August 18th, The twelfth Sunday after Trinity
Readings: Proverbs 9. 1-6; Ephesians 5. 15-20; John 6. 51-58
Theme: Flesh and Blood
Some of the most often quoted lines from the poet T. S. Eliot come from the final part of his Four Quartets, from Part IV at the conclusion of the Little Gidding section. Let me quote them for you:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
(T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, Faber & Faber, 1979, p. 43)
The question which T. S. Eliot is grappling with here is that of, how we can become what we are? How is it possible to arrive at a place that we have never left? For Eliot, the answer lies in the fact that in time, we are pilgrims on a journey towards our true self; a self which lies buried under a tangled thicket of unconsciousness that only the journey of life can bring to the surface.
This question of Eliot, of becoming who we truly are, is very much at the heart of our somewhat shocking gospel today when Jesus says to the Jews, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have life within you.” There is no wonder that the Jews and indeed the disciples of Jesus found this teaching hard to swallow (if you will forgive the pun!). How is it possible to eat and drink someone’s flesh and blood? Is Jesus asking us to be cannibals? You would be forgiven for thinking so, wouldn’t you?
There is no question at all that this saying of Jesus is one of his most challenging and over the centuries, as I am sure you know, understanding this has led to a great deal of church conflict and strife. What exactly this means is difficult and we should not pretend it is easy. It is not. It is not meant to be. Yet, Jesus gives us a clue to what he means later in this passage with the phrase, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them”. And, there is no more intimate way to abide than to consume, literally to eat and to drink. Even at a prosaic level this is true, isn’t it? When we eat and drink something it becomes part of us through the metabolic processes of the human body and the energy contained in that substance is taken into our biological systems and constitutes our cells, tissues and organs. We literally are what we eat.
So, when Jesus uses this shocking statement of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he is challenging us to become what we are; namely, the body and blood of Christ. We are, because He is. Our life comes from God and in Jesus our flesh and blood is transformed into what it always was, the life of God. Yet, just as in Eliot’s words, it doesn’t always seem like that, does it? It seems as if God is there and we are here. You are you and I am me, and never the twain shall meet. Clearly, there is a distance which needs to be crossed, a chasm which needs to be bridged for us to come to this realization of our union with God and with one another. This gulf is the journey of life itself. It is only realized on looking backwards, even though life has to be lived looking forwards.
The acme of this experience is the Eucharist. We eat and drink what we are, so that we may become who we are. When the minister says “the body and blood of Christ” to you, and you say, “Amen”, you acknowledge this fact. The reception of the Eucharist is the event in which we return to the place from whence we started and know it for the first time. It is both a repetition and a novelty because the still small place around which the world turns is the cross of Christ. The pivotal axis around which all life turns is the outpouring of the love of God which is made manifest to us through the cross. We only come to know this through the exploration of life, the journey of our souls back to God, from whom we came.
The journey is a metaphor used by Eliot to indicate our coming to conscious awareness about life itself, about the life that we have known since birth. Through the many twists and turns, the wrong turns and the right turns, we come to know who we are, and this is always for the first time. It is always for the first time because who we come to know is no less than our true selves in the light of their infinite mystery within the presence in God. It is like receiving a gift all over again, and ceaselessly. Always to be surprised by the joy of receiving oneself from the God who is love, superabundant love overflowing in the cross of Christ.
So, rather than get lost in rather tiresome confessional polemics and somewhat hackneyed stereotypes about the Eucharist, we should come to the altar in hopeful and joyful expectation that we will see for the first time the place that we have never left. Here’s Eliot again:
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well
When tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and rose are one.
(T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, Faber & Faber, 1979, p. 43.)
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.