Trinity 12

Opening Verse of Scripture   John 6:54

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 

Collect Prayer for the Day—Before we read we pray

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray and to give more than either we desire or deserve, pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

God of constant mercy, who sent your Son to save us: remind us of your goodness, increase your grace within us, that our thankfulness may grow, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

First Bible Reading Proverbs 9.1–6

Wisdom has built her house,  she has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine,  she has also set her table. She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls from the highest places in the town, ‘You that are simple, turn in here!’ To those without sense she says, ‘Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live,  and walk in the way of insight.’

Second Reading Ephesians 5.15–20

Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, 16making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Gospel Reading John 6.51–58

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ 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. 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 for ever.’

Post Communion Prayer

God of all mercy, in this eucharist you have set aside our sins and given us your healing: grant that we who are made whole in Christ may bring that healing to this broken world, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Commentary ‘I am the bread of life.’

As we read through John’s Gospel we are aware that frequently there are times when Jesus speaks with a spiritual meaning and people take his words very literally. This happens with Nicodemus when Jesus says that we must be born again. Obviously we cannot be physically born twice, Jesus is speaking of a spiritual awakening. It happens when Jesus meets a woman at a well and offers her living water so that she will never be thirsty again. Jesus wants to quench her spiritual thirst, he doesn’t promise never ending water.

Jesus was facing a problem in getting his message across because people were becoming preoccupied with materialistic fulfilment and missing the spiritual message. There was a problem when Jesus fed the hungry crowds from a few small loaves because the people understandably saw Jesus as ticket to a free lunch. These were poor people and when they saw somebody who was capable of mass producing food it was little wonder that they chased Jesus around Lake Galilee. We often read the suggestion that the miraculous feedings could be explained as Jesus teaching the crowd to share. On one level it appeals to us today but we need to recognise that the frenzy which followed resulted from hungry people who had suddenly found somebody who created food like magic and they wanted more. The crowds wanted full tummies and they wanted their sick people made well. Somehow Jesus had to prevent the sign becoming more powerful than the message. Jesus cares for the hungry and sick, really he does, but he needs to tell people that it is he who is the living bread, the living water. The flesh is of importance to God, but the spiritual truths are even more important, man cannot live by bread alone. The people were in danger of becoming like the Israelites in the desert, eating manna which satisfied their hunger, but not receiving the spiritual food which gave eternal life.

This is surely just as true today as it ever was. Every single living body has within a soul to feed and for many people the soul has been starved of nourishment. It is for this reason that Jesus now uses language which many have found distasteful ever since. Jesus tells them that he is offering them himself to eat, that he is the living bread. We have already been warned at the beginning of the Gospel that Jesus is the word made flesh (1:14). Now Jesus takes this further and uses language which is powerful, confusing, perhaps disgusting but certainly shocking
"Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise that one up on the last day."

It was a common view in Greek philosophy that the physical world was impure and corrupt, and no self-respecting god should have anything to do with it, this later came to be the view of certain Christians - the "gnostics." Jesus associating himself so closely with the physical stuff of creation and humanity is an affirmation of the essential goodness of the God created physical world. However the description of eating Jesus flesh raises images of cannibalism, a charge which was later laid against Christians. To eat the flesh of somebody was horrible and drinking blood was considered a blasphemous act forbidden by God. In the new world order after the flood God commanded Noah ‘You shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood," (Genesis 9:4) The law of Moses equally forbade the drinking of blood, (Lev 17:10) or even meat with the blood still in it. It is verses of scripture like this which prompt Jehovah’s Witnesses to abstain from blood transfusion still today.

The words of Jesus would have been shocking, we know from the passage that the hearers at the time were confused, even though they would surely not have thought that Jesus was literally going to offer himself as a banquet. However it would become clear later in the Gospel what the spiritual meaning was. There is no way that the first readers of the Gospel could read these words of Jesus without thinking of the Lord’s Supper. They would be driven to recognise that the signs which Jesus used were there to enable his hearers to have faith in him. We are fortunate also to be able to read this in the context of later understanding of the communion or eucharist and the words which Jesus used
"… the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."

Flesh and blood is an expression which we use to signify the whole person, so Jesus is giving all of himself to be our life – first on the cross and at our communion celebration. It is no wonder then that the Last Supper is something which we celebrate as a central part of faith for us. It is a focal point for all we believe, all we are and all we do. Here we are gathered around the Word, Bread and the Cup, Jesus’ gift of his total self. We in turn, give our whole selves to him by partaking in the Eucharistic feast. We are to come to the Eucharist then with fresh ears to hear and open hearts to receive – to hear the Word and to receive the Bread broken and shared. Charles Royden

