Gospel: John 6:51-58
19 August 2018
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| Recorder practice at Trinity Episcopal School, Galveston 2017 Archive Photo "Mastery requires practice." |
Today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures speaks of Wisdom personified. Wisdom is metaphorically portrayed as a woman who has prepared a lavish banquet of meat, bread, and wine. She attends to every detail from the very beginning with the construction of the house itself, the preparation of the food, and even to wording the invitation. She sends out her invitation broadly to all those who desire understanding. Before the reading concludes, we see that eating the bread and the drinking the wine are metaphors for the way life is lived.
Being wise involves laying aside the gratification of childish, knee jerk impulses. Following the way of Wisdom means conducting oneself in a principled way. Our ancestors in faith passed on to us a Wisdom tradition that stressed virtue and character...a tradition where the ends do not justify the means...a tradition that how you act, how you conduct yourself truly matters. Eating of Wisdom’s banquet, then, is practicing a life of virtue. There is a difference between a superficial knowledge of right and wrong and a deep knowledge born of practice... of “owning” a life of character, so to speak,….of being so confident in the good that the skills of virtue are readily accessible in life’s toolkit. Honesty, self-control, courage, compassion, perseverance, sacrifice, justice, integrity, hope, faith, and love come to mind as virtues that are strengthened with practice even if never completely mastered in this lifetime.
Our world, the soup in which we live, has other voices inviting us to forgo Wisdom's banquet to live not according to reason but according to our basest appetites, impulses, and the fear-driven compulsion to win regardless of the cost.
When I was in college at Sewanee, I took a summer job in Louisiana. I was on the road as a salesman for a wholesaler that sold Citgo oil products. After one of my road trips, while looking for a purchase order in a company office, I discovered file cabinets full of large self-stick labels including labels for Exxon, Shell, and Mobile. On another occasion, I was walking through the back warehouse and noticed some workers painting oil drums a bright yellow color. I asked my supervisor why these drums were being painted. He matter-of-factly told me that these were barrels that would be labeled as Shell Oil. As it turns out, this company sold only one kind of oil, Citgo, but would misrepresent the product as coming from various other companies, anything to increase sales. I was told that the company motto was “You have to get other people before they get you.” He went on to say, “College is only useful up to a point, because your employer will be the one to tell you what to think.” Even as a young man, I believed an education’s purpose was to help you think for yourself. I knew the company motto was flawed and I felt guilty...there’s no way around it...I had participated in lying to customers that summer. At least I was a little less naive, for the experience, about the ways of the world. There were people in this world who would lie to you and not think twice about it...to them it was just vigorous business competition. I was never more ready to get back to school!
In our Gospel reading, continuing from previous Sundays, Jesus is commenting on the Feeding of the 5,000. Only now, the language of the meal changes dramatically. In this discourse, the canonical Gospel According to John now shows us a shift in metaphor from the “bread that came down from heaven,” that is, the incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth….to a new set of metaphors, an invitation to “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood.” In these words, we have moved from considering the abiding presence of Jesus to, more specifically, Jesus’ sacrifice of himself on the Cross. The words about Jesus’ flesh and blood would certainly remind early Christians of the Cross and the worshipful practice we have come to know as Holy Communion. The followers of Jesus were invited to more than a superficial knowledge of Jesus' sacrifice. In the meal of Christ's body and blood, followers were invited into God’s time, so to speak, to practice being at the foot of the Cross.
The body and blood are a special kind of metaphor...these are symbols that participate in the reality to which they point. In Holy Communion, Christians are invited to recognize that, by our sins, we too are guilty of abandoning Jesus to his death. Only by participating at the foot of the Cross...by eating Jesus’ body and blood with open hearts, do we receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life. In communion, the act of eating means not only owning our guilt, but also that we accept forgiveness of sins, that we accept the power of God in our lives, that we accept the invitation once again to go forth from this place to live according to the teachings of our savior to abide by the commandment of love.
Learning things like math, music, writing, and virtuous living; these all require practice in order to be successful. It is no different with Jesus’ invitation to Holy Communion. Although His sacrifice on the Cross was once and for all, as human learners, in order to grow in the ability to receive forgiveness, the ability to walk in the presence of God, the ability to love others as we have been first loved, the ability to trust in eternal life, all of these skills require practice and grace. As disciples we are invited regularly to repeat the act of receiving the very life of God in the foretaste of the heavenly banquet we call Holy Communion. By repeatedly experiencing God’s forgiveness at the altar rail, may the power to forgive others, in turn, have a lasting place in our hearts. AMEN.
