The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 15 (B)

August 20, 2000

A Sermon by the Rev. Joe Parrish

The Gospel: John 6:53-58

Jesus 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. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever." He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

Dear Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread. Amen.

Years ago I was on what might be called the 'fringe' of catholic Christianity, enjoying hearing Presbyterian sermons but feeling something was missing. I "chanced" to go to a Roman Catholic Church one Sunday evening and found in its Eucharist something that seemed to fill my soul like nothing else. The sermons or homilies were dreadful, the celebrations of the Mass were monotonal and about as boring as could be, but the partaking of the Holy Meal was just 'out of this world' for me. I continued going to the weekly Catholic masses as well as the Presbyterian Sunday services until one day I happened across an Episcopal Church as I went from the Presbyterian Church to the Roman Catholic Church. It was Sunday at about noontime, and advertised on the Episcopal billboard was "Bach Cantatas Sundays at Noon." I greatly enjoyed the music of Bach, the stringed quartets and so on, and in time I tried out their morning services. They were full of pageantry, with great flowing copes, and sonorous chants. It was quite a show. And in time I found myself going regularly to its services and skipping the Masses and Presbyterian preaching services. It was an 'organic' thing, something I could not have planned. Once I had attended an Episcopal Church as part of the Kiwanis high school group called the Key Club. I had been thoroughly chastised by one of the Episcopalian Key Clubbers at the end of the service because I did not kneel as I was supposed to do. That was just not the done thing in the Southern Baptist churches I had been attending since birth. And I thought, "Boy, this is the last time I go to one of these churches."

Well, now as an Episcopal Rector I have some understanding of where people are coming from when they walk through the doors of this church. It is all a bit mystifying and strange if one were not brought up as a cradle Episcopalian. And even if one were brought up as a cradle Episcopalian, one usually dropped out at around age fourteen or fifteen, or at least by eighteen. So coming back to the church that one time only celebrated the Eucharist once a month is quite a different place from how we 'do it' now, with every Sunday Eucharists and all.

The Sunday Holy Meal is something that is not found in most mainline denominations except on maybe the first Sunday of each month. My home Baptist church has the Lord's Supper only quarterly, and only at the regular Sunday evening service. In place of Eucharist we had Sunday night fellowship hours for young people, and we felt quite at home with that program. It was only when I left that church to go away to college that I found that my local experience was not at all like what I experienced at churches even in the same denomination. The close fellowship of others with whom I had grown up and with whom I had gone to grammar and high school was missing. And it just felt quite empty to me personally, enough so that I could no longer feel at home there. Only after much searching was I able to find my way back to Christ's Church, and to the comfort and healing I had experienced as a child. Growing up is a spiritual thing as well as a physical thing. Without a roadmap about what is happening, one finds one's way a bit torturous and even difficult. Rediscovering one's childhood faith is probably never possible, but the feeling of faith one may have had as a child is something that may be very foundational for many of us. And if one had no childhood memories of faith, one needs to find a way to find acceptance in a Christian community some how, some way. I am not at all surprised when first time guests here never come back to our church, because I can remember the feeling I had years ago in my exploration of churches and church life. It is not so easy to find a church home. Of course we here at St. John's try to make everyone feel at ease, but it is a Holy Spirit thing I believe. We can do our best, but it is what is very personal that determines the outcome.

We're trying hard to remove the barriers we see, but we are often blinded by our familiarity. We all know where the bathrooms are, and of course we keep that a secret. I have not seen a bathroom sign inside any church sanctuary I have attended, so that is one unfriendly thing we all have in common. (What an odd thing to have in common!) And by the way, the door towards the bathrooms is beside the organ here in the front--I hope everyone doesn't get up all at once now, but at least I have given you a clue. There are some large signs to the restrooms in the Parish Hall--it only took us seven years to put them up! And the Children's Sunday School is near the bathrooms. We laugh at our failings, but we are still nearly incapacitated in remediating them. We are trying out some new lights in church now. Maybe you can read your bulletins better in the back and in the very front. Still the people in the middle have to bring flashlights--that is one thing required at St. John's in case you wondered! But we are making progress slowly.

So the experience of the presence of Christ is often what we somehow hide. We do something quite personal at the Peace and the Eucharist--we have only about twenty years experience in them so we are not yet experts. But as I said, we are trying. We hope you come back, and give us a second chance. If we mess up again, well, we will understand your fleeting feet!

