· CHILDREN'S EDUCATION

· ADULT EDUCATION

· EFM

· JOURNEY TO
   ADULTHOOD
      RITE 13
      J2A
      YAC

· VACATION BIBLE
   SCHOOL

· SERMONS

· CURSILLO

· HAPPENING

· RESOURCE LIST
      Chapel Library
      Recommendations

SERMONS

The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
August 17, 2003

In today's gospel we reach the climax toward which we have been moving over the past three weeks. We have been reading from the sixth chapter of John's account of the gospel. Now we come to the culmination of Jesus' teaching about the bread of life.

Everything begins when a large crowd-about five thousand people, we are told-follows him out into the wilderness. There he feeds them all with five barley loaves and two fish. Impressed by this, they want to make him king, but Jesus hides from them in the mountains. He then makes his way to Capernaum, where the crowd once again catches up with him in the synagogue. There Jesus begins to talk with them about eternal life and the bread of life.

Jesus says to them, "Whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.… I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven.… The one who eats this bread will live forever."

What is it that Jesus is saying to them, and by extension to us? First, he says, "whoever believes has eternal life." Everything begins in believing in him, placing our trust in him, having faith in him.

But just believing is not enough. Jesus goes on to say that, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." Believing calls for a response, the response of faith. We are called to do something, to eat the flesh of the Son of Man and to drink his blood. We are called to enter into relationship with him. It is this relationship that is life-giving. The sign of the relationship is Christ's gift to us: the Eucharist--his body and blood.

The relationship is not just a casual one. Christ doesn't just visit those who have responded in faith. No, he tells us, they "abide in me, and I in them."

To abide, to dwell with. Literally, in Hebrew, to pitch one's tent with. This is to enter into a deep and continuing relationship with one another. It means to be faithful to one another, to stand with one another in difficult, as well as in easy, times. It means to develop a relationship that will withstand all stresses and strains, a relationship that will grow and intensify with time, a relationship that will not end. This is what Jesus promises to those who believe in him and respond to him in faith.

This table around which we gather is not our table. It is God's table.

The Eucharist is not our possession. It is God's gift to us.

You are here today because God called you here. God called you here today out of God's deep love for you. God called you here today out of God's deep desire to abide in you and for you to abide in God. God called you here today to feed you with the bread of life and the cup of salvation, with the very body and blood of our Savior, the food and drink of the kingdom of heaven.

Come.

Eat and Drink.

And live.

David Christian
The Chapel of the Cross
Madison, Mississippi