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Theology & Culture

Fasting from the Body of Christ and Fasting from the Eucharist

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I don’t know if I remember the last time I went this long without communion. Maybe I never have. 

Public gatherings in the church that I serve have been suspended since the middle of March. On March 15th we last gathered for in-person worship with a Service of the Word. We last shared the Eucharist together March the 8th, over 3 weeks ago. And to be sure, those three weeks have felt like 3 years with the daily, hourly even, updates about the state of the COVID-19 Pandemic across the globe and in our respective nations and in our local communities. 

My congregation is far from alone, all churches in the city I live in can only have up to 10 people in attendance if they are still holding public worship. Most cancelled in-person gatherings weeks ago and have moved to streaming worship online or finding other means to maintain relationship and connections like phone calls, emails, recorded messages, letters, zoom meetings etc…

The need to practice physical distancing measures have been taken up for the sake of each other. A sacrifice of community for the sake of community. 

And it hasn’t been easy to cease our in-person gatherings. 

Many people are working from home, often with kids who are schooling at home. Others are health-care workers putting in long, stress filled hours. Still others are elderly or immunocompromised and self-isolating, not even venturing out for the basics but relying on others.

We all have been making do the best we can. We have been worshipping on Facebook live. I have been writing regular pastoral letters to our email list, on the phone with others, sending lots of texts. We are physically apart, but socializing and relationship maintaining as best we all can. 

But it is hard. 

There was a death in our church community, and the funeral was a small, private and brief grave-side service in the cold tundra of Manitoba. Not how we would usually gather to worship and pray in the face of death.

Still others have had surgeries cancelled,  and others laid off or losing business and income. 

Things aren’t normal, our community isn’t as it should be. There is something fundamentally changed and different about us in this time. 

We are fasting from each other. Not by choice, but by circumstance. 

I am starved for community. 

Even with the zoom meetings, Facebook live worship, and FaceTime calls. Even with the emails, social media, text messages and phone calls. 

We are fasting from community and it sucks.  

And for many Christians, this first fast is necessitating a secondary fast. 

The first fast is from the Body of Christ that is the gathered assembly: the people that you usually see in the pew next to yours, hear the voice of behind you during the hymns, hug during the sharing of the peace, pass the offering plate to, sidle up shoulder to shoulder with at the communion rail, shake hands with on the way to coffee and a cookie. The people that have attended to your baptism, and children’s baptism, and grand-children’s baptism, who have marked decades of Christmases and Easters with you, who have served egg-salad sandwiches with you at many funerals, flipped burgers with you at church picnics, called when your dad was in the hospital, baked a casserole when your grandma died, sent a card for your birthday. 

And not being able to gather for in person worship has meant not being able to share in the Lord’s Supper.

Fasting from one Body, means fasting from the other. 

In a world where so much feels like it is being ripped away, to have to sacrifice the Lord’s Supper can feel cruel. 

If you have been anywhere near clergy on social media in the past few weeks, you will have seen the prominent debate around this issue. In particular, a strong division over whether or not it is possible to have communion “online.” For a pastor or priest to preside on one end of the camera and for a parishioner to receive the Eucharist on the other end of the computer. 

Already several pastors and congregations have begun offering “virtual” communion. And this is being done so as to offer comfort and familiarity, connection and relationship. Which I completely understand as someone charged with the care of a congregation. I get it. 

And yet, I simply cannot deny that this time is uncomfortable and unfamiliar. It is disconnected and isolating. 

And trying to find a loophole through which to keep on as if nothing can change our worship life and the way we are connected as a community seems disingenuous. 

In fact, I wonder what it says to the world beyond our church communities about how this pandemic is affecting us. Even in the midst of this crisis that impacts nearly every arena of society, the only real impact on our worship life is watching church from the comfort of my couch or kitchen table rather than our favourite pew?

While I often try to name and promote the incredible power of social media and digital technology to create real honest community, I don’t pretend that it is no different than the in body, in flesh experience of in person community. The power of digital media is to create community despite being separated by distance or circumstance. To stay connected to family living far away, friends across the nation and across borders. And also create new connections. To meet new people across the world who share the same interests, passions and faith. Some of the people I most regularly talk to in my day to day life are people I have never met in person, yet people who hold an important place in my life.

