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No Ordinary Bread                        John 6: 51-58                   August 16, 09

"You are what you eat" is a catchy phrase that has been part of our common language for more than a century.

These days, it's usually evoked to encourage healthy living and nutrition. Books with that phrase in the title are almost always either health-food cookbooks or diet books, and, while I must admit I've never seen it, I gather that there's a television show by that same name that is all about healthy eating. It's a show that is very popular in Britain and available on BBC America, the cable TV channel for folks who like to stay up late at night watching Monty Python re-runs.

I was reminded of that phrase, recently, when Kris and I went to see the new Meryl Streep movie, Julie and Julia.

No one in Julie and Julia ever actually says, "You are what you eat." But this totally enjoyable movie, about the life of food writer and TV chef Julia Child and her connection to a year in the life of a young New York cubical-dweller named Julie Powell, who decides to prepare all 524 recipes in Julia's bestselling book Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year; this movie is all about eating and drinking and cooking and, more importantly, about the ways that food is connected to life.

There is no more profound example of that truth - that food is connected to life - than the meal we are about to share.

Our Gospel Lesson for today is a very difficult passage of Scripture, as Jesus' disciples correctly point out in the verse that immediately follows our text.

I know there are some Roman Catholics here this morning - and maybe even some former Roman Catholics - who would say, OK, Jesus said, "those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life." What's the problem with that? That is exactly what we do at Mass each Sunday.

For those us of the Protestant persuasion, though, the image conjured up by the notion of eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood makes us more than a little uncomfortable. Even though we use the words Jesus spoke at his last supper when we bless the communion elements - words that we can recite from memory: "Jesus said: Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you," many of us tend to emphasize the next phrase in the passage from 1 Corinthians where these words of institution are written: "do this in remembrance of me."

For many of us, Holy Communion is primarily a meal in commemoration of Jesus' death. Nothing more. And as a Good Moravian, I must say to you, as we prepare to gather around this table this morning, if that's your conviction, then that is absolutely OK.

But having said that, let me share a somewhat different perspective with you.

For John, the author of the Gospel we read today and have been reading for the past month; for John, the bread we share today is more than just bread, and the fruit of the vine is more than just unfermented wine. For John, when we eat this bread and drink this cup, we experience the presence of Jesus more perfectly than in any other time in our worship.

I think John would agree that we are what we eat. He uses bread metaphor after bread metaphor in his Gospel. The manna in the wilderness, the Word of God that gives life, the multiplication of the five loaves; all of these images point to the meal we share today when, to use Jesus' own words, we eat his flesh and drink his blood.

And when we do that, John tells us in no uncertain terms, "we abide in Jesus and he abides in us."

So for many of us - and I fall into this group myself - communion is not primarily a remembrance. It is a meal of Jesus' presence. A meal like no other. A meal that truly conveys God's grace to all of us who participate. Again, to use Jesus' own words, "the one who eats this bread will live forever."

As I mentioned before, today we will not be sharing a loaf of the kind of bread we usually eat. There are two reasons why.

First, we are using unleavened bread, today, to remind us that Jesus and his disciples gathered for their last supper together during Passover. So the bread they ate was unleavened. And so is ours.

While that is not insignificant, it is not the most important reason.

The most important reason we are using unleavened bread today is to remind us - as I believe we must be reminded, from time to time - that this bread that we eat is anything but ordinary.

My friends, may we never forget, as John tells us in our text for today, that there is no other time in our life that we will have a closer connection to our Savior than when we eat and drink this particular bread and drink this particular wine.

We are what we eat, after all, and food can change us. May we be truly blessed - and changed - by sharing in this extraordinary meal.

                                                                             AMEN

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