Christianity – a religion of the flesh! - Fr Dave Smith

Fr. Dave Smith

First preached by Father Dave Smith at Holy Trinity Dulwich Hill, on Sunday the 15th of August, 2015.


Christianity – a religion of the flesh! (A sermon on John 6:4-51)

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“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (John 6:51)
One if the great things about Julie (who preached at Holy Trinity last week) is that she always submits the written version of her sermon to me afterwards for an evaluation, and that’s not an easy thing to do! Sermons are very personal creations. You tend to share a lot of yourself in a sermon. Even if the sermon doesn’t contain a lot of personal detail about the preacher, it inevitably deals with issues that are very close to the preacher’s heart and so it’s tough to have your sermon torn apart in critical analysis!

Even so, we try to set a high standard here at Holy Trinity! I actually do consider it fundamental to my role here to safeguard the pulpit and see that sermons given here remain within the bounds of Christian orthodoxy and, moreover, that our preachers communicate clearly in a way that can be understood by everybody and anybody who chooses to join us.

I would consider it a problem if our addresses here at Holy Trinity were pitched exclusively at those who had a tertiary theological education. Sermons, in my opinion, should generally make just one point and make it unambiguously, such that everyone who attends church, even if they arrive here rather fuzzy-minded and confused, should be able to go home with a clearer understanding of the Scriptures that were read that day!

The only problem I have to grapple with here in my eminently reasonable approach to preaching is that Jesus Himself – our Lord and leader and our chief source of inspiration as preachers – didn’t seem to make any attempt whatsoever to abide by these standards! On the contrary Jesus’ sermons habitually left his audience befuddled and confused and arguing with one another over what on earth He was talking about!

Even Jesus’ own disciples had trouble with Him. They were constantly asking Jesus to explain things to them while also asking Him why He persisted in speaking to people in riddles. And if you remember Jesus’ response to that question (as given, for example, in Mark 4:12), He responds by quoting from the prophet Isaiah – “so that they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding” (Isaiah 6:9) – which suggests that with His parables Jesus was deliberately trying to confuse people!
And it’s not only the parables that are a problem. Indeed, today’s reading from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel seems to be another example of Jesus attempting to be deliberately obscure and even offensive: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (John 6:51)

It is tempting, as a preacher, to pick another passage to preach on when this one comes up as it is difficult to interpret. Moreover, the greater problem I have as a preacher is that if I do manage to interpret this passage and make something clear and unambiguous out of it (in accordance my principles of good preaching) I’m doing what Jesus seems to be deliberately not doing!

So what do we do with words like these? It’s not immediately obvious, is it?  If you, like me, find yourself in a difficult position after hearing these words from Jesus then we are in roughly the same position as the crowd who first heard these words. They, likewise, were unsure what to do with Jesus’ words.

They began to argue sharply among themselves, John tells us, saying “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:52) and Jesus responds to this, not by settling them down with any straightforward common-sense explanation – ‘Hey guys, there’s no need to panic! I’m using metaphor’ – but instead seems to deliberately stir them up even further!
“Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.” (John 6:53-56)

Of course if you’re a good Catholic you may be thinking to yourself by now ‘What is your problem? He’s talking about the Eucharist! Isn’t that obvious?’
Fair call! If you are a good Catholic with a traditional Catholic understanding of the Eucharist – that the bread and wine of the Eucharist literally become the flesh and blood of Jesus when they are consecrated by the priest, then this dialogue makes sense as an exhortation to participate in the sacrament!

Now, in case you’re not familiar with the different understandings that exist between the different Christian denominations when it comes to the Eucharist, the best way of remembering the distinctions, I think, was that given to me by my old mate, Tony Campolo (the great Baptist evangelist) who put it this way:
• In the Catholic understanding, the bread mysteriously becomes the body of Jesus and the blood mysteriously becomes His blood
• In the Anglican understanding, the bread remains bread and the wine remains wine, but to the person who consumes them in faith they become the body and blood of Jesus.
• In the Baptist understanding, he points out, the bread remains bread, and the wine magically becomes grape juice!