But the power of in person community is to connect in an incarnational way. To recognize that my in flesh experience of my siblings in Christ imparts a sense of the incarnate Christ. To hear, see, touch, smell and taste the body of the assembly and the sacrament in person is to hear, see, touch, smell and taste Christ. And to do so very particularly in the Eucharist that we boldly claim is an embodied reality of the divine.

An embodied reality of salvation, forgiveness and life. 

This essential quality of the Lord’s supper cannot be communicated digitally, no matter our desire for it. When I order something from Amazon it doesn’t come flying out of my computer screen at my face. It still needs to be picked up off a shelf, mailed, transported, and delivered to me. 

The limitation isn’t the Holy Spirit’s, but the medium’s.

Yet!

And yet!

We still have the Word. 

The Word which has always been mediated outside of the body, in language, time and space. 

The church has from the beginning used the technology available to transmit the Word. Whether it was Paul’s writings and the writings of the early church, or the art and music of the Middle Ages, or the printing press of the Reformation or the telegraph, telephone, radio and television of the modern era. (None of which became means for transmitting the Eucharist remotely). 

The proclamation of the Word has always transcended bodies and mediums even as the Lord’s Supper has been deeply rooted in our bodies and flesh.  Our assembled body in worship – the local congregation or ministry community –  is transformed into the very Body of Christ that we partake in when we gather to hear the Word and receive the Lord’s Supper together. 

And so in this time of imposed fasting from the gathered Body of Christ found in local assemblies, we must also fast from the Eucharist. Not because church leaders, theologians and bishops have reminded us that it can be good for us… but because we have no other choice. Because we are staying home and staying away in order to love our neighbour.

Our fast from the Body of Christ has been imposed upon us by circumstance. No matter how much we, as clergy, desire to care for and love our people in the midst of crisis, we cannot continue to deny that we are not deeply affected and changed by the physical distancing measures of this time, even as they may last months. We cannot pretend that our worship life isn’t deeply altered by having to #StayHome. We cannot portray to the world that we are little enclaves of ritual unimpacted by the suffering of the world around us. We cannot find loopholes through this imposed fast, we are separated in a real and life-changing way. 

And most importantly we cannot continue to act as though the Word of God is insufficient. 

Because it is more than enough. 

The Word alone in this moment of crisis is all that we need. It is enough to offer the care and love that our people need. 

And it is the vital thing that we need to share with an imminently suffering world.

Sunday morning zoom communion seems empty and callous in the face of those dying alone in quarantine, to those unable to get a ventilator to fill their lungs with life saving oxygen, those unable to receive a hospital bed because there is a waiting list already, those suffering at home and unable to breathe enough to find some bread and wine to serve themselves, or too sick to keep down any food. Let alone all those who cannot be online. 

Virtual communion rings too true to the Eucharistic controversy in 1 Corinthians 11, where some would feast while others starved. It rings too true to one of the primary objections of the Reformers that priests were saying mass by themselves in dark corners of churches to earn merit remotely for paying customers.

We cannot try to tend to our own fears in our own little bubbles while the world suffers. We cannot try to pretend that our gathering in person, in physical bodies together as the local assembly is not an essential part of the Eucharist. We cannot give into the fear that God’s Word is not all that we need, even as we feel helpless to do much of anything meaningful.

God’s promise to us from the beginning of creation is that the Word alone in this or any moment of crisis is all that we need.

The Word’s promise of mercy, life and salvation might be the only hope that will bring any comfort to so many who are about to land in our laps as clergy and as communities of the faithful. Words that have to be spoke through phones and tablets held up to the dying in quarantine,  streamed to the scared and isolated suffering at home, to the overburdened front-line workers who may have no other source of strength left to care.

The Word of God is not only what we as the scattered Body needs, but the world needs right now. As governments strain and crack under the pressure, as people struggle pay rent and buy food, as we hope that a treatment or vaccine is around corner but will take some time, the Good News of Christ the Word meets us here and now. If there is an emergency that the church is about to face, it is not how to get communion to the faithful stuck at home, but how to speak God’s promise of grace, mercy and life to the sick, scared, grieving and dying among us.

And the Word of God will meet our needs, despite our fears.

The Word of God who brings life to the dying, mercy to the suffering, and comfort to the lonely is enough. 

