FLESH AND BLOOD

7 4 10

JOHN 6:51-58

ANTHONY E.ACHESON, M.DIV.

If someone were to hear this reading from John chapter 6 for the first time, in today’s modern, or post-modern, world it would, I think, sound very strange. It still may sound strange to us too, although I think for us the strangeness is mitigated by the fact that most of us have heard these words many times, and we have become a bit inured to them because of that familiarity, and because they are ‘Scripture.’

In order to have a better understanding of this passage I’d like to begin by placing John’s gospel in some historical perspective. It is believed by most scholars that John was the last of the 4 gospels in the Bible to be written, somewhere around the year 100 at the very end of John’s life, or perhaps even after John’s life by members of his school who were representing what he may have passed on orally to them of Jesus’ teachings. This Gospel of John is also the one which clearly contains the most interpretation of the doings and teachings of Jesus, by contrast, say, with the Gospel of Mark, which was almost certainly written first and appears to have the most detail and the most historical accuracy.

One of the most commonly used commentaries on the Bible is by a Methodist minister named William Barclay. He points out that during the days of Jesus’ physical life, when pagans sacrificed an animal to their gods, they did not burn the entire animal. A portion was given to the priests, and another part was kept by the worshiper who had offered the sacrifice to make a feast for himself, or herself, and their friends within the temple precincts. At that feast the god in question was itself considered to be a guest. Once the flesh was offered to the god, they believed that the god itself had come and entered into it; and therefore, when the worshipers ate of it, they were literally eating the god. When the guests rose from the table, they went out feeling that they were indeed filled with god or, ‘god-filled’ because they had eaten the very flesh of their god.

In addition to those pagan beliefs, other prominent expressions of religion in the Mediterranean world of Jesus’ time were those that we now refer to as Mystery Religions. The worship of these Mystery Religions revolved heavily around passion plays, stories acted out dramatically, about a god who had lived and suffered terribly, and who had died and rose again. This same pattern of the dying and rising god was a major factor, for example, in the Greek worship of the god Dionysus. We get one of our main depictions of these rituals in the Greek playwright Euripides’ drama called the Bacchae which some of us might remember reading from our college days. New believers in these Greek Mystery Religions were carefully prepared to watch the play, and as they did, the idea was that under the inspiration of the play they would be elevated into a mental state in which they felt they had became one with the god. They shared the sorrows and the griefs, the death and the resurrection. They and the god became one forever, and they believed that they were then safe in life and in death.

Thus, these ancient people knew all about the striving, the longing, the dreaming for mystical unity with their god and for the bliss of taking that god into themselves. Phrases, therefore, like eating Christ’s body and drinking his blood which sound so bizarre to 21st century westerners, would not sound particularly shocking to the people of Jesus’ world and time. Those people would already have a sense of something of that ineffable experience of union, closer than any earthly union, of which these words speak. And so it was that the early Christians–most especially John, as we’ve heard it today, were adopting and adapting the thought-forms of their day and era to clothe the message of the risen Christ that was such a real and redeeming part of their life-experience.

As I mentioned earlier, John’s gospel was the last one written. John had been reflecting on Jesus’ life for almost seventy years. So in his gospel, he is not so much providing us with a literal account of the actual words of Jesus, but rather, an interpretation of their inner significance. So, from John’s perspective, what does Christ mean when he tells us to eat his body and drink his blood? In being invited to symbolically eat his body we are invited to enter into Christ’s complete humanity.

In being invited to symbolically drink his blood, we must remember that in Jewish thought, the blood represents life itself, for without blood, we are dead, and blood belonged to God. That is why to this day a true Jewish believer will not eat any meat which has not been completely drained of any blood, hence the meaning of kosher. When Jesus says that we must drink his blood, he means that we must take the essence of what was unique and special and powerful about his life into the very core of our life.  Like any life experience, whether a trip to a part of the world we have never seen before, or perhaps a favorite book, something must be internalized before we can experience its wonder and excitement. As an example, there are many people who have a favorite book, who read that book several times–read it over and over. And when you do that you are drawing whatever it is that speaks to you in that book into yourself. It becomes part of you and you of it.

