Really Gnaw on Jesus

 John 6 51-58    August 15, 2021

 Yuck.

Eating flesh and drinking blood.

I mean now we know about communion.

Now we know this to

be a comforting statement.

 
Christians and non-Christians alike

have been steeped in the language of
Jesus body and blood for our whole lives.

When we hear this now,
most people just think of communion.

Eating some bread and wine that we understand

to be truly Jesus body and blood.

 

But think about the people hearing this for the first time

what is Jesus talking about?

Eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

Is Jesus talking about eating him literally?

Probably not.

More likely it’s a metaphor.

 

But was Jesus just talking about communion?

I think it would be easy to turn this just

into a communion story. Go to the right church.

take communion regularly. Done. Box checked.

Plenty of pastors are probably doing that right now.

But that’s probably not what Jesus meant either.

 

Jesus is talking to the same group

of mildly interested people who

have been following him since he fed

5000 people on that hillside earlier.

They’ve been asking him how he did what he did,

could he do it again? Could they do it? Could he teach them?

 

They just wanted a piece of Jesus.

A parlor trick, a memory, a little bit of wisdom,

something to take home and impress their friends.

 

Maybe Jesus is getting annoyed with them.

Maybe he’s tired of their idle curiosity.

So he starts to get real and he tells them:

“Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood

you can have no life in you.”

Shocking. I think, on purpose.

 

I believe Jesus is telling them,

“Don’t just take a little bit of bread and go home.”

Jesus is telling them to eat the whole thing

Consume the whole of him, the whole of his message,

the whole of his life, the entirety of his example

of a life given for others.

Learn how to be servant leaders,

and how to sacrifice for one another,

Learn how to live and how to die.

Learn how to really be the children of God.

Consume the whole thing.

 

Jesus is telling us, don’t just get the

bread and the wine at the end of the

worship service and check the box off,

and then go out and live your lives as usual.

Actually consume all the food of Jesus.

 

The word Jesus actually uses for eat

literally means “to gnaw”.

“Unless you gnaw on my flesh,

you will have no life in you.”

Gnaw on his flesh.

Don’t just nibble or pick at.

This is not a polite afternoon tea to be eaten

with the fine china and dainty pinkies up.

Jesus wants us to really dig in on this.

Get dirty, get messy, really gnaw on it.

 

Don’t just take the palatable parts.

Don’t just take the parts you like

and throw the rest away.

Don’t just take a bit of the parts

that go along with your particular political view

or that easily fit into your life.

Really gnaw on the whole of Jesus.

Every bit of Jesus.

Think of Jesus as food and eat it as if your life depended on it.

That’s what we’ve been talking about for the last 4 weeks.

Jesus is our food.

Now when we think about food,

we can think about it in a couple of ways.

 

Webster’s says:

Food is any nourishing substance that is eaten,

drunk, or otherwise taken into the body

to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc.

 

Digestion is the process by which food

and drink are broken down into their smallest parts

so the body can use them to build and nourish cells and to provide energy.

 

That’s great. And it’s one facet of food.

And it even works for the talk about communion.

Fed, nourished, sustenance.

But there is more to food isn’t there?

 
We might talk about food this way too:

This is my grandmother.

This is her in the kitchen of the house

that I grew up in and my mother grew up in.

And this is how I remember her best.

In the kitchen.

The only thing that would have made this

picture more perfect is if she had an apron on

because I don’t think I saw her without an apron

until I was in my twenties.

 

She cooked for us, for large groups and small.

There were times when my parents were trying

to run a small business that she would prepare

every meal for me, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

 

And for my grandmother, that food was her love for us.

I know I’m not alone in my experience here.

I’m sure you have a grandma of your own,

or a mother or father or a husband or wife,

or many people who represent that for you.

Who didn’t just make a meal, but they put their

whole life and heart into it.

Whose food was love for you.

 
Think of that person now. Who was that person for you?

If you have a person in mind, and if you’re sitting next to someone,

tell them who that person was.

 

Now I’m going to say something shocking and controversial.

That’s taken me a long time for me to come to terms with.

My grandmother was not a very good cook.

She was not creative.  

She did about five things great and four of

them were mostly potatoes.

She boiled almost everything within

an inch of its life and the rest was heavy with bacon grease.

 

But I would give anything right now to

have one of her potato pancakes.

Or a cheese sandwich she would make me.

Or even that chicken that she made that I hated

with only the passion that a five year old can hate things.

I would take any of those things right now.

Because all that food was her love.

 

Food is more than nourishment and energy.

Food can be a very real sign of love.

It is a part of another person.

Making it, eating it, sharing it, gathering around it.

Whether you’re at a set table or

eating on your lap in front of the TV.

Whether you’ve spent hours making it,

or you got a to-go container from a restaurant.

Food can be love.

And that love changed me.

 

Humanity has gathered around tables

to eat for eternity. And grandmas and grandpas

and moms and dads and children

and friends and strangers have shared food together.

And it’s more than just for nourishment and sustenance.

It’s more than just to survive. Food is more than just food.

 

Even when things get difficult in families,

tough, strained, weird:

we can usually eat together.

It’s the one thing that we can always share.

 

And as the time goes by, those struggles fade.

The cause of all the arguments go away from our memory.

The tough strained times are forgotten.
But the food, it’s like we can still taste it.
The food stays with us forever.

In this meal that we eat every week together.
Jesus gives us that food. An actual piece of him.

 

We gather around this table,

(Where everyone is welcome regardless of age or

experience or denomination or belief.)

We all come around the gift of Jesus

to eat this meal – this food.

The body and blood of Christ.

But it’s not just nourishment.

It’s not just food even to give our faith and belief strength.

It’s not even just food for forgiveness.

 

This food is God’s love put into each piece.

Jesus sacrificial life given for us.
To experience, to taste.

It’s a piece of Jesus given for us.

We’re invited each week to gnaw on that.

 

Every week we come to this table.

Sometimes we have our disagreements and hurts among us.

We come to this table with the same troubles that families have

with our own difficulties, tensions and strains

Some of us come with skeletons in our closets.

Some with hostilities and bad feelings, discomfort and shame,

 

But around this food we experience God’s love.

The food brings us together somehow.

It’s the one thing that we can always share.

No matter what has happened,

Around this food we’re friends.

 

Eventually, with time, the struggle and the pain

the disagreements and the hurt, those

will fade from our memories

 

But the food –

the food that gives us more than just something to eat –

it’s like we can still taste it.
The food stays with us forever.

 

So don’t just nibble on this food.

Don’t just have a piece of bread and wine

and go on about your life as usual.

Really gnaw on this food.

This bread and wine, this body and blood.

Let it change you.

Really gnaw on Jesus.

Taste and see the love of God.