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Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Light of Christ Anglican Church
The Rev. Michael Moffitt, August 19, 2018


Wisdom is Feeding on the Lord Jesus Christ


Text: John 6:53–59

I can remember when I was small my father who worked for an institutional food broker would take me by the warehouse office on Saturday mornings to hand in his orders written on Friday. When I walked in the office with my Dad, who was a big man, Mr. Wooldridge, the warehouse manager, would greet me and say, “Hey little Bob, how you doing?” Nobody doubted that I was my father’s biological offspring because even then I looked a lot like him, only smaller.

As I’ve grown much older and married a woman who can’t seem to take too many pictures, I have noticed how much I resemble my father even in the expressions on my face and my tentative smile, more of a smirk according to some people. I think I’ve shared with you before that our daughter, Amy, once took a video of my son Ben and I walking away from her. We have the same identical walk and mannerisms. It really was quite uncanny. Science has proven that it’s all in the DNA, how we look, the color of our eyes, hair or complexion and even tendencies, mannerisms and some health concerns are handed down to us by our families. Teresa and I recently joined Ancestry.com and found a photograph of her great, great grandmother when she was a young woman. It was the splitting image of her mother as a young woman.

All of us have people that we admire and respect and try to follow their examples, but in our gospel reading this morning Jesus offers us a way to become more like him by uniting with him in such a way that he is in us and that is even more powerful and life changing than DNA.

I want to begin by considering our Gospel passage through the lens of Proverbs 9:1–6.

Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn her seven pillars. 2 She has slaughtered her beasts; she has mixed her wine; she has also set her table. 3 She has sent out her young women to call from the highest places in the town, 4 “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” To him who lacks sense she says, 5 “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. 6 Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”

Proverbs 9 shows a contrast between Wisdom and Folly. In our passage Wisdom is depicted as a gracious and noble patroness who invites the young and gullible to come to her feast and receive life. Her invitation is seen in contrast to verses 13–18, where Folly coaxes the gullible enticed by erotic lust there they find the path to death. Listen to Folly’s coaxing in verses 16–18,

“Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” And to him who lacks sense she says, 17 “Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” 18 But he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.

Both invite the gullible to a feast, but Wisdom’s invitation is from love and a desire for their well-being whereas Folly seeks to deceive and destroy. Wisdom’s house is well built and has seven pillars suggesting that it is very large and has room for all who will come in. “Seven” in this literary fiction also symbolizes perfection, so Wisdom’s perfect house is suitable for everyone. She has sacrificed an animal, baked fresh bread and prepared her mixed wine, usually with honey and herbs to make it spicy, potent and more enjoyable (Song of Solomon 8:2). Wisdom has prepared a feast that will satisfy their every need and was a reminder to Israel of how God had prepared a table for them in the wilderness. He had given them manna, the bread of angels to feed them and living water from the rock to quench their thirst. They had been in a situation where only God could satisfy their need and without him they would die. This proverb would have been a reminder to Israel of God’s faithfulness and provision for them and that wisdom called them to turn away from their folly and return to covenant faithfulness to the God who loved them.

We can see that this passage also anticipated the banquet that Divine Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, invites his guests to, which would be furnished with the costliest of provisions that God had to give.

In our gospel passage this morning Jesus declares himself to be that feast, the meat and the drink that God was providing through the sacrifice of the Son, the Lamb of God. Proverbs 9:5–6 exhorts those who are simple to “Come…leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” We will see the same invitation from Jesus to those who would choose the way of life and wisdom.

Let’s turn now to John 6:53–59. I want to go back to verse 51 to get the full context of what Jesus was saying and the reason for such a strong reaction from the crowd. John 6:51–55,

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”

I’ve looked at this passage in numerous translations and there just isn’t anyway around it, this was a tough word to hear. The Jews had come to him as a rabbi and were considering that perhaps this man should be the Messianic king they had been waiting for. They had seen and experienced his power through healings and the feeding of 5,000 men plus women and children with only five barley loaves and two fish. They had marveled at his teaching with authority, but they still were skeptical as to who he really was. Like Nicodemus in John 3 when Jesus told him that he must be born again, the question is “how could this be.” Jesus doesn’t make it easy on them because he wants them to understand that real eating and drinking are involved here. He furthers the offense by stating that without eating his flesh and drinking his blood they would not have life. He is letting them know that what he is offering is not something that is optional and could be ignored.

Jesus was telling them that his flesh and blood were what food and drink should be, as they perfectly fulfill the function of food and drink, they sustain and give life. What Jesus was referring to would not be fully understood until after his death, resurrection, ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit. His death was the ultimate laying down of life, his resurrection, ascension and the sending of the Spirit brought on to the human scene the new possibility of actually sharing in the life of God. Jesus reveals this in his high priestly prayer of John 17:20–21,

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

The ultimate source of our life is the Father, as Jesus explains in verse 57,

“As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.”

We see here that Jesus is inviting us into the life that he shares with the Father. Our lives are completely dependent on partaking of Jesus in the same way that his life in the flesh was totally dependent on the Father. He is inviting those who come to him by faith to participate in the shared life that his death would make possible. By using the language of “eating and drinking” Jesus chooses a very graphic way of revealing that we must take him into our innermost being as we become one with Jesus and the Father. When we come to Jesus by faith and repentance for sin there is an immediate change of status but also a spiritual inward reality as the Holy Spirit takes up residence. When this happens, change is unavoidable.

There is no room in this teaching for what is known as “the carnal Christian doctrine” because in the same way that I look and move like my father and my son looks and moves like me, our innermost being changes when Jesus takes up residence. In this metamorphosis, Jesus is teaching that those who feed on him will live forever as he lives forever but they also will become more and more like him. This is why he said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” There would be no participation in the life with God without also participating in the self-surrender of Jesus.