At any rate, if you’re a good Catholic, you may well make an immediate association between this dialogue and the Eucharist – a sacrament that had its origin, you’ll remember, in the ‘Last Supper’ between Jesus and His disciples.   
The problem with making that link here though, in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, is that the Last Supper hasn’t happened by this stage. Moreover, while the Last Supper, where Jesus breaks the bread and shares the wine, saying ‘This is my body/This is my blood’, is recorded in each of the first three Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) it isn’t actually recorded in John’s Gospel at all, which is why even good Catholic scholars are reluctant to see these words in John 6 as a reference to an event that John failed to record!

If Jesus wasn’t referring to the Eucharist, was He really just trying to confuse us? I believe that there is a third possibility – namely, that Jesus was trying to make a point, and one that had to be made using really stark and offensive language because it’s a point that is not easy to hear.

In truth, communicating with people is not easy. That was my starting point today – that good communication requires clarity, but sometimes clarity is not enough when it comes to good communication!

I was speaking to a school teacher during the week who was keen to get me to come and speak to her children as she said “they are so used to listening to me they never really hear what I have to say!” I said “I hear you, sister! We preachers have exactly the same problem!”

Sometimes it’s not what you’re saying but who is saying it that’s the problem! And sometimes it’s not what you’re saying or who’s saying it but rather the filters we have as hearers that transform whatever is being said into something we can more comfortably hear.

A good friend of mine worked for many years as a missionary in some very poor parts of Africa and he had a very strong understanding of Jesus’ teachings about the dangers of material wealth and our obligations as followers of Jesus to share what we have with the poor. When he came back to Australia the church put this man in a very wealthy parish and I wondered how he would go.

I asked him “how do your people respond when you talk to them about Jesus’ condemnation of the rich? Are they offended” He said “No. I find wherever I go that when people hear Jesus talk about ‘the rich’ they always assume He is referring to people in the wealth bracket just above theirs” (just as we do)!
Sometimes our filters and our prejudices are such that it is almost impossible to hear what people say no matter how clearly they say it, and this is why sometime humor or poetry or song can communicate much more potently than any confrontational statement, and sometimes, conversely, it is a confrontational statement that is needed in order to achieve penetration!
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven” says Jesus. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (John 6:51)
Jesus is trying to make a point, and it is a counter-intuitive point, and it’s a point that is not easy for us to hear as it confronts all our religious prejudices, and that point surely is that what we really need from Jesus is Jesus!
If that doesn’t make immediate sense try looking at things from the perspective of the crowd who first heard this. What were they doing there?
• From the greater dialogue in this section of John’s Gospel it’s evident that a lot of the people who were there were just looking for a free feed!
• Others may have been looking to be entertained by Jesus.
• No doubt some of them were looking for wisdom and direction in life.
• No doubt many were there hoping to be healed of their illnesses.
• Quite likely most of them were there because their friends were there and they had nothing better to do.
Whatever the crowds were doing there it’s pretty clear that neither they nor the disciples really understood that the most important thing Jesus had to offer them was His body!
• Jesus had lots of good ideas but it wasn’t His ideas that they most needed!
• Jesus had no shortage of wisdom but it wasn’t Jesus’ wisdom that they most needed.
• Jesus had the power to heal them of disease as He had the power to feed them, but it wasn’t his power to heal or to feed (in the ordinary sense of the words) that they most needed.

What they most needed from Jesus and what we most need from Jesus is Jesus – in His body: the flesh of Jesus melded with our flesh, the body of Jesus as a part of our body, the life of Jesus living within us – and if that sounds offensive and all too fleshly then it’s time to be offended for, as this passage makes very clear, Christianity is a religion of the flesh!

This, as I say, confronts our religious intuitions. We look to religion to get wisdom, direction, comfort. What Jesus tells us is that what we need most is not more knowledge. We need to be transformed in our bodies! We need His flesh to become a part of our flesh! He need His blood flowing through our veins just as we need to be breathing His breath and seeing through His eyes. We need to be living the life of Jesus. We need God with us in our bodies!

This indeed is the heart of the Christian Gospel, as I understand it – that God comes to us in Jesus, not simply to pass on good advice, nor to hand down to us any new set of laws, but simply to be with us in body, and to make contact with us in our bodies, and to become involved with us and to suffer and die with us (and for us) and to be present with us in our bodies, always!