The Word of God who has endured this passion journey before us is sufficient. 

The Word of God who promises that COVID-19 will not define us. That social distancing and isolation will not be all the we are. That death will not be our end. 

Even as Good Friday may loom larger than we ever imagined possible, the Word of God who walks with us out of the tomb at Easter is all the grace we need… God would not allow it to be any other way. 

And so we fast. 

Not because we want to or because it is good for us. 

But because it is simply reality. We fast for the sake of our neighbour, for the sake of the world. 

We fast from community, from the gathered Body of Christ. We fast from the Body and Blood of Christ, because we are fasting from community, from each other in flesh that reveals the incarnate Christ. 

And yet in us, God still proclaims the Good News that the world needs to hear, that we need to hear. 

And it will be enough. 

Sermon

Bread for the sake of the world

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John 6:56-69

Jesus said, “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, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”…

 Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (Read the whole passage)

In the last 5 weeks we have been given our five loaves. For the last five weeks we have been slowly making our way through the 6th chapter of the Gospel of John. 5 weeks that started with 5 loaves and 2 fish, followed by ongoing argument between Jesus and the crowds. Arguments over what is the true bread, about who can receive the power of God, about trying to be God in God’s place, about where we abide and in whom we abide. 

But today Jesus has ramped up his argument, and Jesus has challenged the crowds and they do not like it. Instead of backing down, Jesus has pushed back. Pushed back so hard that the crowds give in and walk away. The crowds were impressed with the miracles, but were not impressed with Christ’s teaching. But the crowds aren’t the only ones who walk away in disgust, some of the disciples walk away too. Not the 12, but some of the larger group of followers that had been with Jesus. The same ones who had collected the excess of the five loaves and two fish, they too turn and walk away.

So what is the fuss about? What has caused not only the crowds, but some of the disciples to walk away? Jesus said to the crowds,

 “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” 

Or in other words Jesus has said to the crowds:

Come and meet me, 
come and be a part of me, 
and you will see God, 
you will meet God, 
you will be a part of God. 

Jesus has offered God in flesh to a Jewish audience. An audience who does not understand Yahweh to be a God that suffers the unclean, Yahweh does not get dirty, Yahweh does not forgive the unrighteous. And Yahweh would become a lowly human being. But still here is Jesus offering himself, offering God the Father as bread. 

And for five weeks we have been hearing how Jesus offers bread to us too. Bread for the Hebrew people 2000 years ago, and bread for the Church today. Bread for the Church and bread for the world. The body of Christ for the world. As the Body of Christ, as the Church and as Lutherans, we are defined by the presence of that bread, that body. In the Augsburg Confession, Martin Luther and the Reformers defined the Church as, 

“…the assembly of saints in which the gospel is taught purely and the sacraments are administered rightly.” 

The Church is place where the grace and forgiveness of God is preached. The Church is the place where we are washed and forgiven of our sin by Holy Baths. The Church is the place where we share with each other Holy Meals. Bread and life for all that are hungry. The body of Christ found in bread, and the body of Christ that is this community, one in the same, given to us by God. 

It is these three things, the preaching of the Gospel, Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper that make us the Church, the body of Christ. And yet, like those disciples who walked away from this radical gift we walk away from it as well. We walk away from the promise and the gift that we are given by Christ. We walk away because its too free. We walk away like the crowds and disciples because we cannot imagine that such an amazing and radical gift could be given to us at no cost, that it could be given completely freely out of God’s love for us. 

We live in a world that tells us “you get what you pay for”, that “there is no such thing as a free lunch”, that “you have to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps”. We are so conditioned to believe that nothing is free, that when something free is given to us, we cannot accept it. It almost as it we need to pay a price for God’s love, for God’s bread. We want to have to know enough, understand enough, pray enough, feel it enough, come to church enough, be good enough, believe it enough. If we only do enough, God just might love us.  

And somewhere in the midst of all that. In midst of arguing about bread, in the midst of walking away because the promise is too radical, in the midst of trying to be enough, we find our selves asking, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”

 Where do we go God? We do not know the way! Who will do it for us? We cannot do it on our own!

We ask with Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” And somehow, not by ourselves, not as individuals, but as a community of faith, somehow by the Holy Spirit we then say. “You have the words of eternal life”. 

