Sermon for Corpus Christi
Sermon for Corpus Christi
Readings: Genesis 14. 18-20 and John 6. 51-58.
It is, perhaps a mistake to invite the theologian who gets excited about bodies and the Eucharist to preach on Corpus Christi! The sixth chapter of John’s Gospel is one of my favourite parts of the bible, a text I’ve spent much time over the years dwelling in. And whilst I have always found the text provocative and inspiring, I found that this time as I prepared to speak about the text this evening, I needed to try and read with fresh eyes, to open my ears to hear what Jesus is saying again. I encourage you to try to do the same.
Let us pray: Abundant Living God, we long to feed on you afresh tonight. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear your Word, made flesh, and given to us for eternal life. Amen.
A Scandal
Jesus’ words in this chapter from John’s Gospel suffer from the contempt of familiarity. We are perhaps a bit too used to hearing that Jesus is the bread of life. We are a bit too desensitized to language around eating flesh and drinking blood. It’s all a bit too normal for us. But if we can attempt to hear these words of Jesus through the disciple’s ears, or the ears of the crowd who are listening to Jesus and trying to understand him, we find Jesus’ words become a shocking declaration, a scandal. Jesus says:
I am the bread of life that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.
It's perhaps made more noticeable to us when we read the next verse “The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “how can this man give us his flesh to eat?”. This is not so much a spiritual question, but rather a question about cannibalism! After all, if someone starts talking about eating what is ostensibly human flesh, we tend to start to worry about them or at least wonder if we are inadvertently living out some kind of zombie apocalypse! We know this connection persisted because 100 years later Tertullian still had to defend Christianity against charges of cannibalism. Jesus’ words are shocking and scandalous.
This particular teaching by Jesus was the limit for some of those who had been following him because in the next verses (60 onwards) the disciples complain that this teaching is difficult and no one can understand it. It offended people. In verse 66 of this chapter, it says “because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.”
Let’s bear the scandalous nature of these words in mind as we dwell in them together.
Why a picnic?
There is a school of thought that says that the author of John’s Gospel knew of at least one of the synoptic Gospel accounts. Of course, in all three of the synoptics, similar language around Jesus’ body (though notably not his flesh) and blood is placed in the context of the Last Supper. The author of John’s Gospel does include an account of the Last Supper – quite a lengthy account as it stretches over four chapters! But in John’s account there is no Eucharistic language but rather an emphasis on foot washing. The feeding of the multitude as the site of Eucharistic language for John is therefore a choice rather than a lack of knowledge of the seeming proper place for such discourse.
Why does John put all of his Eucharistic language and theology alongside the story of a picnic rather than of the Last Supper? I think we can read him as making a point about abundance and openness. Right before this narrative, those who are following and listening to Jesus have been reminded of the manna from God that their ancestors were fed in the wilderness. Jesus says that miracle bread is peanuts compared to what’s on offer now. That manna was miraculous but it only fed their bodies and those ancestors who ate it still died. Jesus says that he ‘is the living bread who came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ Notice the openness of this invitation – whoever eats… this is an invitation that is open to all. It makes sense, I think, that John places his Eucharist here, amongst the thousands instead of in a closed room with only a few of his followers. The openness of the invitation is matched by the abundance of the food available.
Eschatological Foretaste
Another reason I think it makes sense for the Johannine author to set their Eucharistic language in the context of the feeding of the multitude is to situate this eating as a foretaste of the eschatological eating. The prophet Isaiah has a vision of this feast and says:
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines… (Is 25.6a)
The image is of a great feast that is open to all peoples. The best food and wine served to all. This is what heaven looks like – an open invitation to come and eat. Jesus foreshadows this heavenly banquet with his language of food and drink that are provided by God for eternal life.
