Joshua 24:1–2a, 14–18
Psalm 34:15–22
Ephesians 6:10–20
John 6:56–69
Year B
I.N.I.
Every December, growing up in central New Jersey, as the days grew nearer to Christmas, inevitably, the doorbell to our split-level home on Fairview Drive would ring. Somehow it’s etched in my memory that one year I was the one to answer the door to be greeted by the skinny, wrinkly-faced Adelaide Junchen. This was her annual visit to the pastor’s house. Adelaide and her husband were simple, plain-spoken folks, first-generation immigrants from Germany who were faithful servants of Christ. But gregarious, or outgoing would not describe Adelaide. Meek and mild fit her to a tee. And here’s how the annual encounter would go, with me opening the door, seeing Mrs. Junchen, saying “hi,” and Adelaide only extending her gift toward me with her head slightly bowed, and once the pass had been made and my responding “thank you” had barely been uttered Adelaide did an about-face and practically bolted for her car. She was, as I said, not gregarious but meek and mild.
And I held it, the homemade stollen, a traditional German sweetbread, Adelaide’s being filled with raisins and sprinkled with powered sugar on top. It was not to be missed. It connected me with my German ancestors, who surely delighted in the arrival of stollen baked by those like Adelaide who made it their mission to gift others with the delicacy. It connected me with my family, who at Christmastime like no other time delighted in homemade baked goods. It connected me to the erstwhile tight-lipped but loving Junchens, who shared their love with the pastor’s family in concrete ways. Ah, stollen, a bread that conjures up memory and community!
The same could be said for the tasting and sharing of communion bread, and it has. It is a meal that brings to memory Jesus’ life and in the communing, the eating drinking, unites us with others who have a stake in Jesus’ life.
But beyond memory, our gathering and indeed our very identity through our weekly communion has implications for the present. Just who are the ones who are eating and drinking the sacrament? What effect does this eating and drinking have for the life of the world? Are we really and truly chewing on the Christ who breaks into present reality and continues to transform ideologies and confront the demonic?
If so, I say whoa. Maybe I shouldn’t so willingly accept the gift. It can be pretty daunting, because this Jesus is not meek and mild but also challenging and cautionary.
This is the gist of how the disciples respond at the end of John chapter 6. Sure they had seen thousands of people fed at Jesus’ prompting from just a few morsels. That was wow enough. But Jesus continued to talk about how his own connection to God and own connection to the world were important to understand. This muddied the waters for those who thought they knew Jesus as their homeboy. How could he come from heaven? How could he give his own flesh to eat?
By the end of the chapter, we are not led to applaud but to scratch our heads and wonder, what exactly am I eating anyway? And it led some to pull back after the whizz bang of the miracle had worn off.
Hanging in there is tough when certainty is not a given, when the sweetness of the gift also makes a demand for your own allegiance, perhaps against your better judgment.
The community of Christ is not a back slapping fraternity, nor a German Club, but a mystical and radical reordering of who is invited to eat and drink, to belong. It’s like being at a family dinner and discovering the strangest new relation who just arrived is not at all like you expect, but she is making herself at home and even hitting it off with Grandpa.
It seems that Jesus’ is desire to connect his followers with the Father, and making that connection is spoken of in terms of eating his own flesh and drinking his own blood. Jesus’ words about mingling bread with himself and contrasting it with the memory of manna gives pause to those who have been his traveling companions.
Can you trust Jesus’ words? Can you trust his leadership? Is he some great teacher, a miracle worker, or just a whacko that stirs up crowds like a rock god and then moves to a different city?
I think it must be said that given this scenario, being a follower of Jesus is not for the feint of heart. Or is it? Why do some fade away from their discipleship, while other stay with it?
How does one adequately describe why or how they hang their hats on the Christian movement? What difference does it make?
Jesus in John does not shrink from those who leave or from those who are threatening to betray him. This is the cautionary part, not for the feint at heart. When faced with challenges, with inexplicable griefs, with changes in society and even in the church going in directions you could never have imagined, do you leave? Peter has a response that I think reveals the honesty of one who finally sees the gift in front of him for what it is and no longer protests—“Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68-69)
It’s when Peter is down on the mat and sees his teacher as if for the first time as someone greater than any other rabbi—Peter says something like “Jesus, when you speak, it’s like eating and drinking life itself. As I have been following you and knowing you, it’s like you are as Holy as God is holy.”
It is our gift and our challenge to continue to see the holy and the Holy One in our midst. The stollen that my family or origin received from Adelaide Junchen was clearly a holy gift. The ways of being the church in 2009 have both gifts and challenges. We are on the horizon of our Fall planning, where we will be invited to consider exploring our faith through a new resource called Akaloo. The intent is for all ages to be exploring the biblical message at the same time through a variety of learning methods. We are even renaming our education ministry to more aptly describe our activity, which is Faith Exploration Ministry. We are also continuing to ask how we can be more inviting, how we might welcome a wider array of our community, including gay and lesbian people. This will come through yet another resource for study and conversation from Lutherans Concerned of North America. We will continue to advocate for justice in our participation in the Anne Marie House Walk/Run in September and the CROP Walk for Hunger in October, our concern for refugee resettlement, and our in prayers of accompaniment for Lutherans in the Middle East and Honduras.
My invitation for you is to receive these as opportunities to deepen our sense of being Christ-centered. Even as we eat and drink to take Christ in, we go out to bring Christ to others. This community, Christ the King Lutheran Church is not a fraternity or a club but a holy congregation that stakes its identity on the one who went to great lengths to reveal God in the world.
Let us choose words that give life. Let us eat and drink the sacrament of love and forgiveness. Let us connect our stories and our actions with Jesus who continues to gives his life to us and for the sake of others so in of mercy, a word of kindness, a gift of bread to eat, which becomes holy and blessed and precious.
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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