In the lead-up to this morning’s Scripture lesson, the Gospel of John records Jesus likening himself to bread and telling people to eat his flesh and drink his blood.
The Lord’s graphic language is turning some people off. Anything that smacks of cannibalism tends to do that. We’ll shortly learn that some of the Lord’s followers are indeed turning away and deciding to follow him no more. The Lord’s words have scared them off. They’re heading for the hills over the Lord’s grisly command to consume his flesh and blood.
With all your senses, now, take in all that just is the Word of the Lord:
“Does my teaching offend you?” Jesus asks. “Do you want to want to run away?” Apparently some folks do. Which is a shame.
Jesus isn’t being literal here. His actual flesh and blood aren’t what’s for dinner. Yet Jesus does – in a spiritual sense – want his followers to take in and consume all of him. He wants the people whose faith and trust are in him to consume the entire essence of his nature and being – the whole of who he is, the whole of what he teaches, the whole of how he behaves.
Jesus is the whole nature and being of God made human flesh. You and I are made in the image of God, and Jesus comes to turn that image of God into human reality by filling our hearts and minds with his heavenly reality. The real running-away that Jesus wants to see is our fleeing from sin and brokenness, and the bread of life that Jesus offers is the fuel for that marathon run.
Our journey of faith and belief, repentance and transformation, is a marathon, because it’s a race that’s long, hard, and oftentimes uphill, and the power of evil is the headwind that makes the going all that much more difficult.
Think about what taking in all of Jesus means for your life and how hard taking in all of Jesus really is! Jesus loved without condition, and so taking in all of Jesus means that you learn to love without condition. Jesus offered hospitality and welcome to strangers and foreigners, and so taking in all of Jesus means that you offer hospitality and welcome to strangers and foreigners.
Jesus paid particular attention to and showed special affection for people that the rest of the world shunned and ignored – sinners and outcasts of all stripes: Tax collectors and prostitutes, the lame and the infirm, and so taking in all of Jesus means that you pay particular attention and show special affection to those people too.
Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, taught the ignorant, and befriended the friendless, and so taking in all of Jesus means that your priorities lie – above all else – in healing the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, teaching the ignorant, and befriending the friendless.
Jesus loved his enemies and offered them forgiveness, and so taking in all of Jesus means that you, too, must love your enemies and forgive them.
Jesus has good reason when he teaches us to pray: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. No wonder some of the Lord’s disciples are up in arms: “This teaching is difficult,” they complain. “Who can accept it?” Apparently not everyone.
We’ve all been hurt, wronged, treated unfairly, or even abused, and our instinctive response is to seek revenge and strike back at the offenders as hard or harder than they’ve struck us. But taking in all of Jesus, as he commands, means that you and I become people who forgive. Taking in all of Jesus, as he commands, means that we don’t stay stuck in the muck of anger, bitterness, and resentment but instead let forgiveness free us by letting go and moving forward.
Forgiveness is not about what an offender deserves. None of us deserves to be forgiven, yet God forgives us in spite of ourselves and calls us to do likewise. Taking in all of Jesus means that we are taking in all of the Lord’s grace and mercy, which is a blessing that we’re not supposed to keep for ourselves.
Choosing to forgive does not mean that you condone what the offender did. No, just the opposite. You acknowledge the hurt, the wrong, the injustice, the abuse, and still choose to forgive. That’s what makes taking in all of Jesus so powerful and life-changing. Forgiveness is the first step toward reconciliation – creating the possibility for damaged and destroyed bridges between friends, family and neighbors to be repaired and rebuilt.
Forgiveness tills and fertilizes the ground then plants the seeds for relationships to thrive and grow once again – no matter if those relationships are between you and your neighbors or between you and God.
Whenever we come to the Lord’s Table to eat of his bread and drink from his cup, the meal that we share is infused with the savory taste of forgiveness and reconciliation. Through Jesus, our sins are forgiven, and we are reconciled with God. And we break bread with sisters and brothers whom we have forgiven and who have forgiven us. Coming together at the Lord’s Table is an act of reconciliation that proclaims our oneness as the Body of Christ – forgiven, loved and freed to be the earthly community that the Lord seeks to create and to be a preview of the heavenly community that awaits those whom the Lord has claimed as his own.
