+Today we come to the end of what is commonly referred to as the Bread of Life Discourse in John’s Gospel. The stage was set on the last Sunday of July when we heard the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. In this story Philip is unbelieving---overwhelmed by the prospect of feeding over 5,000 people with a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread---so Jesus begins to compare and contrast the food that perishes vs the food that doesn’t. And then for the next four Sundays endless rhetoric about Jesus being this Bread of Life. At first Jesus was being somewhat vague in exactly what he meant by “I am the bread of life.” It seemed he was just riffing on what had happened with the feeding stories— that the physical hunger we feel can never be fully and forever satisfied, but that belief and faith in the eternal food—the Bread of Life-- will stave off our spiritual hunger forever.
But then, especially the last two Sundays, Jesus gets real graphic—- we must eat of his body and drink of his blood in order to be in full relationship with him and therefore, with God.
“Eat my flesh, drink my blood.” Even though we celebrate the Eucharist every week, even though we hear “Take, Eat and Take drink” every week, there is something about how John phrases it or perhaps it is how relentless the message has been, that by this week, the last Sunday of the bread of life discourse, many of us are at the point of shouting “all right already….we get it. You are the bread of life, unless we eat of your body and drink of your blood we’ll never enter the kingdom of God. Got it…can we move on now?”
But…being a former psychotherapist I can’t help but remember one of the first things I learned in counseling school—-if a client keeps coming back to a particular topic, regardless of what they identify as their presenting issue——the topic they keep returning too? That’s the real issue, that’s the real point.
So, in that vein, I have resisted the temptation of many a preacher these past weeks who have avoided John’s Gospel, focusing instead on the literature of the Hebrew prophets and the poetry of the letter to the Ephesians. I can’t let people repeatedly, week in and week out, hear things like:
“Those who eat my body” and just let that go. So here I am, for the fourth straight week, diving into the Bread of Life!”
Today, as Jesus winds down the 50 plus verse soliloquy on how his body is food indeed, and our reading from Ephesians emphasizes the importance, the absolute necessity, of clothing ourselves in the armor of God’s love to combat the forces of darkness and evil in the world, we can connect what Jesus is saying through John to what Paul is saying to the church in Ephesus.
You, Jesus, crucified and risen, is indeed the fuel of our faith. Abiding in, dwelling in him, and he in us clothes us with an armor that can—and does—protect us from what ails this lost and increasingly hurting world.
Abiding in God is what protected the ancient Israelites as they fled the slavery and oppression of Pharaoh, it’s what protected Mary the mother of Jesus as she lived into saying yes to God, it’s what protected Joseph as he refused to turn his back on Mary but instead stood by her side doing the right thing for her, the right thing for God.
Abiding in God through Christ, wearing the full armor of God is what gave Martin Luther King the courage to have a dream, it’s what fueled the men at Stonewall to confront the brutality of the police, it’s what fills our hearts, minds and souls when we stand up against hatred, bullying and violence. It’s what makes our hearts sink and our tempers flare when we hear some Roman Catholic leaders seemingly defend child molesters instead of ensuring that God’s children are always safe in their churches.
Abiding in God through the nourishment of all that Jesus was and is strengthens us to fight the good fight, to walk the lonely mile and to sing the song of faith through the words of our Eucharistic Prayer: Take Eat, this is my body, given for you.
Folks, we are to take and remember.
We are to remember the faith and the courage of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah and Rachel. We are to remember how Ruth and Naomi, David and Jonathon, Tamar, Deborah, Judith, Elizabeth, Zechariah,J ohn, Joseph and Mary all wore the armor of God protecting themselves against those who said no while following God’s urging to say yes, to do the right thing.
By taking and eating we remember Jesus.By taking and eating we are clothed in the armor of God.
By coming to this altar to be fed, we are emboldened, strengthened, prodded and pushed to turn this world, through our own acts of kindness, justice and mercy, into the vision and dream God has had for us since the beginning of time.
The Bread of Life and the Armor of our Faith strengthens us to do what is right while changing what is wrong. Right here and right now, the world needs us to do this. So, take, eat and do the work that we have been given to do. Love God, love our neighbor and change the world.
Amen.
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