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| Church hike today:) |
I wanted to share my sermon from today. It's not particularly brilliant, but I do think it's a faithful beginning to a vital conversation.
I'm slightly obsessed with the doctrine of the "real presence" in communion so below is my sermon and notes. I do believe Becky posts the audio sermon on Mondays, but I've charged the congregation with contemplating the mystery of real presence so I wanted to share the text for reference.
Text: John 6:24-35
Title: Real Presence
Date: August 5, 2018
We are going to spend the next three weeks on some of the most scandalous passages about Jesus. The crowds want Jesus to be their monkey. They want him to perform all his tricks healing and feeding people; meeting the inexhaustible needs of humanity. I think we often still want this out of God. Perform when I need something; leave me alone when I don’t.
So in response to the crowds’ demand for a performance, Jesus says something gross and offensive. Way to go Jesus. The very end of our reading says, “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” That doesn’t sound so bad but then he goes into detail about people eating his flesh and drinking his blood and folks kind of freak out. Ask Jesus to be your monkey again.
But, here we are left with some scandalous and offensive aspects to our faith, which are also the most intimate, beautiful, mysterious and real parts of our lives with God. There was such a drive after the Enlightenment for faith to make sense that the church kind of watered everything down so it was more palatable but completely disconnected from the mess and chaos we know as life.
There are two teachings of our faith that I love, but are way too neglected. I love the trinity. I love that my faith defines God as a relationship, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a mutual outpouring of love, creativity, and life. There’s lots I could say about the nature of God; how we think about God has profound repercussions in how we love God and participate in meaningful relationship with God and the world.
But the other teaching that is often neglected and has far more bearing on our reading today is the doctrine of real presence. As Lutherans along with many of the historical and orthodox churches we proclaim that the risen Christ is truly present in, with and under the bread and wine. Jesus says he is the bread of life, he later says this is my body, this is my blood, and we take him at his word and as much as all that makes us go huh, it’s a vital teaching that keeps us from the trap of spirituality.
I would argue that one of the worst things to happen to modern Christianity is spirituality. I have no desire for you all to be more spiritual, especially if it means in some way disconnecting from your body and the world around you. I have every desire to see us all grow through the power of the holy spirit into showing up as our whole selves ready to love and forgive in the flesh as we are loved and forgiven. Spirituality in its popular form feels to me like an escape from this world, that’s not what I see revealed in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.
Okay, I printed some study notes for you and don’t fret if they don’t make sense, I just don’t want you to think I’m pulling this stuff out of Mad magazine. Jesus’ identity as the bread of life is deeply intertwined with the early church’s understanding that he shows up in the community when the bread is broken and the wine is poured. It’s not a symbol or a warm fuzzy feeling but we believe Jesus shows up.
I want to read through these bullet points.
- In that the bread and cup are given, there is a body present that is Jesus, and there is a body present that is the community, and a person’s relation to the one is not distinguishable from that person’s relation to the other.
- The risen Jesus is a real person and if he is actually present he is an object among us: We can locate him, turn to him, even affect him
- That the present risen Christ is not a disembodied pure spirit, that he is spirit and body among us, is a vital promise of the gospel. It is the gospel’s visibility
- We encounter Christ though he is bodily absent in a bodily way
That’s all good stuff. Keep rereading those points, but basically, when we do this, break the bread and share the cup, when we come in our vulnerability and brokenness to be fed and made whole, Christ promises to be present. If you want to see Jesus take down the pictures, especially the pasty white ones, and come to the table.
When we talk about the real presence, it’s not about magic, or grossness, but the nature of a God who loves. It’s not about a God who is floating around disconnected, an ethereal mist always shaming us for our aching knees and obnoxious bodily functions. This is a God who chooses to dwell and love in the particularity of the flesh. Because love is only real when it is has skin on it. It’s not a general sense of warmth for humanity, it’s forgiving and loving when the human next to you chews with their mouth open, or says hurtful things, or votes for someone different, or makes you angry, or makes you laugh so milk flies out your nose, or makes every cell tingle, or holds your hand. Love is the nitty gritty of life, not escaping it.
But what do we mean when we talk about the real presence?
Two ways to be present:
- Something may be in a place by occupying the dimensions that define that place. God is not present in this way.
- A person may be somewhere in that he or she is available there, intendable and addressable there. In this way, says Luther, Christ’s body is where the the bread and cup are, and this place can be any place, in that all places are one to Christ
What’s helpful in the Lutheran reformers is they didn’t argue about whether the bread grew veins or when exactly the wine became blood, that’s not the way they thought of real presence. We don’t think of God’s presence as matter taking up space, but under number 2 “a person may be present somewhere if they are available, intendable (they have an intended purpose) and addressable there. In this way, says Luther, Christ’s body is where the bread and cup are and where the word of good news is.
Then the final paragraph from your notes, “The bodily risen Christ in fact has no other body than the embodiment of the gospel, including and self proclaimed by the bread and cup, for his location at God’s omnipresent right hand is simply his sharing in God’s possibility of making himself available where God wills” That’s brilliant and life altering even if you don’t get it.
The risen Jesus isn’t sitting on some chair in space staring at you. We encounter the risen Christ, we encounter God when we experience the good news that we are forgiven, healed, set free, fed, brought into right relationship, encouraged, and loved. It’s not like the good news of what God is doing is just one thing, but all that good news comes in the flesh, primarily in the bread and cup at this table, in the community gathered around the table but also in the tables throughout our lives. God shows up, the ultimate reality of love and life are visibly present. And I want you to spend some time thinking about that this week. What is God and how is God showing up?
Doctrine of the Real Presence
Some notes and thoughts from Christian Dogmatics: The Means of Grace by Robert Jensen and Hans Schwarz
Person here means “capacity for freedom, consciousness and relationship.”
Embodiment: Whatever makes a person available to and intendable (having an intended purpose) by other people is that person’s body.
- In that the bread and cup are given, there is a body present that is Jesus, and there is a body present that is the community, and a person’s relation to the one is not distinguishable from that person’s relation to the other.
- The risen Jesus is a real person and if he is actually present he is an object among us: We can locate him, turn to him, even affect him
- That the present risen Christ is not a disembodied pure spirit, that he is spirit and body among us, is a vital promise of the gospel. It is the gospel’s visibility
- We encounter Christ though he is bodily absent in a bodily way
Two ways to be present:
- Something may be in a place by occupying the dimensions that define that place. God is not present in this way.
- A person may be somewhere in that he or she is available there, intendable and addressable there. In this way, says Luther, Christ’s body is where the the bread and cup are, and this place can be any place, in that all places are one to Christ
The bodily risen Christ in fact has no other body than the embodiment of the gospel, including and self proclaimed by the bread and cup, for his location at God’s omnipresent right hand is simply his sharing in God’s possibility of making himself available where God wills
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