do as though we are half asleep, or just going through the motions. Fervent prayer and awakened devotion should accompany our approach to the communion rails. Heartfelt thanksgiving should follow our return to our pew after making our communion. And before the Service starts, we should ask God for the grace to discern the wonder of what is about to take place, and we should speak to God directly about our gratitude for the privilege of being allowed into his inner life through this transaction between heaven and earth.

I can’t say it better than one of this morning’s hymns: