Cannibal Christians?

This week’s Gospel reading begins with the last verse in last week’s reading. Namely, that Jesus tells the people that the “bread that [he] will give for the life of the world is [his] flesh.” Now, this is already a statement that makes an outrageous claim, and we see it when the people begin arguing amongst themselves. But more importantly, the Jewish people would have been under strict purity laws that would have even made it taboo for them to eat the flesh or drink the blood of certain animals. To then add in the idea of eating human flesh would have been disgusting. But how would they have felt about this?

From 1978 to 1991, there was an active serial killer in the United States who would eat the body parts of his victims after he had murdered them. Most of you are old enough to remember this being plastered across the news because one of his intended victims escaped, and then the police began to investigate. When the police entered this man’s home, they found human body parts, wrapped up in butcher paper, and neatly stacked in the refrigerator and the freezer, awaiting a future meal. 

When asked why he had killed so many people, the man said that he was incredibly lonely. And by killing these people and consuming their flesh, he felt that they would become a part of him. And if they became a part of him, then they would be with him forever.

Now, I can tell by some of your faces that you find this scenario pretty disgusting, and outrageous. Incomprehensible even. For those of us of sane mind and sound body.

I want you to remember this feeling.

The people listening to Jesus would have wanted the gift of eternal life, and the hope that they would never thirst or hunger again. They could see a glimmer of the beauty that Christ offered, but they would have been confused at this outrageous claim that they must eat his body and drink his blood in order to be a part of him. 

How can this be? How can we eat Jesus’ flesh? But this is unusual. It is gruesome. It is shocking. It is taboo. What does Jesus mean?

Now, we have the luxury of looking back on Jesus’ words, and we know that Jesus is shifting their minds from the physical and literal into the spiritual and eternal. We know that when we “eat his flesh,” we are partaking in spiritual realities, even though they may also have real world substance.

But this still begs the question: How do we eat Jesus’ flesh? How do we eat, partake, and consume Jesus?

Well, there are several ways, all of which are in our corporate worship.

The first is what we call the Liturgy of the Word, which is just a fancy way of saying that we read the Bible and talk about it. Our lector comes up, and reads scripture from the assigned readings for the day: the Lectionary. It is through the reading of this scripture that we consume the Word of God. And we know, according to John’s Gospel, that “in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This, of course, is referring to Jesus, God’s Word. And Jesus came down so that his spoken words and the example of his life would be a guidepost to us. The more we hear the Word of God read aloud, the more we begin to assimilate these words into our life and attempt to live by them. 

The sermon interprets those scriptures for us, and helps us to apply them to our daily lives. If you look closely at the words in the liturgy, you will also see how much of the liturgy has been pulled directly from Scriptures, and the inclusion of the Nicene Creed explains in detail what we believe about Jesus, the Son of God. By listening to the reading of Scripture, by listening to the sermon, and by engaging in the liturgy, we are consuming Christ through spoken word. We can also consume Christ in the spoken and written word by reading the bible on our own, or taking part in group bible studies, book studies, and group theological discussions. These ways are pretty straightforward, and they certainly don’t bring up any awkward feelings of cannibalism, but they are, in fact, a way of consuming Christ in our lives.

The Eucharist is the second way in which we can consume the body of Christ. In the Episcopal church, we believe that the presence of Christ is truly in the elements of bread and wine. And this passage in John is part of where we get this understanding. 

In the second chapter of John, Jesus told the people that if they destroyed the temple, he would raise it up again in three days. The people thought he was talking about the temple in Jerusalem that took 46 years to build, but Jesus was talking about his body. John’s Gospel then records that after his death and resurrection, his disciples remembered his words, and understood that he had been talking about himself when he said he would raise the temple in three days.

Like the disciples, we also have the luxury of understanding events after they have transpired. In this passage today, Jesus says that the bread that he will give people for eternal life is his own flesh. And that if people do not eat of this flesh and drink of this blood, they will have no life in him.

In the other Gospels, at the Last Supper, Jesus uses what we call the Words of Institution when he breaks the bread and prepares the wine – words that we hear every Sunday in the liturgy: “This is my body .. this is my blood … do this in remembrance of me.” 