There is some controversy about whether or not Jesus is speaking about the Lord’s Table, the Eucharist. Some mistakenly think that this text teaches that receiving the bread and cup of the Lord’s Table is essential for salvation, and that all who do are guaranteed salvation. Actually, very little is absolutely essential for salvation as the thief on the cross demonstrates. All he had was faith in Jesus as King and the desire to be with him. I believe that they are missing the essential point, that Jesus is inviting us to come to him by faith embracing the perfect sacrifice of his body and the shedding of his blood. The physical act of eating the bread and drinking from the cup at the Eucharist must also be done by faith and that is why Jesus institutes the “Lord’s Supper” the night of his betrayal. He was inviting them to see his sacrifice as the perfect solution to their separation from God due to their sins, but he was also instructing them to feed on his body and blood through the elements of bread and wine.

Both of these acts would come through faith in Jesus and would be the only way to receive life. Faith is the key both in repentance and partaking of the elements in the Eucharist. At the table we have a point of contact with Divine reality, it is a means of grace that is imparted to the believer by faith. There is no magic in the elements and the Apostle Paul even warns in 1 Corinthians 11:27–30 that those who come to the table without faith are actually in danger of God’s judgment. The body and blood of Jesus are life giving to those who partake in faith but not to those who don’t.

The focus of this teaching is on personal sacrifice and shared life. Jesus was showing that these are inseparable since there would be no sharing of life without the laying down of life. The once-for-all sacrifice of Christ is the pouring out of his life for the life of the world, bringing forgiveness and a new power of life. That sacrifice also shows us the deepest reality about God—his love—and about life: all true life is sacrificial. Life is a matter of exchange: my life for yours, yours for mine. In this sacrificial web of exchange, we find the communion, the community, of the Godhead. At Eucharist we receive into ourselves, into our bodies and souls, the life-giving power of God, and precisely by eating and drinking we proclaim the Lord's once-for-all death until he comes (1 Corinthians 11:26).

The insistence on the Eucharist, this physical activity for eternal life, is theologically and spiritually very important. It protects us from an overly cerebral or falsely spiritual form of Christianity. Salvation itself is something that encompasses all of life. It is a transformation of life and a renewal of life, including physical life. Salvation is not simply a matter of having right opinions or even right actions. Indeed, it is something much larger than just us as humans, since all of creation is involved and will one day be restored (Romans 8). John teaches us not to simply embrace the spiritual, but that Jesus wants to restore the physical as well. Jesus, God in the flesh, in his very incarnation has shown the physical to be "spiritual," that is, to share in divine life. Our bodies themselves are to be transformed into vessels for service in God’s kingdom. So, the imagery involved in eating and drinking, in notions of laying down life and internal renewal, is present in this passage and in the Eucharist itself.

But more than mere imagery is present—life with the Trinity for eternity is present. The divine and human realms meet in the flesh of Jesus, and that is what a sacrament is: a material point of contact between physical and spiritual reality. Jesus' own body is the convergence of these realms, and he provides points of contact for the nourishment of his body, the church. This passage is referring to Christ's death and our life in him, as is the Eucharist. So, it is fitting that the Eucharist is alluded to here, though the primary reference is to Jesus' death and the life he offers.

Recently, we finished a five-week series from Luke 22:66–24:53. We followed the story of Jesus’ last days on earth from his betrayal to his ascension. We defined what the Gospel message should be, as opposed to what it has become in our culture. We considered the power of the resurrection and how it encouraged us that this is God’s world and therefore nothing is impossible. We were reminded that Jesus ascended back to the Father as reigning King of all creation. Jesus won - Satan lost. This should give us amazing encouragement and hope.

As I considered that series I wondered how it would ultimately change the way we live and the priorities of our lives in this church, if at all. Frankly, what often happens in churches is that you finish a series that challenges, encourages and exhorts and everyone agrees that it was very good but then it becomes a part of the past and the question lingers “what were we supposed to do with that?”

It’s like someone giving you a brand new 10,000,000 candlepower flashlight but no battery. It looks good but doesn’t seem to provide any light.

In today’s passage from John 6:53–59, Jesus is still teaching us that we must be transformed from within and when that happens, his priorities become ours because his heart becomes ours too. I am constantly reminded that I cannot do the things that God commands in my own strength. Often I don’t have the energy, the knowledge, and sometimes I don’t even have the desire and I just want to let well enough alone. It’s easy to feel guilty about not doing this or that, but that’s not what Jesus is offering us this morning. He is offering us life with him NOW - and because he indwells us through the power of the Holy Spirit, “we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us” (Philippians 4:13.)

I want more than anything to have God raise us up to levels and places that are totally impossible in our own strength. It can happen if we will pursue him by faith inviting him to transform us into his likeness through his flesh and blood that is our true food and drink. We should feed upon the Lord through his word, through praise and worship. We must daily seek His presence and the nourishment received through Word and Spirit.

I was thinking about all the discouraging and depressing news that we are daily bombarded with by the media. Teresa used to work in TV news and she once told me that in the minds of the news directors the rule was “if it bleeds it leads”.

Our enemy wants us to receive a steady diet of discouragement because that leads to anger, frustration and hopelessness. Jesus invites us to feed on Him and benefit from his life-giving word and indwelling presence. That makes us dangerous to the kingdom of darkness as we shine the Light of Christ all around. That is how we appropriate what we learned from our 5-week series in Luke.

We seek nourishment from the body and blood of Jesus and we must not hesitate to invite Jesus through the Holy Spirit to do whatever he wants in us. I want to leave us this morning with Paul’s exhortation to the church in Ephesus. Ephesians 5:15–20,

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now that sounds like the kind of encouragement that we need.

Let’s Pray.

©2018 Rev. Mike Moffitt

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