The ἄρτος of Life (sermon/homily)
See that ye walk carefully, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not foolish, but wise, understanding the will of the Lord. (Ephesians 5:15-17). You may be seated.
Every third or fourth Sunday morning I stand here in your pulpit (my pulpit too, seeing Linda and I’ve been members here since 1955), I stand here in the pulpit making a fool of myself, because we are fools, every so-called Christian so-called Preacher stands under 1 Corinthians 4:10 as a fool for Christ, so I surrender my introversion, modesty, reserve and self-consciousness to make a fool of myself.
I surrender all, I surrender all
all to Jesus I surrender
I surrender all.
and what else?
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus; What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Unsophisticated, non-Episcopal, totally unAnglican, two of my nevertheless all time favorite hymns of surrender. Last Sunday morning the choir sang, and the Sunday before that we all sang “Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, O Lamb of God, I come” another all time favorite evangelical hymn that hangs in my heart lifelong because we sang it to close worship Sunday mornings with my grandfather at East Hill Baptist Church, Pensacola, watching sinners walk bravely down the aisle to claim the blood of Jesus, and accept Christ as their personal saviour.
When, last Tuesday morning, I texted asking the rector if he had any ideas for what I might preach about this morning, he texted back without hesitation, “Bread.” So, bread it is, and if on the way home from church this morning you ask yourself or someone else in the car, “What the heck was that sermon all about, that didn’t make no sense at all,” that’s not my problem, that’s your problem, my problem of the moment is to make a fool of myself yet one more time again and then go sit down in red-faced embarrassment, as all for Jesus I surrender.
We are today in the fourth of five Sundays reading from John chapter 6 that scholars call “the bread of life discourse,” when I like to sing “Break Thou the Bread of Life,” yet another all-time evangelical favorite, as the fraction anthem (when the celebrant breaks the Communion Bread).
I think Gospel John is a little nutty, why?, he’s non-sequitur, dichotomous, he fails to round out and close his plot as though it did not even occur to him. Gospel John alone presents Jesus as the Bread of Life and yet, unlike Mark, Matthew and Luke, the synoptic gospels who focus on Jesus subtly making every feeding event a Eucharist, Taking and Blessing and Breaking and Giving the Bread whether it’s Bread and Fish for five thousand, or Bread and Fish for four thousand, or Bread and Wine with just his disciples at the Last Supper, or, as at Luke 24, just Bread with Jesus and a couple of friends who don’t recognize him until the Breaking of the Bread - - unlike all those synoptic connected dots, the Gospel according to John - - with all his focus on Jesus as the Bread of Life - - not only is Gospel John surprisingly not eucharistic, but at the Last Supper, a central event of the gospels, John doesn’t even mention bread (or wine) - - he’s all New Commandment and washing feet. Washing feet and New Commandment: Love.
I just don’t “get” Gospel John. But no, that’s not so, I do get him, his agenda and all, and I love teaching the Gospel according to John second only to the Gospel according to Mark - - I just don’t understand the man himself, the mind of the man we call “John the Evangelist,” Gospel John, who, in his Gospel, proclaims Jesus the Lamb of God at the very beginning right after the baptism, and then at the very end proves the Lamb of God on Good Friday, the day of the slaughter of the Passover Lambs - - Gospel John, who has Jesus enraging Judean Temple and other authorities by repeatedly and sacrilegiously calling himself “I AM,” Greek “Ego Emi,” Hebrew “ee-Yeh,” or “Y’Veh,” which in Jewish lore is the unspeakably sacred Name of only God’s own self, no wonder they crucified Jesus.
But my bone to pick with John is Chapter 6, his emphasis on the Bread of Life, Jesus says
“unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life within you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, (מָ֣ן ה֔וּא man-hu, yuk! what is it?) and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever,” see?
And/but then, as I say, unlike the synoptics, John fails to seal his proclamation eucharistically in the Feeding of the Five Thousand, or at the Last Supper, or even later in Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance on the beach, where he feeds Peter and other apostles and the Beloved Disciple bread (and fish) again. John misses it, and I don’t understand, why John, and written at so late a date, why John of all evangelists is so - - oblivious of the Holy Eucharist, misses the eucharistic opportunity.
Unless of course he’s leaving that proclamation to me and other fools for Christ down through the ages of ages: the Body of Christ, the Bread of heaven. The Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.
I don’t know. I do not know.
I just don’t know.
I do know this: the Bread is not God. The Gospel according to John, where “I AM the Bread of Life” was written a generation later than Mark, the first and foundation of the Synoptics, Mark, Matthew and Luke where the Eucharist is subtly but discernibly central in every feeding account. But not for Gospel John, where LOVE is central.
Maybe John does not go off eucharistic on us because as he writes, maybe 90 to 125 AD, he looks around and sees what is already happening in the Early Christian Church: that is to say, the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament where the Bread is God. But Bread is not God and God is not Bread, God is Love. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church, where “The Holy Eucharist (is) the principal act of Christian worship on the Lord’s Day” (BCP 13). We Take and Bless and Break and Give the Bread as “The Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven.” But Bread is not God. The bread is a material Sign of God who is Spirit and Love, a way materially to ingest God and become part of God and God part of us. A spiritual transubstantiation of us, if you will. The Bread is semeion, John’s New Testament Greek, σημεῖον, a sign. In our sacramental terms, the Bread is not God, but an outward and visible sign of God. Which comes back home to precisely what Gospel John wants me to proclaim to you this morning: this Bread means Jesus loves you. It’s that simple. This Bread means Jesus loves you. Will you remember that?
Jesus loves you: the Gospel of the Lord, Hallelujah!!
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Sermon in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, FL on Sunday, August 19, 2018, Proper 15B. The Rev. Tom Weller. Texts: a doubtful mixture of Ephesians 5 don't be a fool, and John 6, I am the artos (table bread) of life.
Bread image pinched on line with apologies.
I do know this: the Bread is not God. The Gospel according to John, where “I AM the Bread of Life” was written a generation later than Mark, the first and foundation of the Synoptics, Mark, Matthew and Luke where the Eucharist is subtly but discernibly central in every feeding account. But not for Gospel John, where LOVE is central.
Maybe John does not go off eucharistic on us because as he writes, maybe 90 to 125 AD, he looks around and sees what is already happening in the Early Christian Church: that is to say, the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament where the Bread is God. But Bread is not God and God is not Bread, God is Love. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church, where “The Holy Eucharist (is) the principal act of Christian worship on the Lord’s Day” (BCP 13). We Take and Bless and Break and Give the Bread as “The Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven.” But Bread is not God. The bread is a material Sign of God who is Spirit and Love, a way materially to ingest God and become part of God and God part of us. A spiritual transubstantiation of us, if you will. The Bread is semeion, John’s New Testament Greek, σημεῖον, a sign. In our sacramental terms, the Bread is not God, but an outward and visible sign of God. Which comes back home to precisely what Gospel John wants me to proclaim to you this morning: this Bread means Jesus loves you. It’s that simple. This Bread means Jesus loves you. Will you remember that?
Jesus loves you: the Gospel of the Lord, Hallelujah!!
++++++++++++++++
Sermon in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, FL on Sunday, August 19, 2018, Proper 15B. The Rev. Tom Weller. Texts: a doubtful mixture of Ephesians 5 don't be a fool, and John 6, I am the artos (table bread) of life.
Bread image pinched on line with apologies.