(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “PB&J, Holy Communion & The Olympics”, originally shared on August 9, 2021. It was the 138th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
We have concord grapes growing in our back
yard. They were here when we bought the house. The old wood is huge, and the
vines have kind of entwined themselves with many other forms of foliage. The
grapes are sweet and remind me of the jelly on my favorite sandwich, peanut
butter and jelly, or PB&J. Which reminds me of Holy Communion. Oh, and the
Olympics. Today, we’re going to look at how those are all connected.
Next Sunday will be the fifth Sunday in a
row in which the main theme of the Gospel lessons, at this point in the series
of readings for worship in the vast majority of churches in the world, will
center around bread.
One of my favorite lunches is centered
around bread. It’s a sandwich, usually made with a fresh whole wheat bread,
though a nice double-baked rye bread with caraway seeds is good too. Inside the
sandwich is extra-crunchy peanut butter and Welch’s grape jelly. That Welch is
no relation to my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.
I like the texture of the bread, the earthy
substance and crunch of the peanut butter and, though I’ve mostly lost my sweet
tooth over the years, the sweet freshness of the concord grape jelly.
In John, Chapter 6, verse 51, we see:
51 I am the living
bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Jesus is the food that everyone knows. Bread.
But bread will only feed us for this life. Jesus gives us the bread of life
that will endure forever. Himself. Jesus Christ. Crucified.
The text that follows takes us into deep
water and surface currents of metaphor, in verses 52 through 57:
52 The Jews then
disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to
eat?” 53 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. 54 Those who eat my flesh and drink
my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55 for
my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 Those
who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57 Just
as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats
me will live because of me.
So, what is he talking about here? “The Jews” refers to the Jewish
leaders, as everybody around Jesus was Jewish. The leaders argued among
themselves about what Jesus was saying. And with good reason.
The early Christians were accused of cannibalism by their ignorant or
hostile opponents. Even today Christians in places where Christianity is newly
forming are accused of the same thing.
We know that the forms of bread and wine in the Sacrament (sacred event)
of Holy Communion don’t chemically change even as Jesus is present in, with,
and under those forms.
But whatever we believe about the mechanics of Holy Communion, we
believe it is holy communion. We commune with the one true holy God in a
sacrament begun and commanded by Jesus Christ. In this sacrament, as 16th
century Church reformer Martin Luther writes in his Small Catechism, “we
receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. For where there is
forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.”
If eating bread and drinking wine did that by itself, we’d have a lot of
saved people in this world, but it is not just eating and drinking. Luther
says, “It is not eating and drinking that does this, but the words, given
and shed for you for the remission of sins. [He puts those words in bold]
These words, “he says,” along with eating and drinking are the main thing in
the sacrament. And whoever believes these words has exactly what they say,
forgiveness of sins.”
When we eat the bread (in whatever form) and drink the wine (or grape
juice) we receive something incredible. We receive forgiveness of sins, life
and salvation. God is present in the forms of bread and wine so that we may
receive these things. We commune with God!
Jesus says, “Very
truly, I tell you,” words he uses when making
an official pronouncement, “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.”
What does Jesus say he came to bring, in John 10:10? “The thief comes only to steal and kill
and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
Life. Abundant life. Eternal life.
Bread, peanut butter, and jelly make a great sandwich in which, as with
many sandwiches, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, especially
when the meal comes with memories.
Jesus brings life because of the gift of himself, fully God as well as
fully human being, on the cross, for us. He commanded us to “do this for the
remembrance of me” in receiving Holy Communion. The presence of Jesus in Holy
Communion comes not only with memories, however, but with the living present
reality of Jesus right now. “Remembrance” brings the past into the present. It
is communion with God. For forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. All these
things are given in the forms of bread and wine that we eat and drink as Jesus
flesh and blood given for us on the cross. Life in Jesus, the bread of life
that endures forever is given for you.
This text from John concludes with the words of Jesus in verse 58:
58 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 forever.”
Jesus’ presence is not a metaphor, it’s
literally Jesus’ presence even though we aren’t eating flesh and blood.
