Christian Cannibalism?

We are still in John 6, still more bread, still more eternal life. But the text has changed a little. This sermon is based on John 6:51-58

What was that first taste of bread like? Was it in any way how you imagined it to be?

For me I was in 4th grade, it was Ash Wednesday and I wore this styling neon pink dress that had a off the shoulder neckline and floral skirt. It was hideous in the way only a dress made in 1991 could be.

I walked up to the altar and knelt as I had hundreds of times before, the associate pastor, who normally marked my forehead with the sign of the cross and reminded me that I was a child of God, instead he gave me this little wafer, it looked more like angelic fish-food, Once the wafer was placed on my tongue immediately it stuck to the roof of my mouth. And then before I could even pry the wafer off with my tongue the senior pastor was there with a chalice filled with wine. And I’m not sure if he thought I was a great sinner and needed some extra grace and forgiveness or what but he started tilting the chalice towards me and didn’t stop. It continued to tilt at a greater and greater angle and more and more wine was pour into my mouth. This was not the sip of communion wine I had always heard about but a gulp. I then returned to my pew and felt holy, but in retrospect, I could have been slightly light headed due to all that wine.

I had just had my first communion, I had just eaten the bread and wine of the Lord Supper; I had just eaten Jesus’ flesh and drank his blood. Wait I had just eaten flesh and drank blood. How can that be?

How can it be that that I had just eaten human flesh and drank human blood from a man who died almost two thousand years ago? How can it be that I was asked to and expected to be a cannibal?

These questions have plagued the church for the last two millenniums. From the moment Jesus talked about the bread of life being his flesh, people have questioned how one can eat Jesus’ body and if he is indeed referring to cannibalism.

For the observant Jew of Jesus’ day and for many today, drinking blood was and is strictly prohibited. Meat was well drained of blood before it was cooked in order to keep one from accidentally breaking this rule. And to talk about eating flesh meant talking about taking a life. In order to eat any animal, you must first take their life. So to talk about eating a human’s flesh, means that you must first take their life that you must first break the 5th commandment and murder in order to eat. It was such a taboo subject that the devil was at times given the title “eater of flesh”

No wonder why the Jews disputed among themselves in today’s Gospel. They must have been thinking that they misheard what Jesus said, that they heard the wrong word. He must have said “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my mesh.” Or whatever word rhymed with flesh in Aramaic. Surely, Jesus wasn’t talking about people eating him, about people taking his life.

And the confusion did not stop after the Last Supper, after Jesus died and was buried. In fact it just got worse. Many early Christians were persecuted for being cannibals. Non-Christians had heard stories about these people who worship a man and ate his body and blood. Many outsiders to the faith literally thought the early followers to Christ were physically eating his arm or leg and drinking his blood.

And the idea of the bread and wine being Jesus’ body and blood caused trouble in the medieval church. Many people would not actually put the bread or wafer in their mouth after receiving it in their hands. After leaving the altar they would discretely slip the bread into their pocket and once arriving home they would store the wafer or bread in a place of honor, since it was the body of Christ. This is why to this day many Catholic priest place the wafer on you tongue when you receive communion. Because when you believe that the bread and wine of communion is truly the body and blood of Jesus, you can not allow for that body and blood to be stored in unsacred place where it can rot or be eaten by vermin.

And the idea of the bread and wine being Jesus’ actual body and blood was a huge issue during the reformation. The Catholic Church believes in transubstantiation, that the bread and wine turns into the physical presents, the actual body and blood of Jesus, during the words of institution and it is no longer bread and wine. While Martin Luther and other reforms believed in consubstantiation meaning that Christ is present in the bread and wine but they are still bread and wine. That Christ is some how present in, with and under the elements. And yet other reformers disagreed with both the Catholic Church and Luther and said that the bread and wine are just that bread and wine and we commune in remembrance of Jesus’ body and blood but they are in no way body and blood.

Regardless of what you believe about the body and blood and bread and wine, if they are one and the same, present within one another or just a representation, the idea that Christ gave his body and blood for us in order that we may have eternal life is still at the core of the Christian message.

Jesus is using his teaching as a metaphor for faith where eating and drinking is belief, his body is his life and his blood is his being. So to eat of his flesh and drinking his blood means to believe in his life and being, to believe in him as the Son of God, to believe that he is the Messiah, that he is Christ.

The purpose of our gospel text today is not to point out how radical Jesus’ teachings were because they referred to death and cannibalism. The purpose is to point out how radical Jesus’ teachings were because they referred to his death and resurrection. They refer to his sacrifice on the cross, to his resurrection from the dead, to his ascension into heaven and to us being given eternal life.

That is the good news; that is Jesus’ message in all this cryptic talk about bread from heaven and eating of his body and drinking his blood. The point of it all is to remind us, to teach us that Christ died for us for the forgiveness of our sins and that we all have been given eternal life.

So in a few minutes when you come to this altar and receive the bread and wine of communion, regardless if you believe you are receiving Christ physical body and blood, bread and wine in which Jesus is some how present or bread and wine that represent Jesus’ body and blood – for I don’t know which one it truly is, maybe someday we will figure it out in heaven – so regardless of what you believe about the bread an wine, the point is that Christ died for us, Christ sacrificed his physical body for us so that we may live eternally with him both now and in heaven.