August 23, 2009:  HOLY AS A LAST RESORT
1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 23-30, 41-43; John 6:56-69; Psalm 84
Eileen Parfrey -- Springwater Presbyterian Church

        Maybe I connected the children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are, with communion because I just returned from being a grandmother in Chicago—a sacred time in its own right.  It’s true that I read the book to my grandson, but I’d never heard the book in terms of communion until I was doing exegesis on today’s John text.  “I’ll eat you up!” is what grandmothers say when they’re giving belly kisses to toddlers.  “I’ll eat you up!” is what over-wrought kids wearing wolf suits shout at their mothers.  But that phrase reminded me of something about the word, “eat” in John.  “Those who eat my flesh.”  Is this the word that indicates gnashing and tearing?  German has two words for eat.  “Essen” is what humans do, “fressen” is what animals do.  When parents complain their kids “fressen,” it’s not a compliment.  What they mean is that the children’s manners are like uncivilized animals as they gnaw and scrabble for food.  Not unlike when Jesus says, “Eat my body.”  Revolting, offensive.  No wonder people walk off.
        You’ve gotta wonder why these two texts are put together—Jesus’ cannibalism statements and Solomon’s pious (and long-winded) prayer of dedication for the Temple.  Solomon’s prayer offers a radical departure from Israel’s theology of holiness, which required separateness from the profane for humans pursuing personal holiness.  Solomon’s prayer essentially expands the boundaries of holiness, making use of a belief in God’s incomparable power and illimitable holiness.  Solomon knows holiness doesn’t depend on what humans do to protect God’s holiness. 
Christians often hear Solomon’s reference in this prayer to the Davidic covenant, and believe he was anticipating Jesus as the Christ, the literal and genetic Son of the king, the One who is God Incarnate.  I don’t think that’s what Solomon meant at the time, but maybe that’s what the lectionary committee had in mind when they paired cannibalism (or Eucharistic theology) with the Temple dedication.  Solomon’s cry of wonder and worship, “Will God indeed dwell on the earth?” is literally embodied by Jesus himself:  God not just on the earth but in creation, literally the divine living in human flesh.  And now this flesh offers his very self for us to gnash and tear at with our teeth.  “Means of grace,” indeed.
The gospel of John doesn’t have a story of Jesus instituting the Lord’s Supper, breaking bread at the meal and offering it as his body broken for us.  Instead, John takes a whole chapter (five weeks in lectionary time) to flesh out his theology of Eucharist as a means of grace.  Not only that, but John doesn’t link this means of grace to Christ’s death, as do the other three gospels, where Jesus says, “This is my body broken for you.”  In John, Eucharist is tied to Christ’s life.  To eat his flesh and drink his blood gives life, ensures that we abide in the Living One, sent from the living Father.
        After saying these words, Jesus innocently asks, “Does this offend you?”  Well, duh.  He moves from sanitary, historical talk about manna to our tearing his flesh with our teeth.  He uses all the revolting trigger words, the kind of language the prophets used for telling Israel they were on the road to hell (or at least exile), doing what the devil himself does.  And Jesus wonders if they’re offended. 
        This is not a theological talk, unless you believe theology informs everything we do and say.  “Theology” means “study of God,” so maybe that is a theological talk.  But what I mean is Jesus isn’t talking about ideas, something abstract and theoretical.  He’s talking about the lifestyle, how-we-act implications of God-in-flesh incarnation.  If God never leaves the home address, is only enthroned somewhere far away in an unattainable heaven, we’ll make different choices about how to act.  That’s the kind of theology—the kind of God understanding—that says the world is simply a material place.  We can wear it out and use it up.  There’s no “spirit” in the world because God is not in the world, and we can therefore treat it and its inhabitants quite differently than if this is where God lives, and we’re treating God this way.  This week Rick and I got a flyer from a publisher of Christian materials that asked, “If I am heaven-bound, does earth matter?”  It’s a good question.  One school of thought says green theology and eco-justice doesn’t matter because the world is going to end soon anyhow.  Another school of thought says that, if God is creator of all things and present in the world here-and-now, care of the earth and all its inhabitants is as sacramental as eating this meal.
If we are serious about eating this meal, we have to see that what it requires of us is more than a correct theological understanding of Christ’s flesh and blood and “what happened” to make us “saved.”  If we read both John and 1 Kings correctly, this meal makes the bold and radical statement that the world is more than “material,” more than what we can see and touch and taste.  Because God is in it.  Because God lives in this world, not just on the world, this meal requires us to live deeply and relationally, acknowledging that we are connected and interdependent with our Creator, with creation, and with our fellow creatures.  Jesus asks his disciples if they’re going to leave, and Peter  speaks for all of us when he says, “Where else could we go?”  Holiness as a last resort.  Holiness as the only resort.  When we eat this meal, we affirm that our lives are the practice of being drawn more deeply into love. 

        “The night Max wore his wolf suit [the night we were “fressen-ing” and not “essen-ing,” the night we forgot we were human and the earthly home of the divine], the night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another [when we were rebellious and totally out of control], his mother called him ‘WILD THING!’ [you have forgotten whose you are, you have forgotten in whose image you are] and Max said, ‘I’LL EAT YOU UP!’ so he was sent to bed without eating anything.”
        Just when, in our rebellion, we shout at our Divine Parent, threatening mayhem, Jesus comes in the flesh.  Max is taken on adventures to the ends of the earth, where the Wild Things are.  There’s a wild rumpus, and Max treats the Wild Things to the very punishment he endures.  About the time the wildness threatens to consume him, Max smells the means of grace from the other side of the world.  When he arrives home, Max finds what we find when we return.  Reconciliation, grace, life.  Assurance that we’re still a part of the family. Food for living.  Means of grace.  Does God, indeed, dwell on earth?  Far from separating from us when we throw tantrums threatening to eat up our parent, Jesus responds, “Eat up!”  It’s means of grace, friends.  We are available to God, the way has been made clear.  This meal is proof positive that God does, indeed, dwell on earth.  God lives in our midst.  God consents to—offers and advocates for—our eating.  Food for life, food for living.