The bread of the ancestors of the Jewish
people was manna, the dew-like substance that would spoil in a day that God
gave to the children of Israel to eat after he had liberated them from slavery
in Egypt. The ate it in the desert, waiting for the promises of God. They
learned that God would provide for them, and they learned to trust God.
Jesus is the bread that came down from
heaven that lasts forever.
The Tokyo Summer Olympics have been going on
now for a while and ended yesterday. There were many medal-worthy performances
and exciting competitions. And there were gold-medal commercials. The ad with
the Paralympic swimmer was my favorite.
Maybe you saw on the news that a study of
1,000 people, a pretty good sample, showed that 40% overall, with 60% of men
and 20% of women, believed that they were in good enough shape to compete in an
Olympic event. Were they all thinking of Curling? Maybe they meant that they
could finish an Olympic event. Maybe they were not aware that the
Olympics have qualifying standards? Or maybe that was just a test to identify
the delusional. 😊
The ancient Olympic Games began in 776 B.C.
and ended in 393 A.D. They were a big deal and Olympic sports would have been
familiar to Paul.
Athletes didn’t compete for medals, but for
a crown of olive or laurel leaves. That’s where our expression for “honors” of
“laurels” comes from.
Paul refers to Olympic sports more than once
in the New Testament, but I’d just like to highlight one, 1 Corinthians
9:24-27:
24 Do you not know
that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in
such a way that you may win it. 25 Athletes
exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath,
but we an imperishable one. 26 So I do not run
aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; 27 but
I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself
should not be disqualified.
Notice that Paul didn’t describe athletic
events from the point of view of a spectator, but as a participant.
When we go to the altar to literally, and I
mean literally, commune with God, our only attitude can be humility and
gratitude. We are not spectators. We are actively receiving forgiveness of
sins, life and salvation, as gifts!
We can only respond to God’s gifts with
worship. Worship.
Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher
and theologian, once reflected on people who go to a worship service and sit
there as spectators, as at a movie or a play. They expect to get something. But
that’s consumerism, not worship.
The question to ask, Kierkegaard said, when
worship is over is not, “What did I get out of that?” but “How did I do?”
There are a lot of people in the L.A.
area, and every one of them needs to be fed or they will die, and that death
will be final and eternal. I like PB&J, but it will perish, and no matter
how many I eat in the meantime, I will get hungry again.
There are a lot of Christians in the L.A. area, and we all need to be
regularly fed by God’s Word and Sacraments. The good news is that though we too
will die, our eternal life has already begun in our Baptism. In terms of
salvation, we have already died in our Baptism. We are nourished at God’s Holy
Table, and we receive God’s Word gladly whenever we gather. In the Christian
life, everything else is a response to these gifts, including most of the time
we spend together. We gather to receive the bread of life. And we get
spiritually obese unless we live and worship God in response to what God has
given us.
D. T. Niles, the Celanese (or, today Sri Lankan) evangelist, ecumenical
leader, and hymn writer, once said, “Evangelism is just one beggar telling
another beggar where to find bread”.
Church reformer Martin Luther said almost the same thing, “We are all
mere beggars telling other beggars where to find bread”.
Let’s think about that for a minute. “Evangelism is just one beggar
telling another beggar where to find bread.” Does that language seem too harsh?
It’s certainly not popular.
That is all we can do when we share our faith, but that bread is the
bread is life. It’s Jesus. The bread that came down from heaven and will endure
forever.
Do we think of ourselves as fully deserving or our salvation because we
are good people? Or do we see ourselves as beggars, as sinners deserving only
punishment but receiving only grace from a loving God who died on a cross in
order to reconcile humanity through the living relationship that only the one,
true living God can give?
A PB&J sandwich will nourish us for a
limited time. Holy Communion is communion with God in the present and is an
appetizer for the eternal feast that is to come. We live and work like an
Olympic athlete in response to what God has given us at the cross: an
imperishable crown of forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.
Receive those gifts from God and respond to God with a life of worship this Sunday and every day. Forever.
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