9 Pentecost Cycle B, Proper 13 August 5, 2012
Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15 Psalm 78:23-29
Ephesians 4:1-16 John 6:24-35
If we
over-literalize the Gospels as exact representations of actual situations in
the life of Jesus, then we betray the fact that the Gospels are first of all
literature and secondly, they are the teachings of the early Christian
communities using the existing narrative traditions of Jesus of Nazareth.
The method of “literal” interpretation by any
Christian community has less to do with the facts of the Biblical text and more
to do with the administrative control of particular Christian leaders over their
communities. Let us work to free
ourselves from interpretation as “administrative truth” and let us seek to
explore the insights which we can gain from the Gospel teachings themselves. Literalists use a very circular argument as they use one part of the Bible to prove the divine inspiration of another part of the Bible
when in logic circular arguments are declared to be fallacious.
We as people of faith look to show how the
insights of the Bible are divinely inspired and true in the way that the truth
is practiced in the loving actions of our lives. The church has argued for many years over the
various interpretations of the text on the pages of the Bible.
In the history of the church we might say
that there has been a dynamic between word and sacrament. Sometimes word and sacrament have been seen
in an either/or way. In over reaction to
certain forms of Roman Catholic sacramentalism, some churches of the Protestant
Reformation threw away the “sacramental” notion altogether. Bible reading and preaching became primary in
Protestant churches and sometimes Communion and the other sacraments have and are
seen and practiced as almost minor afterthoughts.
Anglicanism has been a community of faith
that developed between sacramental extremism and Biblical extremism. We have tried to hold in balance and
complementarity word and sacrament.
Scripture is important but Sacrament too is important. And we use our human reason in our historical
settings to plumb the insights of Scripture and Sacraments for living well today.
What is hidden and unspoken in the bread of
life discourse of the Gospel of John is the regular practice of Holy Eucharist
in the community from which John’s Gospel derived. But how does one use the narrative of the
life of Jesus who lived within a Passover Meal community to teach the
importance of Holy Eucharist? The author
of John’s Gospel created a teaching using the Christ-narrative and presented as
implicit what had become the explicit practice of the Christian Community where
the writer of John lived and worshipped.
Again, if one is a literalist, one would find this suggestion
scandalous; but if one understands the profound gift of the Eucharist in being
the constitutive family meal of the Christian Community then one understands
how profoundly wonderful this teaching is.
To understand the writer of John one has to
appreciate that examples from natural life are used as spiritual metaphors. But
this method was not invented by the writer of John; this metaphorical use of
language is common to all users of language.
We’ve read the story of the bread of heaven, manna, from the book Exodus,
but already in later writings in Deuteronomy, bread from heaven and word of God
are contrasted: “God humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you
with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order
to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word
that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
That one does not live by bread alone but by the word of God is repeated
in the temptation of Jesus by Satan when Satan tempted the fasting Jesus to eat
some bread.
Creation happened by the word of God; God
said, “Let there be…” and in saying the
word, creation happened. In John’s
Gospel, Christ is the eternal Word of God who is spoken in the act of creation. Jesus is confessed to be the Word made
flesh. So Word is not separate from
person or community.
As bread is consumed and becomes us, so too
word is something envelops our entire lives with a matrix of values and those
values become lived in the flesh and blood of our lives. We partake of Christ, the word of God as the
living bread of heaven and this word of God experience becomes evident in how
we live the values of our lives in all that we do and say.
There is a great mistake when Christian
communities practice impoverished notions of word and sacrament. Churches that practice the sacraments as
superstitious rites where lay people have to jump through these hoops for the
administrative control of the clergy: they miss the integrative function of the
sacraments. Churches that practice the
words of the Bible and preaching as though they do not derive from the actual
flesh and blood of life within human community miss the integrative function of
the word.
What we practice within a sacramental community
is that the Eucharist is living bread; it is word of God as a creating and
spiritual presence within our lives. If
the sacraments seem to be rituals and community ceremony they are such to be a sort of“holy play” (what does prelude mean?
before the play or game or event). We perform this “holy play” in a careful way to remind ourselves that
every action in our life is to be with performed as a holy offering to God for
the benefit of the community. Communion
bread that is just holy bread that we take to feel pious in our religious
behavior is a very limited notion of the living bread that came down from
heaven. Communion bread that is
understood to be connected with people who do not have enough to eat because
the Eucharistic communion has not yet been successful in getting food to all is
truly the living and creating bread of heaven.
As we read this living bread of heaven
discourse today, let us remember to keep word and sacrament together. The Eucharistic Community is to be proof that
God’s word is alive, active and well within the life of the church. But the Eucharistic community is not
separated from the world by the church doors; the Eucharistic, Bread-of-life
church is the salt of the earth continually to add the flavor and season of
God’s love to this entire world.
The writer of John’s Gospel understood Word
and Sacrament in complimentary relationship and so should we. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment