We may all be familiar with the phrase 'we become what we eat'. Health experts warn us that what we eat has a big impact on the person we become and can affect both our physical and mental health. If we eat plenty of fish and fruit and vegetables we are more likely to be physically fit and mentally alert than if our diet consists only of coke and cream cakes. What we eat affects us in all kinds of ways. We are also affected spiritually by what we feed our minds and spirits on – by what we look at, what we read, what we spend our time thinking about. Perhaps it's worth pondering, from time to time, whether we feed ourselves, spiritually, with what is good and healthy and life-giving.
Jesus takes up this theme in our gospel reading this morning when he tells his disciples 'I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.' Feeding on him has a transformative effect on us and leads to new life, now, and for eternity. We become what we eat.
Perhaps we need to recapture just how shocking Jesus' words are. He's not just saying 'I've got some life giving teaching for you, some timeless truths that will nourish you and help you lead a fruitful life'; he is making claims about himself – 'I am the bread of life.' His listeners clearly think what he says is absurd: 'We know you, we know your parents, your brothers and sisters, your background; you're the son of the carpenter. How can you say you are the bread of life come down from heaven?'
But Jesus is insistent, saying 'I am the living bread…whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.' Jesus actually talks in the next few verses about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Very shocking words when we think about it. Why use such graphic terms? One of the things that using such terms does is remind us that Jesus was a real person of flesh and blood. Our faith is not based on some vague spiritual philosophies or principles but on a living person, on Jesus, the Word made flesh, flesh which of course became broken for us on the cross. We receive life through Jesus' death; it is through his broken body that we are fed and nourished and enter into eternal life. He himself is the bread of life for us. As it says in one of our Eucharistic prayers, echoing words from our gospel reading: 'he is the living bread in whom all our hungers are satisfied.'
We may be reminded of Jesus' words at the last supper. There is no account of the last supper in John's gospel like that in the other gospels, but most scholars think that this chapter is John's equivalent. Certainly, the early Christians would have understood these words in terms of the last supper and communion. Jesus, at his last supper with his friends before his death, shares out the bread and wine, telling them: 'this is my body' and 'this is my blood' and 'do this in remembrance of me'. (Mark 14: 22-25; Luke 22:19). This is still what Christians do in communion services all around the world and the Eucharist is central to our worship here at St Ursula's week by week
It's possible to believe in Jesus without receiving the bread and wine, and some Christian groups do not celebrate communion; nevertheless, Jesus did tell his disciples to 'do this in remembrance of me', and so there is something important for us about eating the bread and drinking the wine. We are physical beings and doing something physical, taking something in our hands to eat and drink, can touch us in a deeper way than simply using our minds to think about our faith. We are more than minds and spirits, we are flesh and blood, just as Jesus was, so there is something fitting about these physical symbols being central to our faith.
I wonder what communion, the Eucharist, means to you in your Christian life? If we were to share our experiences, our thoughts and feelings, I expect we'd have a variety of answers. Certainly, for me, it was the importance of the Eucharist which led me to join the Anglican Church. I was brought up in the Methodist church and in those days most services were services of the word; we had communion very rarely and when we did it was tagged on to the end of the service for those who wanted to stay for it. (It's interesting that of course things have changed since then and nowadays communion is much more important in most Methodist churches).
For myself, it wasn't till I went to university that I really appreciated the significance of communion. I went along weekly to the university chapel where we had an Anglican communion service. For me it was a revelation. The service combined teaching, worship and prayer, with the sharing of the bread and wine, and in that service I experienced a new sense of intimacy with God, and intimacy with other people, as we were drawn together round the table. The service was more than words and I felt that more than my mind was engaged; the whole of me was involved as I walked up to receive communion; body, mind and spirit, and I felt nourished in a new way. I also had a deeper sense of being part of the body of Christ. Communion is not just about 'me and God' but about being drawn together as his people. Christ is our peace and he reconciles us to God and to one another.
What exactly we believe about communion again may vary (and Christians have disagreed about it over the centuries!) Are we eating bread and wine simply to remember what happened at the last supper, and Jesus' death on the cross over 2,000 years ago, or is Jesus actually feeding us with his body and blood in some mysterious way afresh today as we receive the bread and wine? Or is the bread and wine giving us a foretaste of the future heavenly banquet? The Eucharist, in fact, in a rich way combines past, present and future. If you listen carefully to the Eucharistic prayers you'll notice the past, present and future purposes of God are all interwoven together. We look back to the last supper, to Jesus' death on the cross for us; we look ahead to the joyful heavenly banquet when all things are brought together in Christ, and we are fed afresh in the present as we receive the bread and wine Sunday by Sunday.
When we take the bread and wine into us we are feeding on Jesus' very life; we take his life into us so that we become more like him. In his Confessions (VII:x) St Augustine writes of Christ addressing him in these words: 'I am the food of the fully grown; grow and you will feed on me. And you will not change me into you like the food your flesh eats, but you will be changed into me.' We become what we eat. Communion is one of the ways we are nourished in our Christian lives in order to grow healthy and strong, to become more like Christ. Of course, communion is not the only way we feed on Christ. He also nourishes us through prayer and worship, through fellowship with others, and through the Bible.
It is interesting that some traditions of reading the Bible, for example what we call lectio divina (divine reading), use the image of eating, or chewing over. These traditions encourage us to read short passages very slowly several times, and ponder them, 'chew over' them, so that they become part of us and move from the mind to the heart. This meditative reading of the Bible is a kind of feeding on Christ too. Several of us meet to meditate on a scripture passage in this way every week and it is certainly a source of nourishment. We do this as a group and, after we have pondered on and chewed over the passage, we share our thoughts together which can be very encouraging. You are very welcome to come and join our lectio group one Wednesday morning as we meet online and see what it is like.
But we can also use this method of meditating on the Bible on our own as a personal discipline. You might want to try it yourself: read a short passage of scripture slowly several times and then chew over any word or phrase which particularly strikes you, allowing them to speak deeply to your mind and your heart. Perhaps try using a verse from our gospel reading this morning: 'Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.' (John 6:35). Take these words into yourself, chew them over, and then move from your reflections into prayer. You may be surprised that later in the day those words may come welling up in your mind and heart when you're not thinking about them. They have deeply nourished you and have become a part of you. As we read in today's Psalm (34:8): 'Taste and see that the Lord is gracious.'
What are we feeding ourselves with? What do we spend time thinking about or chewing over; looking at or reading; what do we feed our emotions and our bodies with? Do those things build us up or make us unhealthy? Perhaps there are some things we feed our minds and hearts with which are not really doing us any good: we can feed ourselves with lots of 'stuff' we don't need; we can feed ourselves with negative thoughts and emotions – envy, bitterness, resentment and anger. Sometimes we can feed on images, forms of communication, consumer goods, patterns of thought which become a kind of unhealthy addiction. What kind of people does this kind of food turn us into?
We become what we eat. Let us ponder today where we get our nourishment from and what kind of nourishment it is and whether we give enough time and thought to our spiritual nourishment. If we are spiritually well nourished and healthy we will of course have more to give to others. May we feed daily on Christ, the Word made flesh, through both word and sacrament so that we slowly become like him; we become what we eat.