Meditation for 3 February 2010

From The Rev. Peter A. Munson

John 6:52-69 (The Message)

52 At this, the Jews started fighting among themselves: "How can this man serve up his flesh for a meal?" 53 But Jesus didn't give an inch. "Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you. 54 The one who brings a hearty appetite to this eating and drinking has eternal life and will be fit and ready for the Final Day. 55 My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 By eating my flesh and drinking my blood you enter into me and I into you. 57 In the same way that the fully alive Father sent me here and I live because of him, so the one who makes a meal of me lives because of me. 58 This is the Bread from heaven. Your ancestors ate bread and later died. Whoever eats this Bread will live always." 59 He said these things while teaching in the meeting place in Capernaum.

60 Many among his disciples heard this and said, "This is tough teaching, too tough to swallow." 61 Jesus sensed that his disciples were having a hard time with this and said, "Does this throw you completely? 62 What would happen if you saw the Son of Man ascending to where he came from? 63 The Spirit can make life. Sheer muscle and willpower don't make anything happen. Every word I've spoken to you is a Spirit-word, and so it is life-making. 64 But some of you are resisting, refusing to have any part in this." (Jesus knew from the start that some weren't going to risk themselves with him. He knew also who would betray him.) 65 He went on to say, "This is why I told you earlier that no one is capable of coming to me on his own. You get to me only as a gift from the Father." 66 After this a lot of his disciples left. They no longer wanted to be associated with him. 67 Then Jesus gave the Twelve their chance: "Do you also want to leave?" 68 Peter replied, "Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life. 69 We've already committed ourselves, confident that you are the Holy One of God."

Commitment and Mystery

Jesus had referred to himself as the bread of life.  “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35)  I imagine that those words were very appealing to all those who heard them.  Then he added, “Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you… My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.  By eating my flesh and drinking my blood you enter into me and I into you.” (verses 53, 55-56)  And many replied, “This is tough teaching, too tough to swallow.” (verse 60)

You and I have a tendency of wanting to figure everything out.  Do you want an example?  Think about the sacrament of Holy Communion.  There is a lot of mystery associated with communion.  During the Reformation, Protestants and Catholics debated about how (not if) Christ was present in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.  And if you were on the wrong side of the debate, meaning not on the side of whoever was in power at the time, you could find yourself being burned at the stake.  We can no more teach six or seven-year-olds everything they need to understand about Holy Communion (if they are part of a First Communion class), than we can teach a 60-year-old everything that she or he needs to know about communion.  You know why?  Because there is a lot of mystery there.

All I know is that Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19)  All I know is that – of all the commandments that Jesus ever gave – this is the one that has been most obeyed over the last 2,000 years.  Why is that?  I think it’s because, on some level, people have recognized that grace and life – the grace of Christ and the life of Christ – are imparted to us when we partake of the Sacrament of bread and wine… which somehow become the Body and Blood of Christ.  When we partake of his Body and Blood, something life-giving happens to us.  If I try to explain it any more than that, my explanation will undoubtedly fall short, because there is so much mystery associated with it.

The same is true of anything we try to say about God, of course.  God, on one level, is unknowable.  And yet God keeps coming to us, and because God is gracious in that way, and because God wants to be with us, and is with us, we can and do talk of our experience of God.  We talk about that experience with words that are woefully inadequate, but that doesn’t mean that our experiences of God are not real.

I love what Peter says - once in a while Peter gets it right - when other disciples of Jesus stopped following him, due to the “tough teaching” about Jesus’ flesh and blood.  Jesus turns to the Twelve and says, “Do you also want to leave?” (verse 67)  And Peter says, “Master, to whom would we go?  You have the words of real life, eternal life.  We’ve already committed ourselves, confident that you are the Holy One of God.” (verses 68-69)

In other words:  We’ve already committed ourselves, and we know you’re the Guy, and we aren’t leaving you now – even if there are some things you say that are hard for us to understand.  Because with You, we feel more alive than we have ever felt in our whole lives!

There is this wonderful scene in one of the Indiana Jones movies when Professor Jones comes to the edge of a cliff, and knows that he needs to get across this huge chasm, to the mountain on the other side.  He can’t understand how to get across.  He knows he has followed all the right clues up to this point.  And here he is at a dead end.  It doesn’t make sense.  Is he supposed to turn around and give up?  He knows that isn’t right.  He is still committed.  Finally, as he balances on one leg, on the edge of the cliff, he steps out into the void.  And a bridge – a narrow bridge that he hadn’t seen before – suddenly appears.  And he walks across the chasm to the other side.

Commitment is like that.  We commit, and the path appears.  And we re-commit, and more of the path appears.  And we can’t always explain how it all works.  But I think it has a lot to do with the fact that God is with us.  Sometimes, when we feel like we’re at a dead end, we forget that.  And then we hear God whisper, “Don’t try to figure it all out.  Just take another step - the step that in your heart you know you are supposed to take.  And see what happens.”