There is a series of children’s books called “Amelia Bedelia” about a fuzzy-headed housekeeper who always gets into trouble because of the way she understands her employers’ instructions quite literally, rather than the way they were intended. When her to-do list includes instructions to “draw the drapes,” Amelia Bedelia sits down with a sketchpad and pencil and draws the drapes, rather than closing them against the harsh sun. When the list tells her to “change the towels in the bathroom,” Amelia Bedelia grabs a pair of scissors and gets to work, snipping and shaping until the towels have been changed.
On she goes through the whole list - dusting the furniture, putting out the lights, and dressing the turkey for dinner. As you might imagine, her employers are quite upset when they return home - but, luckily for Amelia Bedelia, she is an excellent cook, and on the merits of her desserts she keeps her job (and her to-do list becomes much more concrete and intentionally written).
It is a common theme in the Gospel of John that there are many layers to be found in Jesus’s words and actions. One of my seminary professors illustrated this concept as a multi-story house, with each floor representing a different level of understanding. There are many times where the disciples or those hearing are left scratching their heads, stuck on the ground floor with a literal interpretation of what Jesus is saying. The Samaritan woman is at first confused - how can this man offer her living water when he has no bucket with which to draw it? Nicodemus, too, is left in the dark - how can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter their mother’s womb a second time and be born?
The crowd in today’s Gospel reading faces a similar challenge. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they ask. Is he talking about...meat? Should we be worried? Could he really be suggesting that we eat him?!
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| Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash |
But Jesus goes on, making the distinction that his flesh is true food, and his blood true drink - it is a different kind of food. It is not the manna from the wilderness, or even the loaves of which they had eaten their fill on that day on the hillside. No, this bread strengthens and nourishes them not just for a few hours, but for eternal life.
We need literal food and drink to live. We also need the kind of food and drink Jesus offers here. With this food and drink, we are joined to Jesus and to one another. In abiding in him in this way, we receive life that is abundant and eternal.
An interesting thing about John’s Gospel is that there is no institution of the Lord’s Supper. On the night before Jesus’s crucifixion, Jesus and his disciples gather for a meal, but John’s emphasis is not on the bread and cup shared as Jesus’s body and blood, but on footwashing, and the commandment to love. Here, though, in John chapter six, we can easily draw a line between Jesus’ instructions to eat his flesh and drink his blood and our understanding of the Communion meal, where we receive the body of Christ and blood of Christ in ordinary bread and wine.
In Jesus’s body and blood, we are strengthened and nourished by God’s promises. While the “how” is a mystery, we trust that in this meal we receive salvation, forgiveness, and new life.
As Jesus says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” To abide is to be connected, to be in relationship. This relationship with God is what strengthens and nourishes. How can we abide more closely than by receiving Jesus’s body into our own?
One of the mysteries and gifts of this meal is that, to quote St. Augustine, we become what we receive - the body of Christ. In this meal, we are joined to Christ and to one another. No matter how we feel about one another, God unites us. One of the great joys of Communion is the way that it connects us to the saints of all times and places. As we stretch out our hands, we are joined to the saints whose hands rested on this same altar rail, friends and family members of blessed memory. We are also joined to other Christians around the world, whose own hands are outstretched this morning also, receiving, eating, drinking, and abiding.
This meal is a gift of grace. Receiving the promises of Jesus’s body and blood does not depend on our understanding, but on God’s promises. Jesus does not say, “those who understand” or “those who get it right” will abide in him, but rather those who eat and drink. In his explanation of the Sacrament of the Altar in the Small Catechism, Luther writes that a person who trusts the words “given for you” and “shed for you for the forgiveness of sin” is worthy and well-prepared. Even apart from our own understanding, we can trust God’s promises - that in this meal we are joined to Christ, and through this meal we abide in him.
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