This is the fourth consecutive Sunday where our assigned Gospel reading has been taken from the sixth chapter of John. It started three weeks ago with the great story, and miracle, of Jesus feeding the five thousand with a few loaves and a couple of fish. The last two weeks, as we've slowly made our way through this sixth chapter, we've heard Jesus repeatedly say "I am the bread of life." And this morning we hear him say it again for one last time, "I am the living bread."
I don't know exactly what the rationale is for having four weeks on the theme Jesus as the "bread of life." In case you're not aware, I don't pick the lessons for Sunday morning. Our scripture lessons are a part of what is called the Revised Common Lectionary, an ecumenical three year cycle of scriptures used by many denominations other than Lutheran. The scripture lessons pre-printed on your bulletin cover are a part of that cycle of lessons.
So, for the fourth time in as many weeks Jesus says, "I am the living bread," but something is included this week that wasn't included in previous weeks -- something astounding -- something shocking! He says, "the bread is my flesh... the drink is my blood... unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood... you have no life!"
These verses remind me of a book I read many years ago, and was eventually made into a movie both entitled "Alive!" Perhaps you read the book or saw the movie.
It's a TRUE story, a real life tragedy actually, about an airplane full athletes that crashed in the Andes Mountains of South America in the middle of the winter. It's an incredible story written and told by one of the survivors and how they barely hung onto life for the many weeks and months before an eventual rescue. It's a story about the tough, agonizing, and gut wrenching moral decisions they were forced to make.
Injuries, cold, deep snow, inclement weather, no sense of location, rough terrain and much more PREVENTED any of the survivors from attempting to find help. For water they ate snow. What little food there was soon ran out. After a period of time, the slow horror of starvation began to set in. When the starvation became life-threatening, the toughest decision of the survivor's lives hung in the balance. The only possible source of nourishment was the frozen flesh of their dead friends who laid deep in the snow outside the plane.
At first the idea seem totally barbaric, cannibalistic and repulsive, but their starvation slowly continued and death inched ever so close. The book describes how each one of the survivors came to terms, or NOT to terms, with such a horrendously difficult decision: was it RIGHT OR WRONG; moral or immoral; ethical or unethical - even under such extraordinary circumstances? What were the religious implications? What would their church and the Christian world think? From a religious standpoint was it better to die than to consider such an act? THESE and so many other questions had to be considered even while they were literally dying of starvation.
I remember what a intense experience it was just to read the book! I found myself asking, "What would I have done? What could I have done?" I found reading the book, at times DIFFICULT, INTENSE and UNPLEASANT. I found myself frequently putting the book down, only to pick it up again. I never did see the movie, as I found the book to be difficult enough!
BUT you know, if we take the words of our Lord serious even a little bit and give them any consideration at all, we have to realize that, in a sense, HIS WORDS IN TODAY'S GOSPEL ARE NO LESS OFFENSIVE. The image is not much different. It is no less graphic... no less intense... no less unpleasant... no less challenging!
Even the people standing around listening to Jesus seem to be offended! Some said, "What are you talking about? Are you nuts? What do you mean give us your flesh to eat?" And Jesus' own disciples said, "This is a hard saying, who can even listen to it?" Some were SO OFFENDED and so turned off, verse 66 tells us that many of those who had been following him turned away from him and STOPPED FOLLOWING HIM!
But, in spite of the HARDNESS of these words, and maybe even BECAUSE of the hardness of His words, we get a powerful insight into TWO THINGS:
FIRST, we get a rather graphic insight into just WHAT IT IS that Jesus has to give.
SECOND, we get a clue about what it means for us to call him our LORD.
FIRST, Jesus' RATHER STUNNING mention of his flesh and blood remind us of the horrendous cost of his love. FOR YOU SEE, his love is not like our love. His love is not just any ordinary, everyday, run-of- the-mill kind of love... his love is different from the kind of love with which we love.
Now, you and I are capable of great love. We can muster up love for EQUALS: our friends, our families, our brothers, our sisters, our colleagues, those that are like us. That kind of love is a wonderful kind of love. It brings warmth and happiness and joy to our lives. We call it things like romance - friendship - collegiality - family love.
You and I can love the LESS FORTUNATE. We do a lot of that in the church. That's a beautiful kind of love. Love for those who suffer, for the poor, the sick, the lonely, the not-so-lovely. We call it compassion, justice, mercy and it touches the heart and soul of the world. It broadens our horizons and makes us more completely human.
