We Are What We Eat

Proverbs 9:1-6

Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars.

She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table.

She has sent out her servant girls, she calls from the highest places in the town,

"You that are simple, turn in here!" To those without sense she says,

"Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.

Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight."

Our second scripture lesson comes from Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus, chapter 5, verses 15 through 20. This passage can be found in your Pew Bibles on page 183 in the New Testament section.

Ephesians 5: 15-20

Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.

So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

  

John 6:51-58

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."

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

So Jesus said to them, "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, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever."

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What is it that we take in, when we take in wisdom?

In Proverbs this morning we hear about wisdom spreading a table, preparing a table before us, inviting us to eat of her bread and drink of her wine, and as we do, to lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.

Paul sounds like he has taken these words from Proverbs and restated them, when he cautions us in Ephesians, telling us to fill up with the Spirit and not with wine, and saying “be careful how you live, not as unwise people, but as wise…. to not be foolish, but to understand what the will of the Lord is.”

The book of Proverbs is attributed to Solomon, much like the Psalms are mostly attributed to David, his father. Solomon became king after David, and in the early days of his kingship the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him to ask what God should give him. Solomon asks for an understanding mind to govern the people; a mind that is able to discern between good and evil. God is pleased by his request, and that he has not asked for long life or riches or conquest over enemies. And so God does give him a wise and discerning mind. And this is of course why we sometimes speak of “the wisdom of Solomon.” Furthermore, God gives him what he has not asked, both riches and honor; and God covenants with him that if Solomon will walk in the ways of God (and interestingly, God says “as your father David walked”), then God will lengthen Solomon’s life.

So Solomon is given wisdom beyond measure. And as that wisdom is expressed in Proverbs, she calls out to those who are simple or without sense, and says, come in here! Eat of my bread, drink of my wine, lay aside immaturity and live, and walk in the way of insight.

So wisdom is about eating and drinking and walking, according to the Proverbs, according to Solomon.

As Jesus continues to talk about living bread, we continue to see how he is talking about way more than bread. In today’s gospel, it seems reasonable that the Jews would be disputing the statement from Jesus that the living bread is his flesh. What ever is up with that? And as they dispute this, his continuing statements make it more and more difficult to understand and accept.

·      Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.

·      Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life.

·      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.

There doesn’t seem to be any way of getting around what John tells us Jesus is saying in this fourth gospel.

And the Jews are not the only ones who seem disturbed by this. In the verses that follow, it becomes clear that the disciples are having a hard time taking this in as well. But when Jesus says to them, will you fall away from me too because of the difficulty of this teaching? And to this Simon Peter says, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.

Wisdom sets the table, with bread and wine, and invites the simple to come and eat.

Jesus not only invites us to the table he has prepared, he tells us that his flesh and his blood is what gives eternal life.

About ten years ago Eugene Peterson wrote a book about the art of spiritual reading, and he entitled it, “Eat This Book”. Now, he was not talking about the book he wrote. He was talking about Holy Scripture. He gets the title from a passage in the Revelation given to John, the last book of the New Testament.

I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll; and he said to me, "Take it, and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth." And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter. (Rev. 10: 9-10)

He goes further to say, “Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the holy community as food nurtures the human body. Christians don't simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus' name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.”

In the first sentences of the Gospel of John, he refers to Jesus Christ as the Word of God – Word with a capital W. “In the beginning was the Word… And the Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.”

The Word became flesh.

The Word was – and is – full of grace and truth.

Jesus says, eat my flesh and receive eternal life.

Eat this book. Eat the Word, the living Word, the living bread, the bread of life.

Theologian David Lose connects the dots in this way: he says,

“…in Jesus, the Word made flesh,

         and in the sacraments,

                  the Word given physical, visible form once again,

we meet the God who will be satisfied

         with nothing less than our whole selves.

This is why Jesus speaks of giving us his flesh and blood,

         … for “flesh and blood” is a Hebrew idiom

                  which refers to the whole person,

                           hearts, minds, spirit, feelings,

                           hopes, dreams, fears, concerns, everything.

In Jesus, you see, the whole of God meets us

         to love, redeem, and sustain

                  the whole of who we are, good, bad, and ugly.

The God who comes for our whole selves.

·      Jesus is the shepherd and we are the sheep;

·      he is the vine and we are the branches;

·      he abides in God and we abide in him.

For those who receive Jesus, the whole Jesus,

         his life clings to their bones and courses through their veins.

He can no more be taken from the believer’s life

         than last Tuesday’s breakfast can by plucked from one’s body.

This is the promise which God makes to us in the Sacraments:

         to be one with us and for us forever,

         to stick with us and even in us no matter what.”

And in order for us to generously and abundantly give of our whole selves, we have to first understand how generously and abundantly Christ has given his whole self for us. We must take in all of Christ, in order to let go, to release all of ourselves into a life of discipleship and obedience to Christ, serving others as we have been served, loving others as we have been loved.

In two weeks we will begin a yearlong journey through Scripture, using Brian McLaren’s book, We Make the Road by Walking as a structure for our study. It is my hope and prayer that we will not only read the Bible, but that we will take it in, and in so doing, we will take in the whole of Jesus Christ, the living Word of God given for us. That we will taste and see that the Lord is good. That we will come to a new understanding of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. That we will move toward greater discipleship and wisdom as we receive the Good News, accept it gratefully, and grow in our ability to step off our own paths of self-centeredness and to follow the Way of Jesus Christ as the way for our lives, for all of our lives.

References:
Peterson, Eugene H. Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 2006. 
"Pentecost 12 B: Meeting the Carnal God." In the Meantime RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Aug. 2015.
McLaren, Brian D. We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.