At the crucifixion, at the moment that Jesus died, there was a loud sound, as of thunder, and the temple veil that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple was ripped in half, symbolizing that God’s presence was available to the world through the body of Christ that hung on a cross as a forgiveness for our sins. And when he rebuilt the temple – his body – again in three days, he conquered death and brought us eternal life, and it is through this temple, Christ’s Body, that we stand in the presence of God. 

We do not claim to understand how exactly that works. We instead allow God to maintain that mystery for us, and we accept it on faith that in some manner, these elements of bread and wine become for us the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. And we consume them and thank God that we have been fed with Spiritual Food, as we enter into the eternal promise and wait for Christ’s coming in glory.

Of course, using words like Flesh and Blood when talking about the Eucharist brings up those awkward feelings of cannibalism. And our ancestors in the faith had to deal with the gossip and persecution that ensued from speaking about eating Christ’s body and blood, because those outside the faith would have been as disgusted at the thought of eating flesh as we were at the thought of human body parts in a freezer.

A third way that we can consume Christ is through the community of believers.

When telling kids about the Eucharist, we talk about the presence of God in the bread and wine, and we mention that if they have eaten of this bread and wine, then Christ is inside them. And, through the way that our bodies process food, the body and blood of Jesus becomes a part of them too.

Then, we ask, what happens if your friend eats of this bread and wine? The kids usually understand very quickly that Jesus becomes a part of their friend too, and that now, after the Eucharist, Christ has become a part of both of them. And, if Jesus is now a part of both of them, then they are both a part of Jesus.

Last week we read Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, in which Paul said that “we are all members of one another,” and that we are to put away all bitterness and wrath and to be kind to one another. Paul also said that we should let no evil talk come out of our mouths, but rather, only what is useful for building each other up, so that our words might be grace for those that hear. 

And this week, Paul continues with that theme. Paul exhorts the people of Ephesus to be wise, for the days are evil. We must be wise, Paul writes, so that we can know the Will of the Father. Together we sing songs, and together we share our gratefulness and thankfulness not only with God, but with each other.

Both of these passages from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians basically tell us that our words, our actions, our attitudes, are food that help to grow – to build up – one another in Christ. What Paul is saying is that our words are spiritual food for each other. Our words, our actions, and our attitudes toward one another are also The Bread of Life, because they are fueled by the Holy Spirit, by the Presence of God within us.

It is when we seek God’s wisdom, and when we seek God’s will that we become food for life to one another and that we feed on the Christ that is in each of us. That is, I consume the Christ that is in you, and you consume the Christ that is in me. Because our words come from the place of wisdom that seeks to know God’s will, and to speak kindness, love, gentleness and forgiveness into each other. 

It is for this reason that Paul tells us to be wise. Our words, our actions, our attitudes – when they stem from the wisdom of knowing the will of God, will build each other up, will build up the community, the body of Christ, because our words will be like food for the soul. 

But when we seek our own will, and when we fall into the temptation to behave according to what the world holds dear, rather than what God holds dear, then we run the risk of eating each other in order to build up ourselves.

We become Spiritual Cannibals.

That feeling of disgust that we had at the idea of body parts wrapped in butcher paper and stored for a future meal in a freezer is the same disgust that we should feel when we watch people gossip about others, when they slander people for their own personal gain, when they call people names and question the other person’s character for political capital. We should be as disgusted at those who belittle others and denigrate them, denying the dignity of their humanity, as we are at those who would eat the flesh of another human, because in the end, it amounts to the same thing: the destruction of another human being. This sort of behavior is not spiritual food that builds up the community of Christ, and it certainly isn’t spiritual food that feeds a hurting world.

Jesus said, “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Christ wants us to consume him so utterly and completely, so that we do not consume each other.

Christ, the bread of heaven is eternal and infinite, and when we consume Christ so completely in Word, Sacrament, and the life-giving words of a Community, we find that we have an infinite ability to feed others with the Christ that is within us.

As the phrase goes: We are what we eat. 

We can choose to eat what the world offers us, or we can choose to consume Christ.

If we eat of the Word of God, and if we partake of the Eucharist, and if we live together in Community, building each other up in love and sacrifice, then what we will find is that we become ever more like Christ. We become united with him, and each other, and we become Christ’s body.

Let us eat of this bread, so that the Christ that dwells in us might be the bread of life for others.

[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on August 18, 2024.]