Meditation

The book of Proverbs is seen as one of the most representative works of Israelite wisdom and is made up of two main sections called ‘The proverbs of Solomon’, Sol 10 v 1 – 22 v 16 and ‘Some more of Solomon’s proverbs’, Sol 22 v 17 – 24 v 22. These sections are followed by some other sayings and closes with an alphabetical poem in praise of an ideal wife. The book of Proverbs is not just a book of pithy sayings and maxims to live by, although it does contain many of these, it’s a book which gives unique insight into the Israelite faith and the nature of God and His wisdom. The Old Testament reading today is taken from the 9 chapter long introduction to the book of Proverbs and models a classic form of Egyptian wisdom literature with the deep impression of Israelite thought imposed upon it. In this introduction a father commends wisdom to his child in a discourse where wisdom herself intervenes. The parable which unfolds in Sol 9 v 1 – 18, of which we have the first 6 verses today, lays out the 2 paths before an individual, the way of virtue and the way of vice, from which every human must choose. It echoes the choice laid out before us by Jesus, God’s wisdom personified, the choice between the way of the cross and the way of self. And, just as in the times of Solomon, we too have to make a choice.

Hymns

• Broken for you
• In Christ alone
• How deep the Father's love
• Let us break bread together

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

God our Father, may we love you in all things and above all things and reach the joy you have prepared for us beyond all our imagining. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

God of mercy, whose Son Jesus Christ is the bread of life; by the sacrament of the Holy Communion you make us one with Christ. By becoming more like him on earth, may we come to share his glory in heaven. Amen

We give thanks for your Son, Jesus, who you raised to new life, and who now offers himself to us as the bread of heaven, so that all who eat and drink of him might live forever as one with him. Amen
Nathan Nettleton www.laughingbird.net

The God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, make you perfect in every good work to do His will; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be among you and remain with you always. Amen

Additional Material

Commentary The ups and downs of our Christian faith

The book of John is alone in the gospels in that is does not contain a lengthy exposition of the last supper. Instead of which we have John Chapter 6 where Jesus, after feeding the 5000, explains that he is the bread of life, a passage which led to early Christians being accused of cannibalism by some parties because of the phrase in the chapter where Jesus declares that ‘…unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you’. For the Jews, it was one of their best known dietary laws that the drinking of blood, or even eating meat still with the blood in it, was expressly forbidden. To understand what Jesus means we perhaps need to go back to the Old Testament.

In 2 Samuel 23 there is an account of David, who is fighting the Philistines who have their garrison in David’s home town of Bethlehem. David longs for a drink of water from the well at the gates of Bethlehem and on hearing his wish, three of his ‘mighty men’ go to the well and bring David a drink of water back. To everyone’s surprise David refuses to drink the water which has been so bravely brought to him. ‘Far be it for me’, he says, ‘that I should drink of the blood of the men who went at the risk of their lives’. David did not want to be seen to profit from the risk of those who put their lives at risk for him. By the same reasoning, if we want to profit from the risk Jesus has taken for us we need to ‘eat of his body and drink of his blood’. Jesus put his own life at risk, and eventually lost it, so that we could profit from that risk and loss.

And as we read on in the chapter, and the rest of the gospel, it is clear that John is not just talking about the here and now, the immediate future, he has an eternal perspective to his writing. John clearly understands the words of Jesus in this discourse (in a synagogue in Capernaum) to refer to the Eucharist, the sacrament in which Jesus’ body and blood are offered to all believers to be eaten and drunk. The Israelites who had eaten manna from heaven whilst they were in the wilderness survived to tell the tale, but eventually all had died. Those who in faith partake in the mystery of the Eucharist and eat and drink of the body and blood of Jesus may not die but have everlasting life.

Jesus is the bread that came down from heaven so that we could be raised up on the last day. To the hearers it was radical talk. Many people heard the message and decided it was not for them and turned away. Many presumably continued to follow for the miracles and the teaching but in reality were only going through the motions. Next week we will read that the true disciples continued to follow Jesus because they understood the life changing nature of Jesus’ words and that, ultimately, there was no one else to follow, no where else to go.

As Christians, as we share in the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Communion, as we eat of the body of Jesus and drink of his blood, we are reminded in a profound way that as we profit and share in the risk that Jesus took by the breaking of his body and the shedding of his blood, so we share in His risen life. His is the life that sustains and transforms us, hour by hour, day by day, week by week. No longer are we limited by the laws of the Old Testament or the physical restrictions of our human body, through the Eucharist, and all that it symbolises for each one of us, perhaps in very different ways, we are raised up with Christ and share in h is eternal glory both now and in the world to come.  Sam Cappleman

Meditation - Do this in remembrance of me

The service of Holy Communion is very special for Christians, not least because it is an occasion which Jesus specifically told his disciples to repeat. Over the centuries it has been the source of controversy. Calvin, Zwingli and Luther were all united in their rejection of the medieval Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, yet they each believed different things! However the importance of this sacred ceremony remains for us Christians. Jesus never gave us an explanation of how bread and wine could possibly be his body and blood. Indeed the clever philosophers sometimes seem to understand it less easily than those who simply trust. We believe that by some divine mystery the bread and wine unite us in the death of Christ, a death which in itself brings eternal life. When Jesus took the bread and wine he promised that  'Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life'