Incarnation
It’s hard to hear this passage and not cast our minds back to the beginning of this gospel. The repeated use of the word ‘flesh’ is designed to invoke this memory. In John 1.14 we hear “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory…” The Word became flesh and the flesh became food for eternal life. The link between incarnation and Eucharist is not accidental here. By the time John’s Gospel was written, a range of Christians were already turning their attention to the Incarnation as a way of understanding what was happening in the Eucharist. As Christ was made flesh and blood for our salvation so is his flesh and blood made food for our nourishment, and for our eternal life. This is not to say that the Eucharist is not connected to Jesus’ sacrificial death, but rather to highlight that the crucifixion is not the only event from the life of Christ that one might draw into dialogue with the celebration of the Eucharist. Justin Martyr tells his followers in the 1st century,
For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.
If you want to get your head around the Eucharist, take your lead from the Incarnation. For Justin, and I think for John, the same action is taking place in each case. God making Godself known in human materiality.
Mutual Indwelling
Jesus says in this Eucharistic account “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them.” This language of abiding is that of a mutual indwelling. I like to think of this via the phrase “we are what we eat” or in Augustine’s words ‘be what you can see and receive what you are’. There is a delicious mutuality in this being and receiving. In eating the bread and drinking the wine, we take Christ within us as food. When we eat and drink, our bodies process the consumed materials, nutrients cross into our blood stream, fatty acids and vitamins are absorbed by our lymph system, and our bodies use the food to build substances we need for energy, growth and cell repair. The things we eat do not just pass through our bodies but rather become entwined with our bodies, our blood streams, our very cells. When we eat the flesh of Christ, we invite him into our very DNA.
But we also know that “we break this bread to share in the body of Christ. Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in one bread.” When we eat the bread and wine, we take Christ into our very flesh even as Christ brings us into His one body through our sharing of his bread. Through eating this flesh and drinking this blood, Christ dwells within our bodies and we dwell within His body.
Throughout the scriptures God repeatedly calls people into relationship and community with him by the sharing of food and drink. The mysterious Melchizedek who is King of Salem and priest of God Most High brings bread and wine out to bless Abram. In the Letter to the Hebrews it is Melchizedek that is the model of priesthood for Jesus. The only things we know of Melchizedek is that he brought bread and wine out for the blessing of God’s people. This is the model of High Priest that Jesus follows in. Throughout his ministry, Jesus establishes his solidarity with the outcast of society through his radical table practices. When we receive the Eucharist into our bodies, we extend this Eucharistic presence beyond the doorways of the Church – the physical, fleshly presence of God matters. It is this Real Presence of Christ in Christians that rolls up its sleeves and gets its hands dirty in the mire of poverty, disease, and death. This is the same Eucharistic presence that washes the feet of the disciples in John’s account of the Last Supper.
Abundant Incarnations of Christ
Corpus Christi was instituted because there was a lack of a special day in the Church’s liturgical year in which to give particular thanks for the sacrament of the Eucharist. In every Eucharistic celebration, we thank God for this gift but we pay special attention to it today. In doing so, alongside this thanksgiving, we have the opportunity to consider what it means to be a person and a community of people who eats of this living flesh and drinks this living blood. There is an abundance in this gospel passage that is, at first glance, at odds with the materials of our celebration. We take one small morsel of wafer bread and the smallest sip of wine, perhaps even no wine at all. That probably doesn’t feel very abundant – not physically at least.
Whilst I could happily make an argument for the use of real bread in the celebration of the Eucharist, I’ll save that for another time! The abundance that matters here is the abundance of Christ, made flesh so that we might be made holy, nourished and sustained, so that we might have eternal life. This Christ who eats with sinners and replenishes the wine (with the good stuff!). This God who repeatedly meets with us over food and drink and has chosen to do so for millenia. This Triune God whose promise of the eschaton is of a feast. In receiving the Eucharist this evening, and every time we receive, we become knitted into Christ’s very flesh and blood. We abide in Christ and Christ in us. Let’s make sure the Christ we envision is the one of abundance, the one who offers his eternal life-giving flesh to anyone who wants to eat. When we are dismissed at the end of the service, and off into our summer plans, it is this abundant incarnate Eucharistic Christ that we take out into the world, in our very bodies. Amen
