PROPER 15, YEAR B

Sunday 18 August 2024

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

Proverbs 9:1-6

John 6:51-58

 

The Gospel Readings for the past three Sundays have been taken from the Living Bread Discourse in the sixth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel. Jesus identifies the bread that he shall give for the life of the world as his flesh, and he proclaims that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood shall live forever.

 

In the seven verses of today’s Gospel, Our Lord uses the verb “eat” or “ate” nine times; the word “bread” five times; the word “flesh” six times; the words “drink” and “blood” four times each; and the words “life,” “live,” or “living” nine times. So we see the basic pattern: eat, drink, bread, flesh, blood, live!

 

In much of the ancient world, bread was so basic a staple of human life that Scripture often uses it to mean food itself: as in the Lord’s Prayer, when Jesus teaches us to pray “give us this day our daily bread.” Here the word “food” could be substituted for “bread” without unduly distorting the text’s meaning.

 

At the literal biological level, the connection between bread and life is clear. As food for our bodies, bread sustains our physical life. And Scripture is clear that such bread is a gift of God; even if human hands do the planting, harvesting, mixing, and baking, God sends the rain and makes the wheat and barley grow that yield the grain from which the bread is made.

 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is speaking during the Jewish festival of Passover. So, when he speaks of bread from heaven, he’s alluding in the first instance to the manna in the wilderness: the mysterious flaky substance that appeared on the surface of the ground every morning, which the Hebrews gathered and used to bake bread, and so were saved from starvation after their deliverance from bondage in Egypt.

 

By New Testament times, the manna had also come to symbolize God’s gift of the Law, which the Israelites also received following the Exodus from Egypt. Just as God provided physical food for the Hebrews in the wilderness, so he had provided food for their hearts, minds, and wills in the teachings of Torah. Thus, in the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses explains to the Israelites: “God humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna … to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

 

For this reason, several Old Testament texts liken listening to God’s word to feasting on good food and wine. For example: Isaiah 55:2, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in rich food.” And again, today’s reading from Proverbs, in which the Word of God personified as Lady Wisdom beckons: “Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine that I have mixed.”

 

By New Testament times, the images of eating bread and drinking wine had also become associated with hope for the future life of God’s kingdom. The Gospel of Luke records one of those who sat at table with Jesus saying, “Blessed is anyone who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.” And at the Last Supper, Jesus utters the mysterious statement “I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

 

In the Living Bread discourse in John 6, Jesus draws together all these associations of bread and wine—and goes way beyond them. Just as God once fed the people of Israel in the desert with the gift of his Law, so now God is about to feed the whole world with the gift of his Son. Just as the Hebrews received physical life by eating manna in the wilderness, so now believers in Christ will receive eternal life by eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

 

In other words, God is doing something new. In the past, God gave his people life in this world by manna in the wilderness and the gift of his Law. But now, God offers all people eternal life by the incarnation, death, and resurrection of his Son.

 

The appointed place of encounter with the crucified and risen Lord is none other than here, at the Holy Eucharist. Here God feeds us in both biblical senses of the word. In the first part of the liturgy, God feeds us with his Word in the Holy Scriptures. Then, in the second part of the liturgy, the Holy Communion, the Lord gives us himself under the forms of bread and wine, which become his Body and Blood, to be our spiritual food and drink.

 

Where earthly bread and wine nourish our bodies with the sustenance of physical life, the living bread and wine of the Eucharist nourish our bodies and souls to eternal life. Just as Christ shares in his Father’s divine life by nature, so we share in Christ’s divine life by adoption as members of his Body, the Church, in Holy Baptism; and thereafter our vital union with Christ is sustained and strengthened by the heavenly food and drink of his Body and Blood.

 

Here, then, we receive a foretaste of the heavenly banquet that awaits us in Gods kingdom. We do well to reflect often on this great mystery, offered us every Sunday, in the Holy Eucharist. Here’s the real reason to come to church: not the music, not the fellowship, not the ministries of service, not even the preaching – good and worthwhile as all those things undoubtedly are. No, the real reason to come to church is that here Jesus gives us his own Body and Blood as food and drink for eternal life. If people really knew that truth and took it to heart, then our churches would be packed, every Sunday.