Bread For the Journey

 

Bread For the Journey

Rev. Dr. Thomas C. Sorenson

for

Richmond Beach Congregational United Church of Christ

Shoreline, Washington

August 18, 2024

 

Scripture: John 6:51-58

 

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen

 

I know none of you knew her, but my mother grew up attending First Congregational Church of Valley City, North Dakota. She attended First Congregational Church of Eugene, Oregon, most of her adult life. It’s hard to say how much church really meant to her. She never talked about it. There was, however, one thing people commonly do in church that she would never do. She would never partake of the elements of the sacrament of the Eucharist, the sacrament of Communion. The standard wording of the so-called Words of Institution in the litany for that sacrament has Jesus say: “This is my body broken for you. So often as you eat of it, do so in remembrance of me.” And: “This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. So often as you drink of it, do so in remembrance of me.” Mom must have heard those words at least hundreds of times before she stopped going to church on Communion Sundays. Those are the words that led her to say “Communion is cannibalism.”

I don’t know if Mom ever heard the passage from the Gospel of John that we heard this morning, but, if she did, it would just have reenforced her belief that the Eucharist is cannibalism. I mean, in those verses Jesus says: “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” And: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” And: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life.” It’s pretty easy to react to sayings like that with: “Ick! That’s gross! That’s cannibalism!”

OK, but The Words of Institution—eat my body, drink my blood—are words that Christians have spoken since the earliest years of the Christian faith. They first appear in an authentic letter of Paul that dates from around 55 CE or so. Christians say them all over the world every single day. I have said them many times when I have presided at the sacrament, something that has always been particularly meaningful for me. I have heard other pastors in this church and elsewhere say them many, many times. And I’ve never thought of myself as a cannibal. I’ve never thought of the people I served in the sacrament to be cannibals. I’ve never considered any Christians to be cannibals. So there must be some way to hear those words and not have them gross you out.

I am convinced, and I believe that most UCC clergy are convinced, that those sacred words don’t gross us out because we don’t take them literally. The great Roman Catholic tradition says the elements of the Eucharist are the true body and blood of Christ, but in our Congregationalist tradition we most commonly think of those words as symbols not as mere statements of fact. We understand that when Jesus said “This is my body” and “This is my blood,” he didn’t mean it literally. When he said “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” as he does in our scripture reading this morning, he didn’t mean literally that he was made out of bread. He was speaking at least in metaphors. Actually, he was speaking in symbols.

OK, but what’s a symbol? A symbol is an object or a word that points beyond itself to a deeper truth that we simply cannot express directly with our little human words. Clearly, Jesus didn’t mean literally I am bread, so eat my body and drink my blood. He was using body and blood and bread as symbols for a deep spiritual truth that he could convey to his friends better through symbols than he ever could through literal words. He was using symbols to point to something all of us need, and we don’t need to become cannibals.

So what was he pointing to with his symbols of bread, flesh, and blood? He was, I believe, pointing to a spiritual hunger every one of us humans has and how we can satisfy it. You know, being human is actually a pretty complex thing. We all have physical needs. We all need food and fluids. We die without them. But what far too few people in our culture realize is that we also have spiritual needs. We all long for connection with something that is greater than ourselves. We all long for connection with what in the Christian tradition we call God. To long for connection with God is a fundamental part of what it means to be human. All of the great Christian theologians recognize that truth.

Sadly, we live in a culture in which a great many people don’t believe that they have that longing. We live in a culture formed by the rationalism and scientism of the eighteenth century. Those ways of thinking, when they’re all we do, lead us to deny the reality of anything that we can’t perceive with our normal senses and that we can’t in some way manipulate. We can’t experience God with our normal senses because God is Spirit not matter. We can’t manipulate God because God utterly transcends all of our human abilities while being always present with us at the same time. Christians don’t deny the reality of God. We don’t deny the reality of a spiritual dimension of reality. At least at some level of our psyches we feel that longing for connection with God that humans have felt for as long as there have been humans on this planet.

Humans have found many different ways of making that connection. But we’re Christians, and the Christian way of making that connection is with and through Jesus Christ. That’s not the only way to do it, but it is our way. We can indeed make a connection with God by turning to Jesus Christ. In him we connect with an unconditional, transcendent love that is the reality behind all reality. That is the great blessing we receive as we practice our Christian faith.

And it isn’t really possible to talk about who Jesus is or why he is important to us without using symbols. We actually use symbols all the time. The most prominent Christian symbol is the cross. A cross was, originally, a Roman instrument of terror and death, but that’s not how we think of it. Rather, when we see the cross, if we’ll just stop and think about it, we see Jesus. The cross points beyond itself to the spiritual reality of Jesus’ presence with us and with all people. That’s why it is the central Christian symbol.

When Jesus calls himself bread, and when he tells us to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he isn’t asking us to be cannibals. He’s using symbols to convey a profound truth. Through those symbols, he told his disciples back when he was physically alive on the earth, and he tells us now, that connecting ourselves to him, we can satisfy our spiritual hunger. When we connect our spirits with his, we find food for the journey.

And folks, we all need food for the journey of our lives don’t we. I know that I sure do, and I’m pretty sure you do too. Life isn’t always easy, as I’m sure all of you know. We all face challenges in our lives. We all face obstacles in our path. We all know that we’re mortal. We all experience pain and loss at some point in our lives. I know that I sure have, and I’m pretty sure that you have too. I also know that if you haven’t, you will. It’s easy to give up. We can feel that we’re running on empty in our inmost being.

That’s when Jesus Christ can fill us up. That is when he is living bread. Just as literal bread and drink satisfy our physical needs, so Jesus can satisfy our spiritual needs. When we take in his spirit, we are fed. Not physically but spiritually. Jesus Christ nourishes our souls the way bread nourishes our bodies. He is bread more nourishing than physical bread can ever be.

And folks, we need that spiritual nourishment if we’re going to make it through life in one piece. We get tired so easily. We get down so easily. We feel fear so easily. We feel despair so easily. I don’t know about you, but I know the news of the day these days is so horrific that I’ve nearly stopped learning about it because I can’t handle it—though because of Kamala Harris it isn’t as bad as it used to be. We need God with us always, and God is with us always. But it is in those times when our spirits lag, when our spirits fall, that we most especially need Jesus. In Jesus we can find the rest we can’t often find in the world. We can find peace in a world of conflict. We can find strength when our strength fails us. We can find encouragement when our spirits flag. Jesus is indeed bread for the journey.

So all the time, but especially in the hard times, turn to Jesus. Connect your spirit with his. How? Mostly through prayer, so pray without ceasing. When you do connect with Jesus, you will indeed be fed spiritual bread for the journey. Doing it won’t make the hard times go away. After all, they certainly didn’t go away for Jesus. Doing it will, however, give you strength to deal with those hard times without giving up. And for that great blessing, let all the people say: “Thanks be to God!”