So it is with Christ. He is merely a name in a book unless we feed on his life and let him into our hearts. This is at least part of what is meant by eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Through reading, through worship, through prayer, through meditation, through communion, through spiritual discussion, or emotionally honest conversation and study, through acts of service, through the expression of our commitment in the larger world; through all of these things we feed our hearts and minds and souls on the real presence of the sacred, and we revitalize our lives with his life until, like the pagans, we are filled with the life and the Reality of the Divine Presence.

During the Second World War, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a courageous Lutheran Pastor whose resistance to the Nazis led to his death. In 1945, just before his execution by the Nazis, Bonhoeffer celebrated the Eucharist for one final time.  In their confinement, he and his cell-mates had no bread.  And they certainly didn’t have any wine. In that final communion, when Bonhoeffer came to the consecration of the elements, he prayed: “This is the bread we do not have. This is the wine we do not have.  But this is the Christ we will always have which can never be taken from us.”

That sums up succinctly what John is telling us in these towering words form chapter 6 of his gospel. John is telling us that in drawing near to Christ and in allowing the Christic energy and Presence to enter in us, we are letting in a profoundly real and profoundly powerful spiritual presence, that has the ability and the potential to nourish us and feed us and empower us far beyond any physical food or material possession.

I pray that all of us will truly take these truths, and the nourishment of this table, to heart in the hours and days ahead, and in each and every time we come to worship and approach the living Christ. In whose name we pray it. Amen.

MENTAL HEADLINES

6 27 10

MARK 6:30-34

ANTHONY E.ACHESON, M.DIV.

Criticizing contemporary culture and modern life is a favorite preoccupation of many preachers, sometimes including the one you are listening to right now. Even though I can be a frequent critic of contemporary culture, there are certainly times when I am drawn into its fascinations. Like millions of other Americans, I do my share of celebrity watching, buy my share of copies of People magazine; or sneak a furtive glance at the Globe when I’m in line at the Grand Union. (And, no, I’m not referring to the Boston Globe).

We all get fascinated sometimes by the buzz that comes up in contemporary culture. The buzz of what is new and fashionable in the world of highly visible and glamorous people. We may stay up late and watch award shows and then turn around and be the first to criticize the stars the next day. We may wonder aloud - I wonder why such and so has had so bad of a drug problem, and why so and such has filed for bankruptcy, and the star of this or that show once tried to commit suicide, and she over there was convicted of drunken driving last summer but had an expensive lawyer and didn’t serve any time for it.

In their efforts to create a large market for films, books, and recorded music, publicists routinely spend thousands - even millions of dollars - to acquire what we, today, refer to as having this kind of buzz around them. As long as people are talking about the celebrities of today, and participating in this phenomenon of creating ‘buzz,’ they remain prominent in the headlines, in order that they may have a place in our consciousness, in our minds and awareness in the arena of what might be called our own inner mental headlines.

When I refer to our own inner mental headlines, I’m referring to the way we give prominent attention to things within our own minds, to whatever it may be that we consider to be immediately important, which often is a way of being drawn in or sucked in to what our culture considers to be immediately important. At movie theaters, or for Broadway shows, they frequently have a big marquis to headline what movie is playing or what show is being performed. Our own inner mental headlines are whatever it is that we lift up in our own psychological marquis, whenever we give prominent attention to what we hold to be important to us, which often is based on what we have heard or envisioned or experienced, as I mentioned a moment ago, in the culture around us. This is the psychological phenomenon that is being manipulated by those who are trying to create buzz around themselves or around their clients. This is the ultimate source of such buzz: whatever it is that we allow to occupy our own minds; whatever it is that we allow to become our own preoccupations.

