Proper 15B

 1
This is the third Sunday in a row with the Bread of Life discourse from John’s Gospel. Today, if I’m being honest, the whole thing gets kind of creepy, doesn’t it?
Jesus says:  only those of us who will eat his body and drink his blood will have eternal life.
Of course, we use this imagery and almost exactly these words, every time we celebrate the Eucharist “This is my body, take eat, this is my blood, take, drink…” but somehow, because we’ve heard it for so long, or haven’t thought about it that much, or we just excuse it as one of those “mysteries of faith,” we let those words roll of our back. But, back in Jesus’s day and in the early days of Christianity, this concept of eating of Jesus’s Body and drinking of Jesus’s blood was downright scandalous. The discomfort with which many of us heard the words of today’s Gospel was magnified as they heard Jesus speak them…it smacked of cannibalism and cannibalism then, just as it is now, was taboo.
And yet, it’s one of the foundations of our faith—to take, to eat, to remember.
 How do we explain this—to those unfamiliar with our faith and, if we want to be honest, to ourselves?
So, I did some research….
It was only around the year 1200 that the common usage for what we now refer to as bread switched from the old middle English word “hlaf “ (pronounced ha-laugh) or loaf to the Germanic based word, brud (pronounced brood) or bread.
Hlaf meant one whole thing ---- while brud, bread, meant a portion of, a piece of….
That’s when the light bulb went off---Jesus is talking to us about the interconnectedness of God’s creation, of the desperate need we have for each other and for God. The need to be whole.,
And the desperate need God has for us.
Think about it---God so longed for us, so wanted to understand us that God became one of us, taking on flesh and bone to walk among us as Jesus. It’s one thing to realize we need to be in relationship with God through Jesus Christ, but how often do we consider how much God needs/wants/longs for us?
    This change in the word that we use for bread highlights that for me---when Jesus said he was the bread of life he most certainly wasn’t speaking English. And when John wrote about Jesus’ life he most certainly did not write it in English BUT when the Bible was translated into English ---in the 16th century—the word used was not Hlaf—the whole thing---but brud, bread, a piece of, a portion, a slice.
  I am the Bread of Life, says Jesus, only those who eat my flesh and drink my blood will be a part of me.
My friends, we’re part of something much bigger than ourselves. We’re part of something much bigger than our friends and family, bigger than this parish and this regional initiative, this diocesan partnership, bigger than this state or this country. We’re part of God’s creation and God longs for us to do our part within it, because if we don’t do our part, if we don’t partake of our portion than we’re incomplete.
We’re hungry, the world’s hungry, Jesus is hungry, God is hungry and you know what? We’re all hungering for the same thing---each other, together in peace and in love. One blessed whole.
Take and Eat: For Alone We are Nothing, But Together We Are Everything. Amen.