Eternal Moments in the Middle of Life

Right there, in the middle of everything, only six chapters into John, Jesus takes bread, gives thanks, and gives it for all to eat. In John we won’t find a Last Supper, but a Passover Meal. We don’t find Jesus giving his body at the end of his life, we find him offering himself as the living bread earlier than we are ready, earlier than the crowd is ready, before the final meal, before the cross, the time most of us think of when we think of Jesus giving his body and blood. Jesus giving his body and blood, in John, is not one of the last things we read of in his ministry. It is one of the first.

            I think that John tells the truth about what it is that Jesus gives his body and blood: it is the gift for which we are never ready. We aren’t ready at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, but we’re not ready for Jesus to give his body and blood at the end of his ministry either. We’d rather be good enough, would rather find a way to eradicate our sin on our own, would rather find a way to earn our salvation rather than have it given to us. The gospel flies in the face of those of us who try to do our best to follow the rules and those of us who do our best to follow Jesus’ example. The gift of life comes to us before we think to cling to it. The gift of life comes before we realize that we are in need of it.

But it’s too easily to skip over John 6, to gloss over the offense and the reality and the significance of what Jesus is doing, to nod in acquiescence as we read of a man who insists that we ingest his body and his blood in order for us to have life. Rather than allowing ourselves to be offended or confused or disgusted, we try to read over these passages as fast as possible, hoping that they won’t seep into our lives, hoping that we can mutter something about the mystery of the Real Presence, in which we believe Jesus is mysteriously present in, with, and under the bread and wine but we don’t really know how. But let’s not hide behind neatly packaged doctrinal or theological statements that took shape over the course of the subsequent centuries of this man is the living bread. Let’s not hide behind our tendencies to read these stories as long ago and far away, not just yet. Let’s sit with the crowd in these verses, in which a living man offers himself as the living bread from heaven.

Bread is just bread, right? But what if Jesus is asking us – all of us – to look at these things differently? What if bread is more than food, and what if food is more than sustenance? What if Jesus wants us to hope for more than full bellies? Two weeks ago, Jesus accused the people of following him because they’d had their fill of bread. They were following him just because they wanted more bread… they wanted their bellies to be full. Food does more than fill bellies, though. It has the capacity to take us to childhood with recipes made by our grandparents or parents. There are times that we slow down just long enough at a meal to tell stories, to laugh, to build relationships, to fall in love. Most of the rest of the time, though, we treat food as though an inconvenience, eating in our cars, in a ten minute break, skipping meals as often as we have them, forgetting the abundance of life that the meal Jesus offers brings to us. We forget that food is more than something to feed our bellies – it is something that sustains life.

Blood is just blood, right? It’s easy to not think about it, to come to communion without really thinking about it, coming up and taking our turn, passing by the significance of Jesus offering this drink for you, for life here and now. Wine is not just a vehicle to loosen the inhibitions and it’s not something that offers an escape from who we are or the reality we live. It is an invitation into the reality, into the reality of what it is for someone to offer forgiveness, not just at the end of his life and ministry, but right in the middle, before the significance of what Jesus is doing can really be understood.

Life is just life, right? We eat this meal and, rather than remembering Jesus’ life, we remember Jesus’ death… and, most often, we don’t think about our own lives at this meal, but we think about our deaths and eternal life. Jesus offers eternal life – life upon life – but he doesn’t offer this so that we can avoid living our real lives because we’re so focused on the promise of eternity. No, Jesus offers us life here and now, in the middle of everything. He offers us the bread and blood of life, and in this bread and blood, Jesus abides in us and we in him. We don’t live into this promise very often, instead focusing on Jesus’ death and our own deaths, we forget that we have been given this gift of life, overflowing and abundant, a life filled with food and drink, with joy and sorrow, with loved ones and enemies, in all its complicated glory. Jesus doesn’t invite us into a “pie in the sky” life; Jesus doesn’t invite us to escape the reality of life here and now. Jesus comes to us, giving us life with each new breath, each new morning. Jesus dwells in us and we in him, and yet we would rather keep Jesus at arm’s length, moving past his offer of life so quickly we forget that it’s something more than the absence of death.

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

            What if our prayer is nothing more than paying attention? What if our life is nothing more than living into the gifts of the mundane: of a savior who comes to us in bread and wine, of a creator who chooses to remind us with each new morning, with each birdsong, with each blade of grass, that abundant life isn’t a life full of things of stuff, but of reminders that Christ gives himself for us, as much in his life as he does in his death, feeding you who are hungry, encouraging you who are weary, giving courage to you who are afraid, insisting on giving life to you who are afraid to live. Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?