John 6:51 – 58
When I was first ordained I gave a
sermon in which I referred to the symbolism of the Eucharist. One of
our parishioners decided that I was a heretic and wrote a letter to
the bishop, who passed it on to Monsignor Devine, who shared it with
me having blocked out the name of the sender. I've had others
criticize my sermons since then, but that was devastating. Because I
do believe that the Eucharist is the body and blood, soul and
divinity of Christ, the place where Jesus is sacramentally present,
present in a unique way.
But when we feed on the Eucharist,
when we eat his body and drink his blood, we are participating in a
symbolic act. Saint Thomas said that if a mouse ate a crumb of the
Eucharist, nothing would come of it. The mouse wouldn't go to heaven
or hell, wouldn't change a bit except for being a little less hungry,
I suppose. And unfortunately, many of us receive the Eucharist
something like that mouse. It does not change us.
Today the gospel is a continuation of
what we've been hearing for the lasts few weeks. It started with the
miracle of the feeding of 5000. The next week we heard Jesus say
that he was the bread of life. Last week Jesus insisted that he was
the living bread that came down from heaven and those who ate it
would never die. Now these passages all use the Greek word for
eating. But today is different; when Jesus refers to his body and
blood, the word used is more like the way an animal eats. If you've
ever watched a hungry dog eating a bowl of dog food, that is the kind
of eating Jesus is talking about – chewing, biting, gulping down,
paying no attention to table manners.. And although all this talk
about eating the flesh of Jesus and drinking his blood sounds very
much like Jesus is talking about the Eucharist, I think it's
important to listen to exactly what Jesus is saying – because if
John's gospel was the only gospel we had, we would not hear anything
about the institution of the Eucharist. John is writing his gospel
to a Christian community 60 or 70 years after Jesus has been
crucified, buried and rose again. John knew about the Eucharist, of
course. It was, and still is, the sign of being a Christian. Even
the most liberal protestants practice something resembling the
Eucharist, and as far as we can tell, all of the early Christians did
so as well.
We Catholics believe that the bread
and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ; the bread no
longer exists as bread, the wine, no longer as wine. I don't know if
John believed in transubstantiation because it was quite a while
before our Church settled on this explanation of what happens during
Mass; but I am sure John believed that the Eucharist became the Body
and Blood of Jesus in some way. And that is why he is emphasizing
Jesus' words.
The people John is addressing are
probably like us. They are going forward to receive the Eucharist,
But John notices that things aren't changing. They go back to their
daily lives and when it's not Sunday you can't tell a Christian from
a pagan; So in this discourse about the Bread of Life, John is
telling his readers what all this means – he is talking about the
symbolism of Holy Communion. Now don't send any nasty notes to the
bishop.
John is saying that our relationship
with Jesus, symbolized in the Eucharist, must be like our
relationship with food and drink. If we want earthly life, we have
to eat and drink, preferably every day. To eat and to drink require
action. We have to use our hands and chew and swallow so that the
food and drink become part of us. And Jesus is saying that if we
want eternal life, our relationship with him is like that – it
isn't just a matter of swallowing the host and taking a sip of the
precious blood. For a Christian, as Saint Augustine pointed out, we
must become what we eat and drink. We have to become Jesus, we have
to “Put on” Christ as Saint Paul puts it in another way. We have
to desire Jesus like a hungry dog eats a meal, wholeheartedly, with
our entire beings, as though it is the most important thing in the
world to become another Christ, because it is. And it is then that
he will live in us, and we will share his life, which is the life
which comes from the Father.
When you look at the saints, and I
think we could find saints among our Protestant brothers and sisters
as well as the saints of every kind who have been members of our
Roman Catholic Church, what they have in common is that deep hunger
for Christ, that desire to have him live through them, that need to
put themselves in God's hands to do God's work, and this is what they
want more than anything else. Billy Graham no less than John Paul II
hungered for Christ in this way.
Do you hunger? Do I? Not as much as
I would like to, I guess. After almost 76 years on earth, I am less
pleased with myself now than I was when I was young. But maybe
that's another way of hungering for Christ, to notice and be
concerned about the gap between where you are and where you want to
be.
And the Eucharist, that action of
eating and drinking Christ, is indeed a wonderful gift to us, when
Jesus literally becomes our food and drink. But let John the gospel
writer remind us that Jesus gives us this sacrament to remind us that
our goal as Christians is to become Christ, and the beginning of that
process is to desire Jesus as a starving person desires food. Next
week we will hear Jesus tell those who remain after hearing his
shocking words, “It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh
is of no avail.” So today when you come forward to receive the
body and blood of Jesus, remind yourself what it means – may Jesus
be my first, my last, and everything in between. .
