Over the last few weeks, and including next week, our gospel reading is taken from the same bit of John’s gospel. This is chapter 6 which begins with his account of the feeding of the 5,000 using just a child’s picnic of 5 loaves and 2 fish - big picnic, but you get the drift. It then develops into a long and involved teaching about Jesus as the bread of life, with a bit of walking on water thrown in for good measure part way through. The chapter lasts 71 verses and so it has been split up over several weeks. It contains some very rich imagery and deeply developed thought. What I want to do this morning is burst out of this artificial carving up and look at the overall thrust of what is being said.

Unlike the other three gospel writers, John doesn’t give us an account of the Last Supper and Jesus instituting the communion, the taking of bread and wine as a remembrance of him. Instead he gives us this long chapter. Many have seen this chapter as John setting out his theology of the Eucharist, the sharing in bread and wine as a feeding on Christ. Viewed from that angle this passage makes the Eucharist so central that it actually affects the telling of the gospel story itself; we find the image of Jesus as bread from heaven right at the heart of the unfolding events of the gospel, rather than as a final act just before the end. As always John takes us that bit deeper.

Over the centuries there have been debates and discussions, even involving astounding violence, about exactly what is meant by Jesus being the bread of life and what it means to share in the communion bread. Some have seen Jesus’ words, that this is his body, to mean literally that, the bread becomes just that; we have a bit of Jesus in front of us, nestling in the palm of our hands. Others have taken the view that he was speaking figuratively and therefore what we have are tokens, symbols of his spiritual presence and feeding. These debates got quite hot during the 16th century Reformation movement and ensuing Counter-Reformation. Skirmishes have also broken out in the centuries since over what is done and worn at the celebration. To brawl at a feast, figuratively or actually, is an insult to the host!

Well, exactly what happens is unprovable. So arguing about what can’t be proved with great certainty seems rather an absurd way to carry on, but we do all have an incredible capacity for the obscure at times. We are on surer ground when we explore the implications of certain beliefs or what it means to say these things.

Whatever position we take - symbolic or actual, and my guess is that one view will be sitting next to another in the pews this morning, as we take and eat this holy food we assert in some way that we are feeding on God in Christ. Feeding is one of the primary drives and literally provides the fuel for living. So to refer to Jesus as bread is to describe him at some level as the fuel for our living. That is an astounding assertion and we are either talking profound truth or utter blasphemy!

So talking of Jesus as the bread of life, celebrating the Eucharist that flows from this, takes us to the heart of the Christian faith. What is revealed in Jesus is the very source of our living, the very source of what it means to be human, and the very image in which we are created. That this chose to walk among us, that this chooses to be present among us, is the reason we have hope and give thanks. No wonder then that it has become popular again to talk of this meal that we celebrate as ‘Eucharist’, a word that means thanksgiving.

If we read on in this chapter we find that the disciples were left scratching their heads (v60f). This did not make sense to them, and it might not make sense to you. Eating flesh, drinking blood, what could be more macabre? We who have grown up with this, or have become used to it over many years, have become anaesthetised to just how odd this sounds. It makes more sense when we see how the story ends, or develops. This reference to feeding takes us to the cross and the resurrection, to the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost, the founding of the fledgling church and its sustenance over 2 millennia. We have to look at this phrase in the light of these.

The figurative bread is broken. Jesus is broken on the cross. God then is seen to be present in the brokenness of our world. He can feed us because there is no darkness that is not entered; there is no situation that is not redeemed by his cross and resurrection. We feed by being given a hope-filled vision of God’s presence, not just with us but ultimately holding us. Our lives have their very existence because of God and therefore this fuel means that our lives are not futile.

We can kneel in adoration and wonder at this mystery. We can be silenced as we often are at the end of the consecratory prayer. But we are also told to eat and the word used here in the Greek means to chew; a physical act. This food of heaven is not meant to be kept at a distance as if we are not worthy to hold it. We have been told to hold it; it is given to be eaten. The mystery gets deeper and more amazing. The spiritual food is not given by injection or some passive means, but through that primary drive of feeding and actively munching. We have to do something on our part; we have to actively pick it up.

I wonder if sometimes we forget this? I wonder if we try to keep the active part at a distance and with it perhaps we also try to keep the heart of the feeding at a distance? We can do this by, as it were, ‘not eating’, by just expecting it to seep into us so that we don’t actually make it our own. Each person has to make their faith their own and there comes a time when we have to take responsibility and make our own conscious decision. We can also keep the distance by using our rituals in a way that pushes the immanence away. If we concentrate too much on veils and covers we are taken back to the Old Testament distancing of ourselves and the holy. In Christ all barriers have been shattered, literally torn apart. The holy is in front of us, and along side us, and would be inside us.

On Wednesday we celebrated the feast of the Transfiguration, the glory of God shining through Christ on the mountain top. One of the readings at Evening Prayer was taken from 2 Corinthians 3. In this Paul makes just this point, the veil is removed and the glory is revealed. The feeding is not distant; it is as present as eating bread and drinking wine. ‘I am the bread of life’ means he has smashed up all the barriers that have been erected to make a distance between God and people, between creator and created. So as we try to erect new ones he comes along and smashes those down too with sacrificial love.

This is what the church is to proclaim. This is what has sustained it over 2 millennia and it is what will sustain it in our own generation whatever trials and conflicts will come our way. Jesus is the bread of heaven; he is among us and holds the very ground of our being.

To feed on him does not always mean having a picnic. In fact as we saw last week Jesus was concerned to move the people on to a deeper vision than just full stomachs. Likewise we have to look beyond a nice feeling and spiritual food to what it means to be fed by the one who goes to the cross for love of our love. We have to make this our own and chew.

© Ian Black 2003

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