Corpus Christi, August 23, 2015
Jos 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b; Eph 5:21-32; John 6:60-69
Longview

Today is the fourth Sunday in a row devoted to the Bread of Life discourse of Jesus in chapter six of the Gospel of John.  We are so used to Mass and to communion that it is not easy for us to understand what the problem was, and why this Gospel passage reports that many of Jesus’ disciples stopped following him and went back home after this discourse.  But if we think about it, actually eating a person’s body and drinking his blood would seem weird and totally disgusting if somebody were to suggest it today.

It sounds a lot like cannibalism, which is taboo in most cultures.  Now, we don’t usually think of taking communion as cannibalism, but I have actually seen a website in which an outraged young ex-Catholic complains bitterly that the Church turned him into a cannibal by making him eat the body of Christ.  (I’m not making this up!)  Of course, it’s not cannibalism.  We’re talking about symbolic actions with a deeply spiritual meaning.

Then there is drinking the blood of Christ.  Drinking any blood has a major yuck factor for us.  For Jews, even eating blood is absolutely taboo.  Here is what the biblical book of Leviticus has to say about consuming the blood of birds and animals: “If anyone of the house of Israel or of the aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood, and will cut that person off from the people.  For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement”  (Lev 17:10-11).  That is, the blood was poured on the altar as an offering to God.  This taboo from Leviticus 17 is absolute and it is still a cornerstone of kosher food preparation.

When you consider that this discourse is given by Jesus, who is a rabbi, in a synagogue in Galilee, it sounds as if he is telling people to violate God’s law.  It sounds like blasphemous, anti-biblical teaching.  Today’s Gospel tells us that even Jesus’ closest disciples were shaken by this discourse.  So why did Christians of the first century insist on the importance of eating the body and blood of Christ, albeit in symbolic form?

The key can be found in Leviticus 17:14, a few verses after the first passage I quote.  It says, “For the life of every creature—its blood is its life; therefore I have said to the people of Israel: You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood….”  The blood is not taboo because it is dirty or disgusting.  Rather, blood is life and therefore holy.  It belongs to God, who gives life.

“So, when Jesus says that his followers are to drink his blood, what he’s saying in the ancient biblical language of Leviticus is: take my life, and pour it into your bodies, your lives, your souls.  And because he pours his eternal-life-blood into our life, we then are the recipients of eternal life ourselves, because Jesus’ own life is coursing in our veins.”[1]

That is also why Christians have always held that the church is the mystical body of Christ.  His life lives in us.  So when we take communion, we are taking the life of Jesus into ourselves.  This is not a magical effect of communion, but rather communion is a symbolic act and a sign of what is really going on here.

When Jesus asks if his closest disciples will leave him too because of this discourse, they answer, “Where would we go?  You have the words of everlasting life.”  That sentence, “You have the words of everlasting life,” is repeated at every Mass to introduce the reading of the Gospel.  We live by the Word of God and the life of Jesus.

So here we are at this communion service.  We listen to the word of God in scripture, and Jesus feeds us with his own eternal life in communion (even if we don’t actually drink from the cup in this communion service).  We are being fed with what is holy, so that we may be holy and may enjoy eternal life.

[1] The association with Leviticus and in particular this paragraph are taken from Rick Morley, “The Bloody Truth,” from chapter 10 of his book Going to Hell, Getting Saved, http://www.rickmorley.com/archives/1880.