One of the most important issues that all of us face is what do we allow to be influences as to what we really think about? What do we allow to be influences as to what we allow to be primary, or what we allow to be predominant in our consciousness. In the story we heard a couple minutes ago from Mark 6, Jesus and his disciples in that story -and clearly throughout Jesus’ public life - they clearly were the focus of the equivalent of lots of intense public speculation. You might say it was a form of ‘buzz’ going on in their day, in their culture. It sure sounds like they had made their way into many people’s inner mental headlines when we read in Mark 6:33 “Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them.” It could be similar to what a lot of paparazzi and culture followers do in our time.

The events described in Mark 6 are all happening at a time when Jesus and his disciples are looking for a lonely place separate from the demands of the crowds; a place where they can rest; where they can come back to center, and deal with the fatigue of the recent trip the disciples had taken two by two.

Jesus had only recently sent them out on this initial voyage. We are told in Verse 13 they had been successful in their healings, which must have meant that they themselves had begun to attain a certain kind of celebrity, even distinct from Jesus.’  I can’t help but wonder about the inner mental headlines displayed in their own heads. How did they feel about their accomplishments; what was their view of Jesus and His great power now that they had entered into a phase of their careers, where they were exercising that kind of power themselves?  When they came back from their road trip, they were exhausted, which is why they were going away - to get some rest - and of course the people came and followed them, as we saw a moment ago, with great enthusiasm.

Now if this talk were to end here, we would only have taken note of the parallels between modern and  ancient forms of celebrity. What is far more intriguing, though, is the revelation of Jesus’ wise perspective as he responds to all that frenetic attention that was going on around him. Verse 34 it tells us with powerful simplicity: ‘He saw the great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.’

Jesus did not allow himself to be drawn in to the superficial ego inflation - as we might say in today’s language - of celebrity. Many of the celebrities in our time would see a crowd when they were on vacation and react either with hostility, or with avoidance. At the other end of the spectrum, perhaps some might have acted with self-promotion. But Jesus reacted not with irritation, or avoidance, or self-promotion, but with compassion. Not with closing himself down, but by keeping his heart in the open position when people in need were in his presence, even though on the level of personal preference he would just as likely liked to have pulled back into the solitude and the quiet. And indeed, that one fact, that Jesus did keep himself in the open position - that Jesus did keep his compassionate heart in the open position - that very fact clearly was one of the main reasons people in the story were so interested. They weren’t interested in someone who was merely good looking. We have no idea whatsoever what Jesus looked like, but even if he was an impressive physical man, that’s not what they were interested in. They weren’t interested in someone who could merely act the role well - as we might be impressed by in the presence of a famous actor. They certainly weren’t interested in one who has succeeded in becoming materially wealthy.

The good news in this story is that these people were interested in something deeper, something more significant than mere appearance. They were looking for something less superficial than the mere ability to manipulate appearance (which is what acting is). They were interested in something that could not just fascinate - or titillate - them, but rather in something that could move them; something that could really feed and nourish them; something that could really change them. They were interested in an energy source that could really heal them. When I think of all the libraries of books written about Jesus, I am aware of the vast array of ways of thinking about him and evaluating him. But beneath all the theories, what he was,. was a powerfully energetic human being . He was a human being who not only manifested and radiated powerful energy, he was a man who was deeply and uninterruptedly connected with the very foundational energy in the universe itself.  Jesus was deeply and uninterruptedly connected to the power of life, the power of creation. The choice of words we choose to describe this reality is ultimately irrelevant. What is important is the fact is that this ultimate, divine power is there. It is here. It exists. And we have the possibility of being connected with that energy source, of being connected in an uninterrupted way with that fundamental, foundational life force; with the energy force, which is the Divine creational force behind the universe.

