Day of the Church Year: 12th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture Passage: John 6:51-58
The pyramids of Egypt, the cathedrals of Europe, vast oceans, mountain ranges extending hundreds or even thousands of miles, the noblest of capitols and monuments. These and others are, for us, some of the most grounding, solid places into which we sink our feet. As we rotate on the axis of Earth and spin through space around the sun, as we consider the reality of where we are in the grand scheme of physics and human history, we feel appropriately small and appropriately awed by all that stands the test of time, like the tide that has come in and gone out every day for billions of years.
On a smaller scale, we recognize and celebrate longevity: 50th wedding anniversaries, Grace’s centennial, 245 years we have been seeking life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the United States of America, 2000 years that Jesus’ followers have told that old, old story of Jesus and his love.
I would venture to guess most of us consider this planet one of the most enduring aspects of our lives. At least in our solar system, it appears that no other planet is as conducive to human life or life at least as we define it than any other planet. However, with the release of the UN climate report this week, we may no longer ignore Earth’s fragility. While Earth itself will likely adapt to the changes wrought by rising carbon emissions, humans’ ability to live on Earth, at least with relative ease, is diminishing in unprecedented fashion. Suddenly, Earth as home to humans is not something to take for granted. To put it simply: even the most steadfast aspects of our lives are temporary. Buildings crumble. Relationships end. People die. Nations divide. Institutions collapse. Even Earth changes dramatically, and one day, the sun will no longer burn which will bring an end to our solar system (not for 5 billion more years. Don’t worry).
And that is why Jesus’ words in the gospel of John—not just today but throughout the gospel—astonish us and ground us. When Nicodemus visits Jesus at night, Jesus teaches: For God so loved the world that God gave the Son so that whoever believes in him may not perish but may have everlasting life. When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well, he tells her: The water that I will give will become in those who drink it a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. Today, when the Jewish leaders question Jesus about eating his body and drinking his blood, Jesus says: The one who eats this bread will live forever.
In the gospel of John, when Jesus talks about eternal life, he talks not just about afterlife, not just about what happens after we die. He talks about life now, right now, and life into the future, the future beyond death. Eternal life, according to Jesus, looks not like the heavenly vision of Revelation 21, a city of pure gold adorned with jewels. In the gospel of John, eternal life is not a place at all but a relationship, a relationship with God where we abide in God and God in us. Our relationship with God that begins now continues through our lifetimes and after, beyond the stretch of our family line, beyond life on this planet, beyond any time that we can measure.
Jesus invites his disciples into relationship, into eternal life because, remember, eternal life begins now. Jesus teaches the disciples: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” For the disciples, abiding in Jesus was clearer, simpler because he stood before them. What might it mean for us to abide in Jesus? To remain engaged in relationship with Jesus?
We discussed this as a group.
For me, Jesus’ words through these four weeks of the Bread of Life Discourse have steered me toward Holy Communion. In Holy Communion, we receive bread and wine, yes, but also Christ’s body and blood. We take Christ’s own body into our bodies. Christ abides in us.
I confess I am late to the party on a key theological point here about how we, then, abide in Christ. Post Jesus’ ascension, we are now the body of Christ on earth. I mean, I knew this mystically, but I didn’t get it until just yesterday that we, physically, literally are the body of Christ on earth. Not individually but communally. Together, we are the hands and feet of Christ. So we abide in Christ by living among God’s faithful people, by simply entering into relationship with one another, by building community.
Jesus invites the disciples to abide in him not in order to receive eternal life, not as a quid pro quo arrangement. NOT we come to worship and receive communion and THEN Jesus gives us eternal life. No. The abiding itself is the eternal life—according to Jesus in the gospel of John.
The invitation to abide that we may enter eternal life now and into the future, even beyond death, means that the lives we live right now have profound meaning, means that we are not simply biding our time until we meet God face to face in heaven one day. We meet God every day. For as we abide in God, God abides in us. Thanks be to God! Amen.