"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" (v. 52, TEV)

In these times of world hunger, when many even within our own prosperous land find it difficult to put food on the table, we ought to be careful when complaining about our daily bread. But some of the "come-ons" that so-called quality restaurants advertise these days can irk any of us.

The other evening my wife and I visited a local restaurant that had an attractive advertisement, claiming the "best of everything" in town. The meals were offered for a new lower price - actually they amounted to more than a ten-dollar bill each. The quality of the meals hardly measured up to the claims. And the service was terrible. We left this promised land of culinary excellence feeling let-down and taken.

In contrast, this is one thing I like about Jesus: the bread he offers is predictable and nourishing, and it is satisfying for even the most demanding soul.

It is that kind of quality bread of life that Jesus was talking about in this slightly involved Bible story. Here we read:

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I will give him is my flesh, which I give so that the world may live. (verse 51) This, then, is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread that your ancestors ate, but then later died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.

(verse 58)

Now as Jesus was saying these things, we read this verse of our text: "This started an argument among them. ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ they asked."

An argument! We might imagine the people would have been grateful for Jesus. We might think they would be thankful for his presence, for his revelation of God to them, for his good-news offer of a bread that will end hunger forever. But instead they ask the rather ungrateful question, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

The question begs for an answer. Jesus had made a fantastic claim. But even more, this question raises additional questions, some that most of us may have asked at times. There are questions like these: How can all of God be present in a single person like Jesus? How can Jesus be present in the bread and wine of the Communion here this morning? How can Jesus be present in thousands of other celebrations of this Sacrament today at churches all around the globe? Indeed, "how can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

Questions like these have been debated in theological circles for hundreds of years, and they are still being asked by inquisitive Christians today. But when we ask these kinds of questions, the truth is that we are probably probing into even deeper questions, the questions about real religion.

"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" When we ask that, as did these folks of old, we are joining those searchers who want to know whether there is any such thing as "real religion." Does God really touch our lives in concrete ways, or have most of us merely been trained to say that God touches our lives? Where is God truly present in our world? Have we not merely claimed that he is present amid certain poignant circumstances of our lives?

The other week a professing Christian man related to me how he had narrowly escaped a serious automobile accident. He was driving down a busy city street that was unfamiliar to him. He came to a congested intersection but failed to see the traffic signal at the corner. Blindly, he ran a red light and, just as he cleared the intersection, a car coming from the cross street whizzed by, narrowly missing his car. He concluded by saying, "Praise the Lord! God was really present to help me through my own carelessness."

Was God really present? Is our religion that real, so that we may claim his presence amid selected dramatic incidents in our lives? And what if there had been an accident? Would God then have been absent from the scene, like some divine hit-and-run scoundrel? Oh yes, indeed, "how can this man (Jesus) give us his flesh to eat?"

I suspect that the people in the story here asked this question because in fact they did not want to eat the flesh of God; that is, they did not want an operative God that close, that real in their lives. The claims on them would then be too great! If God were so close as to be "consumable," to be eaten, then he would be close enough to shape their thinking, to mold their motives, and to guide their words and actions. That would be "real religion," and they did not seem ready to give up that much of themselves! They would rather have God around when they needed him, and, after all, it is quite harmless to "attribute" our narrow escapes in life to a powerful and benevolent Father.

So I further suspect that the real bottom-line question that all our previous questions press us toward is this one: Do I want Jesus Christ in my life as a living reality who prompts my every word and action and thinking, or do I prefer to merely practice religion, and, at that, practice it at a distance? Do I want real religion, do I welcome the presence of Christ in my life, or do I prefer to dabble in theological enterprises like "the mystery of his presence"? What a mystery these folks made of the real presence of Jesus Christ! "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

I fear that most of the time you and I not only practice our religion at a distance, but that we prefer it that way! We do not stay away from church - from the Word and the sacraments. But we do keep them at a proper distance! We are ready to comment about the Word of God we hear, either criticizing the boredom its presentation brings in sermons and classes, or praising that favorite preacher of ours, who makes things interesting, who says it all in a way I can understand.

But who of us forthrightly steps up to "partake" of the Word - to eat it, to ingest it, to allow it to digest within ourselves so that we grow and mature and change as daring people of God? Our pious questioning to maintain the mystery when we ask, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" is often little more than a camouflage of our gut question, "Who wants to eat this man’s flesh?" We are clever at keeping Christ his proper distance, so that he never really overtakes us.

Our church life is often a betrayal of all this. We "go through" the liturgy, but we are rarely involved in it. We keep our financial pledge up to date, but rarely do we put our mouth where our money is. The name of Jesus Christ rarely falls from our lips outside the rites and ritual.

We partake of bread and wine here, but is the church in our home, and is Christ truly present when we eat our roast and potatoes? Or how about the needs of the poor, the hungry, and those who have messed up their lives? We know about their needs. Indeed, today more than ever we are informed about human need all around us. We are the information society. The media and the computers have served as well.

But the moral question concerning the information we have gathered about human beings is, What will we do with the information? The obvious call of the Gospel is that we ourselves become that healing and nourishing presence of Christ for those who hunger for hope and help. For many a needy soul today the presence of God in their lives is a mystery. They do not experience God’s saving presence in their lives. We modern-day disciples can eliminate that mystery. Being informed of the needy, we will in fact bring the divine healing and feeding for which so many around us yearn.

"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" As we are about to consecrate the bread and wine of this Communion now, I do not know how to fully answer that question. In this sacrament we do confront again "the mystery of his presence." It is a wonderful mystery. It is an awesome sacrament. The very Christ who loved me and the whole world, who gave up his body in pain and suffering on the cross - that merciful Savior now shares his powerful presence with all of us in this meal. The living Christ of Easter, who stood alive and victorious in the brightness of that early morning sunshine - that triumphant Lord now gives you and me his living body and blood in this sacred feast. How, I do not know, but I receive him now with thanksgiving.

How others shall now know the mystery of his presence - the glory and uplifting power of his presence - that I do know! Allowing Christ fully to overtake my thoughts and words and actions, I will carry his lovely presence to a waiting world.