Father’s Day is coming up, and I know that in some Primary Schools they still have special Father’s Day events that (sadly) few fathers ever manage to attend. Even so, I heard of one such day where kids in the class were taking turns standing up and telling their classmates about their fathers.
“My dad is a gynecologist” one boy proudly announced, and then went on in some detail to explain to the rest of the class all the wonderful things his dad was capable of doing (much to the amazement of his peers and the horror of his teacher). A young girl then stood up and announced that her dad was a lawyer, and she likewise spoke in glowing terms of her dads work.
As the next little girl got up the teacher winced a little as she knew her dad was unemployed at the moment and she was concerned that this girl wouldn’t know what to say but, on the contrary, this little one jumped up beaming and announced proudly to everyone “my dad … is here!”

Presence – real, tangible, physical presence! It’s what we need most from those who love us, and it’s what we need most from God as well. Yes, we need rules and we need wisdom and we need healing and we need a lot of things, but most of all we just need Him! We need God, and we need God in Jesus – living with us and through us, His body in our bodies.
“For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven … whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” (John 6:55-58)

Be A Wise Loving Diner

“Moses said to YHWH, “But, never in my life have I been a man of eloquence,either before or since you have spoken to your servant.” Ex 4:10

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary, 

Time Year B: Be A Wise Loving Diner

 We live in a world that honours and values information. Yet our 1st reading from the 'First Testament' Proverbs (9:1-6) - speaks of 'wisdom'. I wonder what comes to your mind as you hear the words 'wisdom'. Wisdom is different from the idea of knowledge. Philosophers tell us there are two types of knowledge. Real knowledge refers to experience, and notional knowledge refers to head knowledge. When young children are told not to touch something because it is hot and it will burn them they have notional knowledge. However, if the child disobeys the parent and touches the hot object and experiences a burn then they now have real knowledge or wisdom. Wisdom is when notional knowledge becomes a lived reality. For the young person with burn they are experiencing 'the begetting of wisdom' - hopefully. Wisdom usually refers to a quest for deep knowledge that will bring happiness and contentment in the face of the mystery of life's hardships and complexity.

For the ancient Israelites, wisdom was taught by their sages. These sages gave practical knowledge about daily living applicable to each and all. That was how they and the Bible understood wisdom. Proverbs depicts wisdom as a very active independent female figure. She has built herself a house, she has prepared her table, she has brought forth her wine and invites her guests to a special banquet - a banquet of wisdom. "Come, eat of my bead and drink of my wine!" Wisdom serves practical life-giving knowledge to her guests - the foolish, the ignorant, men and women - and wants to teach them to discern what is the good and right way to live. Wisdom's nurturing banquet is for all people who seek to life

lives pleasing to God.

Last Sunday, in our gospel passage from John (6:41-51) Jesus was presented as the bread come down from heaven. He told his opponents - the complainers - that those drawn by God would be taught by God and then will come to Jesus. This Sunday the gospel discourse continues with a more Eucharistic interpretation. Jesus says he is 'the bread come down from heaven' and, "The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." Jesus openly and honestly declares that his flesh is food and his blood is drink for us. In his language "flesh and blood" represents the whole human being. Applied to Jesus the term has several meanings. It refers to his taking on flesh and blood in the Incarnation. It also stirs up images of the sacrificial animals slaughtered and eaten in the Temple. So, Jesus is both a sacrificial victim and our food and drink. Previously the reference to the bread from heaven had to do with believing in Jesus, the one sent by God. Now, in today's section from the 'Bread of Life' discourse, eternal life comes to us by our feeding on Jesus. Those who "feed on me will have life because of me." Feeding on Jesus already gives us a share in eternal life and a promise of fullness of life when we will be raised from the dead on the last day. Jesus shares eternal life with his Father and we who are drawn to Jesus by the Father, get to share in that life because we feed on the him, the bread of life.