In fact the same spirit in us proclaims it every Sunday, the same spirit draws us to the Father and we are given Christ the Word, Christ the Bread of Life.

And by these words of eternal life, Jesus leads us to the cross. The Gospel, Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, these three signs of the Church, they all lead us to the cross. 

They all lead us to the cross of promise and new life. 

70 years ago, an expressionist painter and poet by the name of Oskar Kokoschka, sketched a drawing. The inscription on the drawing reads “In memory of all the children of have to die of cold and hunger this Christmas”. The picture is of a cross. A cross on which Jesus hangs, surround by children. Poor grubby children. Cold and Hungry Children. And with one hand ripped free of its nail on the cross, Jesus reaches out to a child below him. Jesus reaches out and puts his hand into the child’s mouth. Jesus, while dying on the cross, is still offering himself, offering the Bread of Life to the cold and hungry child who stand before him. 

Today, Jesus reaches down from the cross for us. Jesus reaches down with word, water and bread.

We the cold and hungry before the cross, we the Church, we the beggars who stand before the cross, we who are defined by the Gospel, by Holy Baptism, and by the Lord’s Supper, we are shown the cross week after week, year after year, because on the cross we find hanging the Word and Body of God. There in the unlikeliest of places, we are given bread, we are given New Life. 

It is, of course, too radical to accept, too much to believe, it does make sense to walk away from craziness of this gift. But this is the radicalness of God. This is who God is, showing us the most radical love of all, by becoming bread, and by giving Godself up on the cross. 

And so here are. Five loaves. Fives small of loaves bread and five weeks of one conversation in the Gospel of John. And yet in five loaves we discover that God is doing so much more than we can imagine. God is giving us more than we can accept. And no matter if we walk away from it all, or whether we find ourselves asking “Lord, to whom shall we go?” or both… God continues to give us this the gift of forgiveness, of grace and of love, Gifts of the Gospel, Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. 

“Lord to whom shall we go? You have ARE the Word of Eternal Life. You are the Bread of Life given on a cross, for the sake of the world. 

Amen.

Sermon, Theology & Culture

The Bread of Life: The hardest loaf to swallow

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John 6:51-58

… So 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. 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 true food and my blood is true drink. 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…. (Read the whole passage)

Today we receive our fourth loaf of bread. We have been abiding in the 6th chapter of John’s gospel for 4 weeks now, and still there is one more week to go. The ongoing discussion that we have been eavesdropping in on, between Jesus and the crowds, began with the feeding of the 5 thousand, with 5 loaves and two fish. But soon after the food had been eaten and the baskets of leftovers collected, the crowds and Jesus get into a debate. A debate about what the bread means. A debate about who Jesus is. A debate about who God is. A debate about life in the community of faith. 

And now, instead of just celebrating the simple and beautiful miracles of 5 loaves and 2 fish becoming enough for all and then moving on, we have delved deep into the heart of the issue between Jesus and crowds. We are dealing with the big issue for the people listening: Abandon all they know to be truth, and accept the promise of life and grace, a promise made by wandering carpenter turned preacher. Abandon their families, friends, culture and all sense of security that exists in a troubled world and life, for a promise that has no guarantee. 

For the crowds listening to Jesus, the idea of eating flesh and blood would have made them squirm, as it does us. Yet, for the Jewish crowds, the challenge to their religious practice and tradition would have been equally hard to accept. The eating of flesh and blood was something done in pagan temples. The pagans believe that by ingesting the sacrifices made to their gods, they could acquire their god’s powers. 

In the temple in Jerusalem, some of meat that was sacrificed was permitted to be eaten and it was not because it had any special power, but because it was good food. And the blood used in temple rituals was understood to have purifying effect, not magical powers. 

But what Jesus was talking about was on a whole other level. Eating my flesh. Drinking my blood. This is a direct challenge to the way the Jerusalem Temple and religion operated. Jesus is suggesting that there are other ways to obtain God’s forgiveness than temple sacrifices. There are new ways of acting and being under the law. That there is a new understanding of how God feels about sinners and the unclean. 

Eat this bread, eat his flesh, and you will live forever Jesus says. But at what risk? Giving up the system, the traditions, the practices, the worship that everyone knew and understood. Give up knowing how the world works, even if it is hard and exclusive world. Even if often the poor and common people cannot obtain forgiveness or be made clean or find God’s love because it is simply too far from reach. 