The reason we are still talking about Jesus 2,000 years after his physical life, is precisely because he was so uninterruptedly connected to that foundational energy source, that foundational life power, that foundational creative power. This is the same force that has created us, and indeed has created all things. So those people who were fascinated by him, they weren’t just taken in by good looks; they weren’t just fascinated by someone who could play a role well; they weren’t just fascinated by a man who happens to have been able to gather in a large material store. What they were interested in was the appearance of somebody who was profoundly alive; and they were also interested in somebody whose profound aliveness manifested in the form of authentic caring, authentic compassion, authentic concern, someone who could really make a difference in their lives, not because of his status, but because he had the power to demonstrate to them true life, and true compassion, and he had the power to free them from the mental patterns that were keeping them disconnected from that true power of life.

Jesus clearly had no interest in celebrity or in the attention others gave him. He wasn’t seeking to have his likeness painted; he didn’t appear to have any interest in being interviewed; he wasn’t reading polls, talking in sound bites, pitching any products; he wasn’t seeking to outdo any competitors. He was there to do what he believed that his inner voice called him to do. That meant consistently to keep loving people, consistently to keep his heart open, consistently to keep himself listening for that inner guidance. To live life in this way, is not just something to be praised, it is also something to be emulated. That to me is a profoundly important concept. It’s a concept we’ll be talking about in our study in July. Christianity has put a lot of its energy into adulation of this man who lived 2,000 years ago. I would suggest to you what is really important about Jesus is not that we give him our adulation, but that we give him our emulation. To hold Jesus in high regard is understandable, and can be beautiful. But what’s really important is to follow the example we see in him. We see him as a template for modeling our life and our own approach to life.

So may our personal walk with the ultimate, with our higher power - the divine - with God - be increasingly based on more and more openness to the aliveness, the power, the creative power of the Divine, including the important ways we see it in the luminous, radiant power of Jesus, we call Christ. We ask and offer all these things today trusting in his power and truth and goodness, and trusting in the eternal availability of God’s presence and spirit. In his name we pray it. Amen.

A RADICAL AND UNPRECEDENTED SURPRISE

JOHN 3:1-17

ANTHONY E.ACHESON, M.DIV.

Today’s passage raises some significant questions are. All of us go through periods when there are questions in our minds that don’t seem to have legitimate answers. There are times when the knowledge we thought we had acquired, and the faith we thought we had accrued, runs through our fingers like water.

In today’s story Nicodemus is at a juncture like this. He clearly has a lot of questions that are puzzling him and questions racing through his mind that he doesn’t understand. The context of John 3 implies that Nicodemus feels under some form of threat. On the one hand, Nicodemus clearly holds a sincere admiration for Jesus. He refers to him as a ‘teacher who has come from God.’ He says, ‘No one can do the signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ There are several places in the Gospels where Nicodemus expresses fondness for Christ. His fondness appears sincere.

But at the beginning of this passage, we also hear that Nicodemus was a Pharisee. Other sections of the Gospels show us that the Pharisees were mostly antagonistic toward Jesus and vice-versa. So Nicodemus on the one hand likes and admires Jesus, and on the other hand he belongs to a group that is in opposition to Jesus. This puts Nicodemus in a difficult situation. Because his own personal sentiments are the opposite of the sentiments of his official group, he is reluctant to admit and show his feelings publicly. So what is he to do? On the one hand he honors his appreciation for Jesus by making him a personal visit. But when he does come to visit, he does so by night. Why does he come at night? Presumably because he is choosing a time when he is least likely be seen. In effect he sneaks off to see Jesus so he can pursue the honest questions he has. But he is also minimizing danger to himself by trying to keep the visit quiet.

When Nicodemus does get to Jesus, he doesn’t begin with a question, but instead starts with a statement. He says I know you are a teacher and you clearly are from God. That’s how he starts. You sense there is a question underneath all that, and it’s not clear whether he is unable to get himself to actually ask it, or whether Jesus cuts him off before he gets to the question.

