Is it really blood? August 15, 2021

Year B, 12 Pentecost                                             John 6:51-58                                                                            

            One of the things I was able to do on my sabbatical was sit in the pew with my 5 year old son.   He had lots of questions.  On the one hand, I welcomed the questions because they were relevant and it was a way for him to engage in the service.  On the other hand, I didn’t want it to be disruptive.  One question that came up fairly often occurred during the Eucharistic Prayer when the priest held up the wine and said, “Drink this all of you, this is my blood of the new Covenant.”

            “That’s Jesus’ blood? Are we drinking Jesus’ blood?”  Now this was not the first time someone has asked me this.  Especially growing up Roman Catholic, I would get that question a fair amount.  But this was the first time I attempted to explain it to a 5 year old.  The typical Episcopal answer would be, “Well it’s a mystery.  We know God is present, but we don’t know how.” I knew this answer would not go over well.  So I just said, “No----but it helps us remember Jesus.”  Now, this was hard for me, because the answer is so much more complex (and would probably be deemed heresy by many, but this was the best I could do for someone who takes everything literally.

            I know that you all have been hearing about the bread of life for several weeks now.  It would be easy to assume that today’s Gospel reading is just a repeat of the past readings. It certainly has elements of previous verses, but it’s different.  In the verses for today Jesus got a lot more literal and the people listening were not pleased about it.

            Talking about “flesh and blood” might seem unusual in today’s context (that is if we were not celebrating communion.)  However, it was probably not that jarring for Jesus’ original audience.  That phrase is a Hebrew idiom that refers to the whole person (hearts, minds, hopes, dreams, everything.)  Therefore it wasn’t that strange for Jesus to be talking about flesh and blood.  But where Jesus got into hot water was when he referred to his blood and his body. Once he had their attention, he got even more specific: “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  You know Jesus is serious, when he starts with, “Very truly.” Which makes his reference to his flesh and his blood that much more alarming and gory. 

            Of course many theologians and biblical scholars have used these words from John to debate the theology of the Eucharist, but few people can agree on the meaning. Consequently different denominations define communion in different ways.  Over the centuries, we have let our perspective on the Eucharist tear us apart.  I understand this to an extent, because it’s critical to our faith.  But it’s heart breaking to me that a sacrament that is supposed to bring us together is the one that has also torn us apart. 

            Augustine of Hippo was one of the greatest theologians of all time. He lived in the 5^th century, 1000 years before there was a split between Roman Catholics and Protestants.  That means both Catholics and Protestants get to claim him as their own. I can resolve that argument right now because he was obviously an Episcopalian.  In all seriousness, it’s a sad irony that different sides fight over him to support their denominational views because for Augustine, the most important thing about the Eucharist is the unity that represents and the unity it can and should bring to humanity. 

In the Episcopal Church we attempt to show that in our liturgy when we gather together around the altar and drink from one cup. Unfortunately, we have not been able to do that in a year and a half.  Some people worry that has negatively affected the celebration of communion. And so even those in our one small denomination have begun to debate the Eucharist with more fervor.

            We never completely stopped debating it, but we found other things to argue about.  However, discussions about the Eucharist have become prominent again because of the pandemic.  When we could not have communion, some people got creative and attempted to consecrate over the internet.  Then people like us started providing Eucharist “to go.”  Both of these methods were criticized by some. Then once we could have communion, everyone split on how to distribute it.  I was totally against using these cup/wafer combinations.  I got over that because it turned out to be the best option for our church.   Other churches chose other options. Most churches still don’t have wine.  Some are using fancy tweezers to dip the bread in the wine and then place it on people’s tongues. It’s anarchy out there. 

Yet, even I, raised in the Roman Catholic Church and rather passionate about communion, found that compromise didn’t have to mean we were diluting the sacrament.  At some point I realized that it wasn’t the presentation that was the most important thing.  The most important thing was the sacrament itself, the way it can transform us from the inside, the way it can transform our community. Augustine wrote, “Take and eat the body of Christ… Lest there be division among you, eat of what binds you together.”

            I think it’s essential to celebrate diversity and what makes us unique.  It would be wrong for us to pretend that we are all the same or that we agree on everything, or even most things.  However, let us never forget that what binds us together is constant. What divides us is temporary. Why do we spend so much time arguing about temporal things?

            No matter how we distribute or receive communion, we believe God’s presence is there, tangibly. It’s a gift that Jesus gave us and a gift that will never run out.  In a time when change seems like our only constant, my prayer for all of us is that we can cling to that which doesn’t change.  That is God’s presence with us in the sacraments of the church- God’s incredible display of love and compassion he displayed in sending his son to earth. Cling to that.  Hold on to it with all you are and all you have.  The rest will pass.  God’s love for us—God’s desire that we are unified in that love—that will last forever.

