“You Are What You Eat”
“You Are What You Eat"
John 6.51-58
John 6.51-58
In the name of the Living God and the risen Christ. Amen.
“You are what you eat,” so the old saying goes. That being the case, if you could see into my inner being, I should be standing up here looking something like a potato chip bag. Now, just to be clear, I like all kinds of food. I’m not a picky eater at all. This is one of the many reasons my wife loves me. She can serve me just about anything for supper, and my response will be something like, “Mmm, that’s the best… whatever it is… I’ve ever had!”
But my true love language is salty things-- potato chips, French fries, etc. So, if the saying were literally true, you’re looking at a French fry in an Alb standing up here in the pulpit!
“You are what you eat”—we can easily apply it to our physical health, of course. We know it’s true instinctively. What we consume affects our health, and indeed how we live.
Jesus in today’s gospel applies a similar principal, but on the level of the soul rather than the body. But he does so in such a way that, more than just giving us some friendly advice about how to live, he shows us what true life is and where it comes from and how to receive it.
The Lord’s words here in John 6 are the culmination of his teaching on the bread of life. If you’ve been in church here—or in any Christian tradition that follows the liturgical calendar—you’ll have heard this theme for three or four straight Sundays: “I am the bread of life”, the “living bread come down from heaven”, “eat my flesh and drink my blood.” This is, historically, a difficult time for a preacher, because, well, what more can you say about it? “I think we got it by now, Pastor!”—right?
But this morning’s text is the culmination, and I would say the most challenging of Jesus’ teaching on the bread of life. The words, the images, the claims reach here a difficult, graphic, and almost offensive level. And I’d like us to tackle them head on this morning.
The first challenge is the specific, graphic language the Lord uses: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life…” It sounds like cannibalism, right? (Can we just say that out loud?) The original Greek is no help here. He’s asking us to chew on him, or munch him, or gnaw on his flesh.
How are we to understand this!? I’d like you to think about this on two levels: the first level, Jesus here means faith. To eat his flesh and drink his blood is to believe in him—to consume him with the soul, so to speak; to feed upon his teaching, and who he is for us. Those who trust in Christ have life and have it abundantly. So, Jesus’ words, here, are an analogy for faith: we are to consume him as through he were the very bread of life.
But I also want you to think about this sacramentally. The Biblical teaching, which the Lutheran church joyfully gives witness to, is that, in Holy Communion, Christ our Lord is truly present in, with, and under the bread and wine. We eat bread, but also his body; we drink wine, but also his blood. How this works, of course, is a great mystery. We accept it by faith, because we trust God’s clear words. But I want you to consider there are lots of things—in fact, the most important things—which we cannot completely understand yet hold in paradoxical tension.
Think about it in this way: Light, for example, we know to be both a wave and a particle at the same time. That’s what the physicists tell us. Think about Christ’s true, sacramental presence in the Eucharist in this way: “both-and” powerfully and mysteriously. We truly receive him, and feed upon him in this Holy Meal.
A second challenge in this culmination of Jesus’ teachings on the bread of life, is the exclusive claims of our Lord. And I want to be clear: Jesus is not just asking to be the most important part of your diet. Or one more item on the buffet line. Or, you know, the basic meal plan upon which you can build. Rather, Jesus is the bread of life. “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.” (6:53)
“You are what you eat”, the saying goes. Christ is life, life eternally, life abundantly, life beyond whatever this earthly life can offer us. When we receive him by faith—believing in him as the son of God—and when we receive him at this altar—mysteriously, sacramentally, truly—we are receiving the only and ultimate source of truth, goodness, holiness, love, and life. Nothing else can truly fill us. Everything else will ultimately fail us.
A third challenge, here, is arguably the most difficult. It is a personal challenge. Or, rather we might say, a personal confrontation. “You are what you eat,” right? So, let me ask, what are you eating these days? I’m not, of course, just talking about food (me and my chips and fries). But even more importantly, what are you feeding your soul?
Jesus through these words calls us to evaluate what we’re consuming: what we watch, what we click on, what we read, what energizes us and inspires us and drives us. Jesus has told us what we really need—it’s him, and only him. We need to consume him—his word, his sacraments, his commands, his promises, his life in our lives. And he calls us to repentance for craving all kinds of other things, and fooling ourselves into thinking they’ll satisfy us. When we fill ourselves with other things besides Christ, in essence, we’re telling our Lord, “You’re not enough. Who you are, what you have promised, what you have done is not enough for me.”
But he is enough. Even if everything else would be taken from us. One day your health will be gone. Your good looks, too. Your money, your security, your reason, your intellect, your creativity. None of this will last. But Jesus, the true living bread, can never be stripped from you.
He’s the one who gave himself on the cross for us. He’s the one who died naked, poor, and abandoned. He’s the one who gives true freedom. He’s the one full of grace and forgiveness. He’s the one who lives and reigns over all creation.
“You are what you eat.” Only by feeding on him, will we be truly changed… and changed for eternity.
Come soon Lord Jesus. Amen.