Or at least that’s what the Lord’s Table is supposed to be all about.
“Does my teaching offend you?” Jesus asks. “Do you want to want to run away?” Apparently some folks do. Which is a shame.
Here’s what a celebration of complete communion with God and with one another looks like. It comes from the closing scene in the movie “Places in the Heart.”
Set in the 1930s, the movie portrays Edna Spalding, a white woman who is suddenly widowed in the film’s opening scene when a drunk black boy named Wylie accidentally shoots and kills Edna’s husband, the town sheriff. The white townsfolk waste no time in lynching Wylie, while Edna is left with a load of debt thick enough to choke a horse – not to mention the burden of having to raise two very young children by herself.
Eventually, Edna meets Moze, a black migrant farmer who knows how to grow cotton. Edna hires Moze to work the land of her farm, and together they make enough money to prevent foreclosure at the hands of the heartless local banker.
But the white townsfolk aren’t happy to have Moze among them, so, dressed up in their Ku Klux Klan outfits, they come to Edna’s farm one night, beat Moze up, and force him to flee. As Edna watches Moze leave – and hanging heavy in the air is the question of whether she could be successful again next season without Moze’s help, it looks like the movie is over. But then there is one last scene – in church.
It’s Sunday morning, and the pastor delivers a sermon on 1 Corinthians 13, and then they celebrate communion. That’s when the film becomes deeply faithful and incredible spiritual.
First you notice that the church — that had been, at best, half full in earlier shots of the congregation — is now standing room only. And to the viewers’ surprise, we see the bread and wine being taken by a woman who had been killed by a tornado earlier in the film. The town prostitute is there, too, sitting next to the banker who had been so unfeeling in the face of Edna’s foreclosure.
Then we see plain-clothes Klan members taking the Lord’s Supper and, what’s more, they pass the trays of bread and wine to no less than the black man, Moze, who is suddenly sitting there in church with Edna and her family.
Finally, Edna takes the bread and wine and passes it to … her husband, who is suddenly sitting next to her again, and, next to him, Wylie, the young boy who had killed him and who himself had been killed as a result. As the sheriff and Wylie eat the bread and drink the wine, they look at each other and speak the unthinkable.
The peace of God. That’s what coming to the Lord’s Table is all about: The peace of God. The grace and peace of God in Jesus Christ.
The Lord’s Table is a feast that celebrates the grace and peace of forgiveness, a banquet that rejoices in grace and peace of reconciliation, a spread that revels in grace and peace of restored community. Yes, but … . Like those folks in the crowd listening to Jesus that day, you say “yes, but this teaching is difficult. Who can accept it?”
That’s not always the way our celebrations of the Lord’s Supper go. Our hearts, our relationships, aren’t always at peace, and oftentimes it seems like we only offer one another scraps of grace and crumbs of peace. That is our human reality. Forgiveness is hard; reconciliation is even harder.
But be of good cheer. Gathering at the Lord’s Table provides us with a mystical, mysterious and moving glimpse of the “eternal life” that Jesus talks about. When God’s people share in the Lord’s Supper, they begin to experience something of the eternal life that Jesus promises to those who somehow eat his flesh and drink his blood.
The meal is a foretaste of what eternal life will be like, when we all are totally and completely and finally reconciled with one another and with God. This sacrament – this preview of the heavenly banquet – really is that amazing – every time – if only we have the spiritual eyes to see it. John describes it like this in the book of Revelation:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”
And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.
And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.
The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day – and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. Nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life. (Revelation 21, selected verses)
“Does my teaching offend you?” Jesus asks. “Do you want to want to run away?” Apparently some folks do. Which is a shame. For the Lord has set for them places at his table – forever places in his heart.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message on World Communion Sunday, October 6, 2024, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Scott Hoezee, Gail R. O’Day, and Gerard Sloyan inform the message. The Scripture video is from the movie The Gospel of John.