Sometimes we can even love the MORE FORTUNATE. It's rare. It's very rare to love those who succeed where we have failed; to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice; the love of the poor for the rich; the love of the minority for the majority; the love of the loser for the winner. It has many names. We call it sportsmanship - graciousness - big heartedness.
The love of Jesus certainly includes all of these kinds of love, but he goes ONE GIGANTIC STEP BEYOND! Jesus loves his enemies! Jesus loved the very ones who did not love him but threatened him, and mocked him, and tortured him, and crucified him. The tortured's love for the torturer. THAT, you see, IS GOD'S LOVE! And I think it's pretty safe to say that you and I are not capable of loving with that kind of love!
You see, that kind of love conquers the world. That kind of love transforms hearts and minds, maybe even yours. That kind of love changes people, it can even change you! That kind of love bridges unbridgeable gaps, even the gaps that may exist between you and some others, or even within yourself. That kind of love can overcome every form of evil, may be even some little evil that dwells in you. That kind of love can surmount almost any obstacle, maybe obstacles that you're dragging around. That kind of love can FILL any and every empty place of your life; even the emptiness in your soul!
You see, it's only that kind of love that can ever really bring a true peace. It's only that kind of love that can ever really bring shalom to a place like Bosnia, N. Ireland, Israel and the PLO, or maybe even to an estranged family.
Perhaps those who were offended by what Jesus had to say that day... those who walked from him, sensed that. Perhaps they intuitively knew that if they hung around this character for very long -- that his love was going to get to them -- his love was going to get inside of their skin -- his love was going to stir them up and change them. And maybe they weren't ready for that! Maybe they weren't ready to let go of some of their stuff, and be changed. Are you? (prejudice, arrogance, keeping score on other people's sins, that grudge) Maybe they were threatened by that? Are you?There's a story told by the great naturalist Loren Eiseley. He once spent some time in a seaside town and very early EVERY morning he would walk the beach. Each day at sunrise he would find the town's people combing the sand for starfish which had washed ashore during the night, to kill them for commercial purposes. For Eiseley, that killing was sign, however small, of all the ways in which the world says "NO" to life and says "NO" to love. All the ways in which human beings insist on killing and conquering the spirit of life in so many ways with so many things.
One morning he got up unusually early, and discovered a solitary figure on the beach. This man too, was gathering starfish, but each time that he found one, he would pick it up and throw it as far as he could out beyond the breaking surf, back to the nurturing ocean from which it came. As the days went by Eiseley found this man embarking on his mission EACH morning, seven days a week, no matter what the weather.
Eiseley named this man the "Star-Thrower!" And he wondered if there was a "Star-Thrower" at work in the universe, a God who contradicts death, and fights against it, even in the face of such incredible odds and so many forms of death.
We could call Jesus the great "star-thrower." He works for life in the midst of death. He works for love in the midst of hatred. He works for hope in the midst of despair. He works for joy in the midst of sorrow. Jesus gives us his life, NOT ONLY in the sense that he laid it down for our sake, but he gives us his kind of life, his quality of life, his caliber of life. And that takes us to the SECOND THING!
And the SECOND THING, what does it mean to call him Lord? Like the survivors on the plane, it means that we recognize that we are starving to death! The only difference is, they knew it... they recognized it. WE DON'T! We need to identify THAT emptiness... THAT longing... THAT hunger that lies deep within us... that not all of the materialism and security and power in world can ever fill. It's a yearning that only THE ONE who called himself the "living bread" can ever satisfy.
Jesus the "living bread!" Jesus the great "star-thrower!" Essentially they are the same thing, because were Jesus is life is... passion is... love is! To be near him and around him is to catch life from him the way a sail catches the wind and the boat is empowered on the waves.
Jesus radical words in today's gospel MAGNIFY the meaning of these very familiar words that we WILL SAY AGAIN IN A FEW MINUTES. "Take and Eat! This is my body! Drink it all of you! This is my blood!"
As we come to this very holy place and receive this very special meal, we take into ourselves his life... his love... his hope... his joy... and we are CALLED and EMPOWERED right here to be "star-throwers" ourselves, that is, to be life-givers... love-givers... fools for Christ's sake! It's a nourishment that we need every day for every situation. It can empower us and give us the courage to move in the direction of love and forgiveness and reconciliation -- even when the world is telling us, "No, go a different way!"
As the frozen flesh of the their comrades brought life to those survivors high in the Andes, so this meal of bread and wine, brings the flesh and blood of our Lord near to us. THIS IS NO ORDINARY MEAL. This is a meal that points to the great "star-thrower," the "living bread!" It's a meal that doesn't make just a nominal difference, but it makes an eternal difference! So come and be filled!