When Jesus does speak, he completely changes the subject. He shows no interest in being praised, but instead turns the focus back on Nicodemus himself. When he says, ‘No-one can get to the Kingdom of God without being born anew from above,’ that topic his is unrelated to  what Nicodemus asked about. The Pharisee didn’t ask about being born again; he didn’t even ask about the Kingdom of God. But that is the subject Jesus begins to talk to him about.

This place in today’s passage is one where we all would be better off if we spoke a little New Testament Greek. The statement Jesus makes back to Nicodemus is one of quite a few in the New Testament that does not translate at all well from Greek into English. In Greek, Jesus has told Nicodemus that in order to enter the Kingdom of God, you have to be born, then the word that occurs in Greek is A-NO-THEN. That little word there - A-NO-THEN - is a word according to New Testament Greek scholars holds two distinct meanings at the same time. This word A-NO-THEN means born from above (as today’s translation, the New Revised Standard, has it). But it also means ‘born again’ or ‘born anew’ as many other translations have it, including The King James version. And that is the translation that many of us are most familiar with.

This translation I just read from doesn’t serve as well, I think. It says ‘Truly, truly I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above.’ And then this translation says, ‘Nicodemus said back to Jesus ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into a mother’s womb?’ So that translation doesn’t work very well, because Nicodemus’ answer seems to imply that he heard the statement from Jesus  as being more on the side of being born again, even though the word in the text - A-NO-THEN - can also mean being born from above.

In most of our Bibles, whichever translation you have, the version we have relegates the

Meaning it has not used - what it considers to be the secondary meaning - to a little footnote at the bottom of the page. The problem with this approach to translation is that it makes one or the other meanings seem secondary. The problem is that the word in Greek implies both meanings at the same time. The writer of John, on the other hand, has given us a word that hold the two distinct levels of meaning. That is why I think it would be better translated that Jesus is saying that we need to be born anew from above, and in so doing include both shades of meaning.

In what comes next it is evident that Nicodemus allows himself to fall into a mental trap. It’s a very common mental trap - one that’s easy to fall into. In trying to make sense of what Jesus is telling him, Nicodemus attempts to flatten out what he thinks he’s hearing from Jesus, and compress it down into the simplest possible sense his mind can understand. He does this in two ways. First, he focuses only on the ‘born again’ side of Jesus’ statement, excluding the ‘born from above’ side of the meaning. Secondly, and very importantly, he tries to understand what Jesus is saying by interpreting it in the most obvious and the most literal possible way. ‘How can anyone be born physically’ is implied all over again, having grown old … can a person enter a second time into the womb and be born?’

We can easily catch ourselves chuckling at how literal minded Nicodemus is being. But we may want to be careful in our judgments, because you and I don’t necessarily comprehend this teaching about being born again from above any better than Nicodemus does. The concept of being ‘born again’ is frequently discussed in our culture. In some circles it’s used as a religious litmus test. But to use the phrase either way is to miss out on something profoundly important.  To use it in a literal way, or as a dogmatic litmus test, flattens out the meaning just as much as Nicodemus did. The real point, the main point that Jesus is making is that re-birth, or new birth, or birth from above, is something that transforms the totality of our lives. It turns everything upside down. It is a larger process that has the potential to make our previous perceptions about ourselves and reality; and our previous perceptions about what God is - seem wrong or at best incomplete. When this new thing happens in us, whatever it is, we recognize how limited our previous understanding was, because of the change that has occurred in our minds and perceptions.

When we speak of this larger process of spiritual re-birth, it is important to remember that it is in fact much larger than our sphere of either understanding or influence.  We can’t fully understand it, and we certainly can’t fully control it, precisely because it is so much larger than any aspect of our own individual experience or being. It is profoundly larger than what our cognitive minds can comprehend. It is certainly profoundly larger than what our rules can bend reality to. This larger birth process is in the realm of mystery, like the wind blowing, as Jesus says later in this passage.

