Pastor Thanael Certa-Werner
Scripture | John 6:43-59 (NIV)
43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “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. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Do you remember the restaurant Old Country Buffet? It was an American food buffet that opened in the 1980’s and grew to have 350+ restaurants in the Midwest. By the time I was little, it was one of my family’s favorite places to stop and celebrate special occasions – especially because it could feed all six of us and our differing tastes.
If you think back, you might remember that Old Country Buffet had a bee mascot who would walk around the restaurants – mainly for the kids. This mascot’s job was to say high to the different tables and hand out coupons. At our location, the person who played the bee was a member of our church. At one point, she gave us a huge (and I mean at least 4 inches high) stack of coupons to the family and it became even more a favorite. We had a “trick” where we would go on Saturday at 9:45 in the morning, just before the food and the prices would switch from breakfast to lunch. So we would get in on the cheaper prices and be able to get all the different foods.
As a kid, I absolutely loved going to this place. I could eat whatever I wanted and as much of it as I wanted. I had all kinds of tricks and hacks I would use to make the most of the food, especially when it came to dessert. The one I remember the most was my trick for getting the most dessert I could at once. These restaurants don’t want you to get too much at once, so they give you these little bowls that hold almost nothing. But I was smarter than that – I would grab the giant soup bowls and fill the bottom up with all kinds of chocolate goodness like brownies and fudges, and then the rest with ice cream. It was heaven. After we were done, they practically had to roll us out of the restaurant.
Eating is one of the most important things we do. Whether its at an all-you-can-eat buffet, or the humble Ramen Noodle cup, we need to eat not only to sustain us physically, but to sustain ourselves socially. We know this is true in the church. With potlucks and picnics, we get to experience good ol’ church cooking at its finest. And likewise, its around the dinner table where friendships are made or strengthened, where important topics are discussed, where the silliness of siblings comes out in full force – and where we come to meet God.
In the church, we don’t just have meals for friendship which come after worship, we have these special meals as a part of worship. This meal which we are a part of is called by many names: the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion. This meal is one of the two practices which Jesus Christ commands that all Christians do to maintain themselves in faith. Communion is intimately connected with Holy Baptism. Baptism incorporates us into the community and family of Christ and Holy Communion is one of the ways in which we are sustained to continue as a part of this family. Both are also extreme measures of Grace. In United Methodism, we recognize three forms of grace: Prevenient, Justifying, and Sanctifying. All three forms are present every time we take part of communion.
Prevenient grace is the grace which goes before us. It is the recognition that all people have received grace from the start because of what Christ has done on the cross. This grace makes it possible to even approach the faith and begin the journey of coming to know God more. In our scripture for today, Jesus talks about Communion by talking about this form of grace. He says, “No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from Him comes to Me.”
In other words, it is impossible to get to know Jesus without the work of God. If God the Father had not chosen you and made available to you, through His grace, the saving life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Christ, we would not know eternal life. Moreover, by His grace we are able to know who were made to be and therefore can choose to grapple with the fact that the lives we live now don’t line up with that. Part of this grace, which is prevenient in that it goes before, is the gift it is to be able to see what we should be like and to realize that we’re not that. It allows us to stop for a moment and to see for once, as God wants us to be and to be able to make the decision to actually do something about it.
But Holy Communion also is filled with Justifying Grace. Justifying grace is that which justifies us before God. It is the next step after God has made it possible for us to know what our lives could be with Christ. This grace makes it possible that, despite our sins, our problems, and our mistakes, we can be made right before God. Jesus says, “No one has seen the Father except the One Who is from God; only He has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
Jesus is the only one who knows the Father because only He has seen the Father and Jesus is proclaiming here that He has come to earth to make known to us what He already knows. He reminds us that we are not home yet – we are still far away from our homeland of eternity in heaven as we wander in the desert of life. But He is giving us the gift of eternal life through the bread that is Him. In other words, the very reason that we can make it through the desert and back home; that which can make us whole again and ready to enter into the promise land; that which justifies us before God is Jesus Christ. It is His death on the cross – His sacrifice for all the world which has opened on to us the possibility to stand before God and be judged worthy.
Notice, it’s for the whole world – for the Jews, for the gentiles, for the Nazis, for the Hitlers, for the Communists, and the fascists. For the Muslims and the Hindus. For the democrats and the republicans. For the Atheists and the zealots. For the gays and the straights. For the faithful and the faithless. This justifying grace has been made available to the entire world – in spite of everyone who is in the world. It does not matter who we are, what we’ve done, where we thought we were headed. What matters is our decision now, what we choose in this moment. Through Communion, the grace which makes eternal life possible for everyone is made available to you – even you. Every time we eat the bread and drink the juice, we are reminded that we have been justified before God by the grace of Jesus Christ.
Still further, in Holy Communion we experience Sanctifying Grace. Sanctifying grace is that grace which makes us as we were intended to be. It is the grace which purifies us and helps us to become more and more like Christ. In our scripture, Jesus says, “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. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on Me will live because of Me.”
It’s interesting that over time I started to like the experience of Old Country Buffet less and less. I continue to act as if I was just as excited every time, but deep down I knew that with each visit, the food got less and less tasty. I actually wanted it less and less and when the chain began closing in 2013, I was kind of relieved. Why? Because I was tired of gorging myself on food that wasn’t going to do anything for me. It was just an excuse to eat too much.
In our lives, there are so many things we can fill ourselves with. So many things which look tasty and are all you can eat, but in the end they are not filling enough to really make a person happy or whole. They are not real food or real drink. Yet, Jesus Christ has offered us the grace of Sanctification which is the only thing which can make us whole. We eat of His body and drink of His blood because, “my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.” When we take part in Communion, not only is our body fed, but our soul is. We are reminded of the person God is calling us to be and are re-equipped to be able to follow that calling.
So we take part of Holy Communion because it is a fundamental avenue of grace. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said, “This is the food of our souls: This gives strength to perform our duty, and leads us on to perfection. If, therefore, we have any regard for the plain command of Christ, if we desire the pardon of our sins, if we wish for strength to believe, to love and obey God, then we should neglect no opportunity of receiving the Lord’s Supper; then we must never turn our backs on the feast which our Lord has prepared for us.”
Today we take part of this Holy Mystery which has been placed before us, to remind us of the grace which has come before us, the grace which makes us justified before God, and the grace which makes us whole. Every time we partake of this sacrament, we are reminded of God’s grace which is at work in us – calling us and inviting us closer in our relationship with God. With every bite and every drink, we partake of real, life-giving food which can sustain us and make us whole. And for that, thanks be to God. Amen? Amen.