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American Lutheran Pastor and Professor Joseph Sittler wrote about his experience with a parishioner who held fast to her understanding of prayer. Sittler’s congregant often boasted about her prayers for parking spots. 

“Whenever I am going to work or to the mall or to church or to the theatre, I pray for parking spot. And without fail there is always one waiting for me when I get there.”

This understanding of prayer bothered Sittler, and often he would try to show her different ways to view prayer and how God answers it.

“Have you ever not found a spot? What about others praying for parking?” he once asked. Yet these questions did not sway the woman’s view. 

Another time Sittler asked, 

“What if there was a mother with a sick child driving to the hospital? And what if you were on your way to a routine doctor’s appointment? What if you took her spot? Which prayer did God answer?”

“Well mine of course” responded the woman fiercely. “Because I prayed harder and had more faith”. 

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As modern Christians, we understand Jesus’ words today in a eucharistic context. We know, we can feel it in our bones that Jesus is pointing us to the Lord’s Supper. To that holy meal that we share each week that feeds our faith, that binds us together as a community and that gives us strength for service in the world. 

But we also know what it is to squirm with the crowds who are debating with Jesus. We may feel icky at the idea of eating flesh and drinking blood, but we can place this idea within a larger understanding of what Jesus is getting at. 

Yet, like the crowds, we too have our own views and understandings. We have traditions and our system for religion. Like the crowds, we know how good faithful people worship and pray, how we keep the laws and rules and act morally. We know who among us has the sincerest faith and the most studied understandings. And when we begin to differ, we also know the arguments that prop up our point of view best are the ones that condemn others. 

And so while we share in Jesus body and blood, we don’t escape the challenge that Jesus presents today. We don’t escape the challenge that Jesus gives to our traditions and systems, to our abilities to keep the rules and judge those who don’t. And most importantly, we cannot escape the fact that Jesus is telling us today, that it is God and God alone who obtains, who gives, and who allows us to be forgiven. It is God alone who gives us life. It is not by our own merits, or faithfulness, or acceptance of Jesus that saves us or makes us pure. It isn’t by being a good Christian that we save ourselves. It is always in the moment we think we can wrap our hands around this faith stuff and the moment we think we know what God wants and likes, that we lose it all. It is in the moment when we think we have got the right understanding, that Jesus steps in and reminds us that it is always different than we think.  

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Over the course of years, Joseph Sittler tried again and again to convince his parishioner that parking spots were not likely to be one of God’s chief concerns. And again and again, he was rebuffed. “You need to pray harder and more sincerely” was the response he got over and over again. 

Until finally, one day in Advent, and the topic of praying for parking came up again, Sittler knew how he would respond to this certain and self-assured parishioner. After hearing once again, that when this woman prayed for parking spots God always provided, Sittler said, 

“What do you suppose a very pregnant Mary was praying for as she bounced along on the back of that donkey while riding to Bethlehem.”

“I don’t understand what you mean, Pastor”, the woman replied. 

“Luke 2 verse 7” Sittler offered. “And she gave birth to her firstborn and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

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Just when we think we have the world figured out, just when we think we have God figured out. Just when we think we can point to God and say, if you worship, or pray, or act, or serve in this way, you will be in God’s good books, Jesus lands in front of us again. Jesus lands in a manger when there are no room at the inn. Jesus lands on a mountain top with hungry people needing bread, but needing God’s love even more. Jesus lands on a cross, and transforms death into life. And here, Jesus lands as body and blood in our midst, at our table, in our mouths and into our bodies. Jesus lands in, with and under us, reminding us that just when we think we have God figured out… Jesus is the one who is giving us life, and we are forgiven, not because of our efforts or faith or ability to know, but solely because of God’s love for us. 

This fourth loaf of bread might be the hardest to swallow. The first loaf was a miracle, a miracle reminding us that with Jesus there is enough for all, enough for us. But today, as we hear again of the Bread of Life, as we hear about who the bread of life is and what it means for us to eat this bread… we are stripped of our comforts, of our traditions and systems that help us to be self assured and certain of our understandings. Today, Jesus feeds us bread from the living Father, and we will live. It might not be comfortable and it might make us squirm, but in this Jesus, this God who turns what we know upside down, in Christ there is life.