Fr. Bill Carroll – The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 18, 2024
Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Let’s talk about the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. But (more than that) let’s talk about his presence in our fellow human beings
This week, I saw that lived out before my very eyes. On Thursday morning, Mother Vivian came and got me. A woman had come to us in extreme grief. She spoke very little English. Her husband had just died, and she was three-months behind on her rent. She had a notice to appear in court this week for an eviction hearing. We brought her into Guild Hall, where Leno and Rachel helped to translate. Mother Vivian stayed with our sister to care for her, while I made a couple of phone calls and then had to go to a meeting.
First, I called Mike Lewis who gave me some quick advice and a contact at a local legal aid society. I scanned the court papers and sent Mike a copy. And then I brought up our sister’s situation in a meeting with Elise Hill and Ava Welge that I was in, and they gave me additional referrals, who might be able to help. I was worried that if we just gave our sister money, her landlord might take it and then evict her anyway. More importantly, she had no income, no plan, and several minor children living with her.
And so, I called Julee Rachels, the founder of Heartisans Marketplace, with whom we’ve been working on a merger with Family Promise. Heartisans, as many of you may know, now owns an entire neighborhood of duplexes, just off Gilmer Road. And they provide ministries of workforce development and personal empowerment for women and their families. Julee agreed to meet with our sister and take her through their intake process. Julee is a member of First Baptist, which means that the wider Body of Christ is getting involved.
Mother Vivian rode up to Heartisans with our sister, who had borrowed a car from a friend. And I drove my own vehicle, so that we would have a ride back. Julee had arranged for one of their recent graduates, who’s fully bilingual, to translate, so we were able to learn more of our sister’s story. Her husband had died after a sudden and aggressive cancer. He was not able to work, and caring for him meant that she lost her own job as well. She has several little kids who live with her.
Julee was able to track down her landlord and was going to attempt to work with him to forestall the eviction. She also had a lead on a job. There were other resources she was considering to help our sister get on her feet. She will help her to respond to the eviction notice. She will also work to get her into housing she can afford, to get current on her bills, and get a new source of income to stay ahead of her bills.
The Gospel this morning is all about the flesh of Jesus. The language he uses is crude and realistic. Like Christian love, it could not be more this-worldly. John tells this story about Jesus to instruct those who downplay the reality of his flesh. In fact, these very same people are tempted to deny the importance of the body itself.
But bodies matter. We are flesh-and-blood creatures. We can’t nourish our spirits at the body’s expense. Jesus Christ has a body. God created each and every one of us with a body. Jesus lives, suffers, and dies in his body. He is raised from the dead in his body. And, in Holy Communion, he gives us his body to eat.
“Very truly I tell you (he says), unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life within you.” The language is realistic to the point of cannibalism. No wonder his disciples call it a hard saying–and many people fall away.
Our Lord’s language may shock us for other reasons. We may struggle with whether it implies exclusion. Do those who fail to consume his body and blood really have no life within us?
Setting these worries aside for a moment, though, John’s Gospel actually suggests an interesting perspective on the death of Jesus. It is very different from what we would expect from the Bible-belt culture that surrounds us–where we often seem to think that Jesus died on a Cross, and that’s it. Jesus died on a Cross (we seem to think), so that we can keep on living the same tired, old ways we always have. But, to the contrary, if we let it, the Christ-life we take into our bodies will make us live like him.
In John, the suffering of Jesus does not appease an angry, punishing God. Rather, the death of Jesus is the beginning of God’s New World. It is God’s victory over death. It is also the supreme example of God’s. “For God so loved the world, he gave his only Son (we read in John).”
Jesus offers us his own life. This is the sure and certain sign of God’s great love for us all. Despite our sin and unfaithfulness, God will always love us. But God’s love will not leave us unchanged. Instead, God gives us Jesus for our daily bread—so that we might become what he is in the world.
Eating his flesh and drinking his blood binds us to him. It also binds us to our fellow human beings. For we have come to share in his life laid down for others. We can no longer live for ourselves alone. We have to live for the neighbors he gives us to love.
That brings me to the nature of his presence—not only in the Blessed Sacrament, but in the world he lived and died for. Most of the world’s Christians have always believed in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. This meal involves many symbols, many metaphors, but it is far, far MORE than that. Whenever we gather together, Jesus shows up. He shows up for real, because he promised to do so. He shows up, and he takes us into his Body.
By his bodily resurrection, Jesus has been set free from time and space, so that his flesh, like his divinity, is everywhere. He is in his People. He is in his creation. And he is in our neighbors, especially the “least of these.”
It doesn’t matter how we think it works. It’s not about a theory; it’s about a friendship. It’s about a great love and a relationship. It doesn’t depend on our understanding it. It depends only on God’s free grace–which we receive by hearing and believing, as well as eating and drinking.
Jesus comes to us in millions of other ways. He comes to us especially here, in the humble forms of bread and wine. This shows us the meaning of the life and love we share. It shows us the meaning of everything we do: God-with-us in the flesh.
Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”
Amen.