Literary Christians and Word Made Flesh Christians

13 Pentecost proper 15  August 18, 2024
Proverbs 9:1-6  Psalm 34:9-14
Ephesians 5:15-20  John 6:51-58

Lectionary Link

Can we not appreciate that the words of Jesus in their presentation in John's Gospel indicate a literary understanding of tasting and eating as a metaphor for the words of knowledge which we consume in our lives that come to constitute our very lives?

Those who do not concede literary poetic license for the writer of John's presentation of Jesus, perhaps do not understand that one of the themes of John's Gospel was a scorn and mockery of literalism.  Literalists limit truth standards to what can be empirically verified.  So a statement can only be meaningfully true, if and only if it can be empirically verified.

The writers of John's Gospel understood metaphors of eating, drinking and consumption.  The writer had read the Hebrew Scriptures with poetry and figurative language used for how one was to integrate the Torah into one's life.  Taste and see that the Lord is good.  Sweeter far than honey than honey in the comb are the judgments of the Lord.  The writer of John's Gospel understood the metaphor of manna as a God given bread from heaven.

To read, to experience, is to eat and consume or take on the word data which comes to constitute the primary identity of our lives.  The Gospel writer of John was committed to helping people find a new voice.  The Gospel writer of John knew that the way to changes lives was to alter the deep interior word scripts which people as actors end up acting out.  So for the writer of John, Christ is the Word of God, who was with God, and who is God, from the beginning.  Christ is deep Word of existence itself but to be aware of the best Depth of God's Omnipresence, such depth had to have an external presence so that people could be led back to the original blessing of the Deep Word which is God upon our lives.

According to John's Gospel, the Word was made flesh, it was given a very personal outward appearance, so that Jesus whose words were Spirit and life, could lead us through words back to the very eternal Word basis of our our lives.

The writer of John's Gospel was a part of a ritual and liturgical community.  Liturgy is word in ceremonial acts which a community uses to inculcate values and promote the continuance of those values for the growth and furtherance of the identity of members present and future.

A chief ritual of the community of the writer of John's Gospel was the gathering on the first day of the week for the prayers and the breaking of the bread, in the ritual of thanksgiving, called the eucharist.  What we often call the Last Supper, came to be presented and regarded by early followers of Jesus, as the first of many suppers.

And what was the meaning of that Last and First supper?  The early followers of Jesus understood Jesus to be telling them, "Taste and see, that I your Lord and teacher am good."  Partake of me as the eternal Word of God which you consume deep to your interior and have it arise within yourself in the new word products of one's life in better speech, better writing, and better body language deeds.

In church history, Christians have gotten sidetracked in their division about the what the Eucharist, the Mass, the Last Supper, or Holy Communion means.  We have generated words to hyper define our differences: Mere symbolism, transubstantiation, consubstantiation, real presence, spiritual presence.  What do we miss?  The fact that God as Eternal Word gets within us in our language generating depth and through the best words becomes one with us in constituting and reconstituting new behaviors toward loving God and our neighbors in better ways.

Let us appreciate the literary meaning of Jesus as the living bread whom we can consume in substantial ways to realize our unity with the Risen Christ.  Let us not get sidetracked into limited crass literalism which denies the poetic language of the sublime that is the substantial effect of having one's life continually re-comprised by an experience of the Eternal Word from the beginning.

The words of Jesus in John's Gospel invite us to be literary, confessing poetic people of the sublime Risen Christ, rather than crassly literal people arguing about whether the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth becomes again within us.

Poetically, we can appreciate that the Word becomes flesh in us again, as we allow ourselves to be integrated into the best words of speech, writing, and the body language ethics of love and justice in our lives.

Friends, let the Eucharist enable us to be literarily in-Christed today, because Christ as Word can really be made flesh in our lives today.  Amen.