 In the sixth chapter of John's gospel, the Eucharist and its effects are explained for us. From the two parts of the 'Bread of Life Discourse' we can say that Christ is present and gives himself to us in a twofold way: in the Word we hear at our celebration and in his presence in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Our church continues this twofold structure of Word and Sacrament in our worship. It is the basic structure of our Mass. Receiving the flesh and blood of Christ is not a magical rite. The discourse directs us to see the life Jesus gives us by both "believing" and "eating" with faith the sacrament. For the Christian who receives the Eucharist Jesus remains in us and we remain in him. The bread and wine don't last forever, but the life we receive in the life-
giving meal is eternal. John told us at the beginning of chapter six that he worked his 'sign' and gave his teaching at the time of Passover. This reminds us that Jesus is our Passover meal and when we eat and drink at the 'Table of the Lord' we are united with his life and death. We don't demand "signs" as his opponents did. We have a sign
enough for our faith in the broken bread and cup poured out for us. 

As we hear in our first reading, that 'wisdom' has spread a table of choice food and drink. We should know that Jesus (God-come-in-the flesh) is the 'wisdom' of God revealed for the healing of the world. It is Jesus 'holy wisdom' himself who call us to 'the holy table of plenty' to dine with him. Our presence at the celebration of the Eucharist is a sign that we have accepted his invitation. We come to Jesus, seeking a wisdom we don't have for ourselves, but need for our daily living. We seek how to be able to be like him in being 'bread broken' and 'wine poured out' for others. Walking the way of unconditional sacrificial love is not natural to us, so we need the power of Christ's wisdom that comes with the gift of himself from the 'table of life'. 

Our Eucharistic meal at the altar-table is not a meal for a few and it is not just about our salvation. It is meant to empower all Christians to go into the world with the life of Christ we have received. What we celebrate at 'the Lord' Table' we are to put into practice. We ask for the gift of wisdom to know how to do that in our specific life circumstances. The Eucharist unites us to Christ and so; through him, with him and in him, holy wisdom is given to us. We go from the table of life and love to feed the hungers of God's holy people.

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost Year B - Br. Simeon

Order.Homily preached by Brs. Simeon at Springwood and Maroubra on Sunday 16th August 2015

  

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. YR B.

Gospel:  John 6: 51-58

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”

In the Name of the One God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Some of you may remember that back in the 1970’s, a soccer team crashed landed while flying over the Andes Mountains. After quite some time had passed, they realised all rescue efforts had been abandoned, and they had run out of food. How would they survive? After much debate, they decided to eat the flesh of those who had died. As horrific as that seems to us, because they ate the flesh of others, they survived.  Thankfully we don’t need to resort to such drastic measures for our daily survival,.... yet Jesus tells us that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we have no life in us.

Two dimensions of Jewish worship provide the context of today’s Gospel, the fourth part of the “bread of life” discourse in John 6.

John’s discourse about the bread of life in Chapter 6 of his Gospel is his way of dealing with the Eucharist, especially since his Gospel is the only one of the four Gospels that does not include the story of the Last Supper. The story is told in its own way in all four Gospels because each one was written for a different audience. In John’s case, his Gospel was written for the church in Greece approximately 60 years after Christ’s Ascension. At this time in history, the Greeks were leaders in politics, philosophy ideology and culture, so their interpretation was much different than that of the Hebrews, for example.

When an animal was sacrificed on the temple altar, part of the meat was given to worshippers for a feast with family and friends at which God was honoured as the unseen “Guest.”  It was even believed by some that God entered into the flesh of the sacrificed animal, so that when people rose from the feast they believed they were literally “God-filled.”

In Jewish thought, blood was considered the vessel in which life was contained: as blood drained away from a body so did its life.  The Jews, therefore, considered blood sacred, as belonging to God alone.  In animal sacrifices, blood was ritually drained from the carcass and solemnly “sprinkled” upon the altar and the worshippers by the priest as a sign of being touched directly by the “life” of God.

With this understanding, then, John summaries his theology of the Eucharist, the new Passover banquet (remember that John’s Last Supper account will centre around the “mandatum,” the theology of servanthood, rather than the blessing and breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup).

To feast on Jesus the “bread” is to “feast” on the very life of God -- to consume the Eucharist is to be consumed by God.

In inviting us “to feed on his flesh and drink of my blood,” Jesus invites us to embrace the life of his Father: the life that finds joy in humble servanthood to others; the life that is centred in unconditional, total, sacrificial love; the life that seeks fulfilment not in the standards of this world but in the treasures of the next.

In the “bread” of the Eucharist, Jesus shows us how to distinguish the values of God from the values of the marketplace; he instructs us on how to respond to the pressures and challenges of the world with justice and selflessness; he teaches us how to overcome our fears and doubts to become the people of compassion, reconciliation and hope that God created us to be.

In the “bread” he gives us to eat, we become the body of Christ with and for one another; in his “blood” that he gives us to drink, his life of compassion, justice and selflessness flows within us, and we become what we have received: the sacrament of unity, peace and reconciliation.

Amen.

Holy Thursday: Practice Makes Perfect!

“Moses said to YHWH, “But, never in my life have I been a man of eloquence,

either before or since you have spoken to your servant.” Ex 4:10

 In all the great hero stories, it becomes clear who are the good and bad characters. So, the hero must do battle with the villains. Throughout John's gospel Jesus has been doing battle against evil and death. It has been a struggle; not the fake movie kind, but a life and death struggle against very real and powerful opponents. He has confronted sin and death in the surrounding world and in the resistance to his message by the religious leaders. Death's powers have come close to him, in the Lazarus story. We watched Jesus weep at his friend's tomb as he confronted death's power to inflict pain and loss. In today's gospel John (13:1-15) says that Jesus, "was fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power...." Then Jesus got up from the table with all that power available to him, and surprised his disciples as he continues to surprise us today. Jesus rises to wash his disciples' feet. This is not the way power is used in our world: nations dominate nations; one ethnic group purges its another; one religion proclaims its dominance over another; some parents by word and example, teach their children to succeed at any cost; businesses take over weaker ones. It does seem that when some nations, organisations, (religions and individuals) come to power, other groups suffer the consequences. Having power is not necessarily a bad thing and Jesus' life and today's gospel are examples of ways to use power to the benefit and for the good of others. His use of power is also an example to us.

As a musician I try to "practice" daily to maintain my flexibility and skill. Notice I have used the word "practice." It takes the perfectionist pressure off what I do, as I don't have to do it perfectly. What a relief for a type 'A' over achiever. I can be patient and tolerant when I let things slip or I don't feel a session went as well as I had hoped. I can say, "I am just a beginner with this piece of music and I will get it right eventually. Someday it will be easier and better, but right now I'll just "practice". Jesus asks his disciples to make 'foot washing' (humble service) their daily practice, because it will help them to deal with the worlds destructive approach to the use of power. As the three synoptic gospels had an account of the institution of the Eucharist, John does not have to repeat it. Instead, he narrates to his community and to us, THE WASHING OF THE FEET and in doing so, links it to the Eucharist. From now on, disciples cannot think of the Eucharist without Jesus' example and instruction about the service of others. Jesus tells his disciples, "...you should wash each another's feet. I have given you an example, so that you may copy what I have done to you."

The "practice" of foot washing reminds us that we are all recipients. In washing his disciples' feet, Jesus has acted as the lowly humble servant, giving his life in service for others. As Christians, we are who we are, because of Jesus' offering of himself. The foot washing reminds us that our baptism unites us to Jesus and his death. Our baptismal washing by water and words, is what puts us in touch with that life, "If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me." So as Christ's disciples, we too are called to lay down our lives in humble service of others and to "practice" the life we have received. We learn our "practice" from him. And of course, as with any other "practice," we probably won't get it perfect, but we can keep at it. Each time we attend the Eucharist, we remember and receive THE ONE who helps us put into practice 'foot washing' - serving the needs of others. We try to act towards the world as Jesus acted towards us. Being his faithful witnesses we serve others, even to the point of giving our lives. So we ask ourselves, 'Is is my "practice" perfect yet?' The honest answer is - No! That is why we return time and time again to the table of the Eucharist so that with his life at work in us, we can keep practicing in our daily lives what we have learned from Jesus at the Eucharist. May the Holy Spirit lead us to 'take up the towel and basin'.