We have the sacred meal every Sunday at this time, as I said. We first sing about it, we pray about it, we read about it, and we preach about it. It is the diamond setting in our religious ring, so we have to make it seem that way to everyone. It is a wonderful thing to experience, healing, comforting, and all those things. But what happens within you is what is most important. That is the Body of Christ reacting inside you, spiritually. It is something we have almost no words to describe. We have enough to fill us for a week, and then we have to return. To skip one meal is to starve ourselves for a week or more, so we try not to do that, regardless of the reason. We lose our spiritual drive and determination. We almost lose our Christianity. And we often lose our sense of charity towards one another if we miss a celebration of the Holy Eucharist. So that makes it pretty important. It is Christ's Body and Blood that we receive. How that happens is a mystery, but it does happen. Queen Elizabeth the First in the sixteenth century described the Holy Eucharist as follows: "His [Christ's] was the word that spake it, And what his word doth make it, I do believe and take it." As someone has said, she neatly avoided the subject of what happens at the Holy Eucharist. One English Bishop recently told me that Queen Elizabeth the Second, the current Queen, never takes Holy Communion in public. So the mystery has still not been resolved!

The reality of the Sacred Meal as described in today's gospel was likely designed to put off those who were spiritualizing it. The eating of Christ's flesh and drinking his blood would be phrases a docetist would find quite unacceptable. As you may remember, docetists were the people who said Jesus did not leave footprints when he was on earth, that he was only a spirit. But indeed Jesus sacrificed his very flesh on the hard wood of the cross. His blood actually spilled out. And he really was killed by the crucifixion. It was a very effective form of capital punishment, but so brutal that less than three hundred years later the Roman Empire banned the use of crucifixion. Its victims suffered horribly, probably suffocating to death gradually and painfully as their diaphragms slowly became paralyzed. The agony of the cross is often portrayed as one of the worst forms of suffering possible. Indeed, the sacrifice Jesus made for us was of historic proportions. And after he died the wind of the Spirit was so strongly on the earth in those parts that the dead saints in Jerusalem came out of their graves, according to the gospel of Matthew. It was quite an experience, with earthquake and darkness throughout the whole area.

So the bread and wine we share together today are the results of a very important event, perhaps the most important event in the history of humankind. By this simple meal we remember how the gates to heaven have been forever opened to those who put their faith in Jesus Christ as their substitute sacrifice for their own sins. It is profound, yet oh so simple.

It is said that we are what we eat. We are also what we watch. We Americans watch an average of 28 hours of television each week. One mother's fear that her young son was watching too much television was finally confirmed when she over heard him praying, "Dear God, bless Mommy and Daddy," the little boy began. "And give us this day our slow-baked, oven-fresh, butter-topped, vitamin-enriched bread." [from Paul Slansky, "The Clothes Have No Emporer," 1989, quoted in "Dynamic Preaching"]

It has been observed that our loudest complaints are about the loss of our cable television service. One family chose to pay their cable television bill and let their telephone be cut off when funds were scarce. And who has not heard the comment that "there's just nothing to watch on TV."

Now to experience life, people go to the extreme sports like bungee jumping and sky diving. They find that when their life is truly 'on the line' they feel most alive.

But here in church one can find something better to make one feel truly alive. In the Sacred Meal we share the historic breaking of the bread as we remember someone whose life was taken in an extreme way. He was the Son of God, the Messiah, the firstborn of all nations. His life means more to us than anything else, and his death and resurrection have made a way through heaven's portals for us who believe in him as Lord and Savior.

Jesus said, "Take, eat," not "Take, understand." We do not have to know the intricacies of the Incarnation, of how the Word of God became flesh, in order to be a part of his eternal life. It is a guaranteed thing for all those who put their hand in his hand, put his body in their body, drink his eternal drink, and share with him into his everlasting kingdom.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Nazi prison in 1944 celebrated the Eucharist for his fellow inmates who were about to be put to death. They had no bread. They had no wine. And he prayed: "This is the bread we don't have. This is the wine we don't have. This is the Christ we do have."

Today we do have the bread, the Body. We do have the wine, the Blood. Take and eat it, and live forever. Amen.

The sermon for Sunday, August 13, 2000, has been posted on our web page entitled, Schedules.

Please send comments to StJohnsChurchElizNJandHFH@compuserve.com

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