Christ as the Foundation-No Walls Needed: July 19,2015

Pentecost 7, Year B                                                  

Ephesians 2:11-22                                                                   

            When I first arrived at St. John’s, a lot of people were baffled by the fact that I lived in Norfolk.  Even after explaining the reasons (I prefer to live with my husband), people still seemed aghast.  I know that part of it is the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (Herbert), but it is more than that.  It is almost like Norfolk is a different world.  You might not know this but Herbert is technically in Hampton, which means I live 4 miles from Hampton and 9 miles from the church.  This is not an insurmountable distance.  But it’s not about the distance.  It’s the culture.  I lived in Norfolk for 8 years before I started at St. John’s and I had been to Hampton 5 times.  It is amazing what a bridge can divide.  It’s not just bridges that divide us.  Norfolk and Virginia Beach are right next to each other and they are entirely different places.  Virginia Beach doesn’t want to connect to the Norfolk light rail because they know that will make it easier for Norfolk people to get to Virginia Beach and they don’t want us there.  These are obvious divisions, divisions that we can see on a map.  But there are a lot more divisions in Hampton roads. There are the divisions between white and black, poor and rich, military and civilian, Virginia Tech and University of Virginia…. This is certainly not unique to Hampton roads, nor is it unique to this moment in time. 

            The division in the first century was primarily between the Jews and the Gentiles, the circumcised and everyone else.  The differences between Jew and Gentile were not just differences of religion, but culture and national identity.  The Gentiles hated the Jews because their customs were strange.   They had rules about circumcision, what could be done on the Sabbath, what could be eaten and who could be worshiped.  Even to Christians today, some of these rules seem extreme.  On the other side, the Jews had absolutely no respect for the Gentiles.  The Jews were the chosen people…chosen by God.  Despite the fact that they were a people without country they had a seemingly indomitable national pride.  They were committed to the rules of the Torah and the rules of the rabbis.  This allowed them to judge anyone who did not follow these rules.   There was a metaphorical wall that divided them and a solid wall as well. 

            The temple of the Jews was a holy place.  Jews believed it was the home of God.  There was a wall that surrounded the temple and then a courtyard outside.  It was this courtyard where the Gentiles were allowed.  On the wall surrounding the temple was an inscription that read: "No foreigner may enter within the balustrade around the sanctuary and the enclosure. Whoever is caught, on himself shall he put blame for the death which will ensue.”   Any non-Jew who entered that holy area could be killed.  

            Jesus was not one to tolerate such walls of division.  In the Gospel of Mark, we have already heard that he went into Gentile territory to teach and to heal.  Yet even he could not eliminate these divisions, not in his short life.  The disciples and those who came after him worked hard to break down these walls, both real and imagined.   The apostle Paul was a Jew.  He honored the Jewish law.  But he also knew that Christ was calling him and others to move past these walls that surrounded them.  So he preached to all, Jews and Gentiles alike.  In his letter to the Ephesians, he wrote, “For [Jesus] is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” 

There are disagreements regarding the wall  that Paul is referring to.  Some think he was referring to the actual wall that separated the temple from the courtyard.  Others think that he was referring to the laws that the Jews interpreted in such a way that kept people away from God, away from Jesus.  I am not sure it makes much of a difference.  The point is that there was something real that was separating one group from another.  The life and death of Jesus provided an opportunity.  It started the dismantling process.  It was Jesus blood that ran through this crumbled barrier and brought two enemies face to face. 

            We sometimes depict the death of Christ as a victory.  That language is misleading.  There was no triumph in the violence that caused his death.  The triumph was what came after.  The triumph was the resurrection.  We tend to want to skip over the difficult parts, the parts that make us uneasy. We think we can break down a wall without actually dismantling a thing.  Jesus was beaten and then broken on a cross.  His body was broken….not just for us, but for all people, the people in Norfolk, the people in Virginia Beach, the people who left the Episcopal Church because they did not like the 1979 prayer book, the people who left because they did not like the ordination of women, the people who stayed and considered themselves the victors, the people who stayed because the Episcopal Church was their home….his body was broken for all of us. 

            I know there are some of us who are not pleased about the Episcopal Church’s stance on same sex marriage.  There are some people who are joyful.  There are some who are in the middle.  Most of us who have seen division in the church are anxious, anxious about what this all means.  We no longer have literal walls around our holy places.  Anyone can approach the altar.  Anyone can worship here.  The walls we have now are more subtle and nuanced.  They are protective walls, walls that we hope will keep us safe.    We need to talk about the walls.  Not talking about them will not make them go away.  We’ll just keep running into them until we are battered and beaten and no closer to the love of Christ. 

            I know that there is fear that if walls come down the whole structure comes down, but this is not so. If our foundation is firm, if our foundation has Jesus Christ as the corner stone, then we don’t need these walls dividing our holy places.  Look at this holy place. Do you see walls between us?  And yet this building continues to stand, through wars, hurricanes, floods and even a rector who lives in Norfolk.   Paul wrote, “In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in who you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.” 

I do not know what is coming.  I really do not.  I do not know what is on the horizon for St. John’s, the Episcopal Church, or even our nation.  But I know this.  Together, we are stronger.  Even when we disagree….we are stronger together.  Outside of this holy place, we depend on common interests and alliances bringing us together.  But here, in this holy place we depend on something so rudimentary, so very uncultured that we don’t even like to say it very loud.  We depend on the blood of Christ.  Jesus was not broken so that we could build more walls and live in our own privately holy places.  He was broken so that we could come together, into one whole and holy body. 

Instead of building walls or maintaining the ones that we have, let us build one another up.  Let us support one another in our desire to be closer to God and closer to one another.  That is how we achieve peace.  We will never agree on everything.   That is not what brings peace.  Peace comes with the ability to love one another even when we are disagree….even when we don’t like one another, we love one another.  Jesus didn’t die so we could all just get along.  Jesus died so we could live with one another, not divided by walls.  Break down the walls.