That is true of physical birth, as several of us can attest, and it’s true most assuredly of spiritual birth. Sometimes forms of spiritual rebirth happen with small warning and only a little labor before the birth is complete. Other times, the birth is on its way for a long time, and seems to be taking forever to get there. When the process gets started, it may take a very long time and a great deal of energy; it may be a long labor or a hard labor, because birth is always a mystery. It is always something that comes from the inside out, always something that comes as a gift, but often is a difficult gift. We simply have to keep ourselves in an ongoing state of readiness and willingness to wait, as any mom in her ninth month will tell you.

The process of new life being born into our lives is a project we never have full control over on our own. Nicodemus wants the process to fit categories he already knows, one of which is the category of physical birth. But Jesus attempts to tell him, by implication and by extension to tell us also, that the kind of birth - or the kind of re-birth, the kind of birth from above, that is available in the divinity, is broader and  longer and deeper and wider and richer than anything our human mind can conceive or concoct. It’s also greater than anything our wills can create or coerce. Jesus also makes it clear that He will come to us where we are.

It’s interesting to me in this exchange with Nicodemus, that Jesus is emphatic in the way he cuts across what Nicodemus already thinks. He does so very clearly and there’s an edge of confrontation to it, but it’s a very nonjudgmental edge. It’s direct, but it’s love. It’s forceful, but it has a certain gentleness to it at the very same time. Jesus comes to Nicodemus where he is. The spirit of God I believe wants to come to us where we are, where we are already living, limited understandings and all.

We noted earlier that Nicodemus shows up at night, partly because he was presumably under threat. But then, I believe there’s also one more layer of meaning with that imagery of coming at night. For the writer of the Gospel of John, night and darkness are symbols for lack of awareness and consciousness, and consequently they are symbols from separation from God. John is using it as a symbol of what it is like to be in the dark about important things. He is in the dark about important things he doesn’t understand. He is not sure who Jesus really is. He is not sure what difference the remarkable quality he senses in Jesus should really mean. Jesus lets him come just as he is. He doesn’t say sorry, come back in the morning. He doesn’t say come back when the light has already dawned. He doesn’t say come back when you understand. He accepts him where he is. He accepts the darkness that he comes with. God doesn’t ask that we figure everything out and then come. The spirit doesn’t say that we get enlightened and then engage with the teaching. Nicodemus comes when it is dark. He comes when he is in the dark. Jesus welcomes him in that condition.

Are there any dark places in your life today? God knows  there are dark places in my life all the time. Yes, there are some times when everything seems light and bright. Some of those times can even last for an entire day. Then we get misled into thinking that we’re in the clear. We think, ‘Blue skies, blue skies, nothing but blue skies from now on.’ But it never actually works that way. The dark times always come back: difficult, painful times, times of confusion. We all know them. Are there any dark places in any of our lives today? Jesus welcomes our knock on his door. He welcomes our visit. He welcomes our approaching him, even in the dark of night, or when we are in completely in the dark.  For the mysterious, gracious gift of birth, begins in darkness. Every baby ever born into this world has come from utter darkness out into this world. And every time a human baby has experienced daylight, it has been, each time, it has been a radical and unprecedented surprise.

This process of experiencing new birth from above begins where all birth begins: in the dark, in a place where all is not clear, where questions chaotically reside and certainties are few. It begins in a form of night, even as it moves toward an increasing show of light. So take a chance, this passage seems to be saying, as Nicodemus did. Show up at the door, and knock, even when it’s dark. Move ahead, even in your darkness. Jesus is there; God is there; the Spirit is there; answers are there. But they are only known if and as we knock, and truly ask the questions and open ourselves to the answers.

We ask, gracious spirit, that the advent and the pouring out of those answers and new understandings and new forms of birth might be ours today, perhaps this very hour, and in the days ahead. We pray this in the name of the living Christ. Amen.