The Reverend Maureen
Frescott
Congregational Church of
Amherst, UCC
August 16, 2015 – Twelfth
Sunday after Pentecost
Job 19:19-27; John 6:51-69
“Vampires,
Zombies, and Cannibals…Oh My!”
What
does it mean to have eternal life?
Why
would we want to live forever?
And
why should the promise that we will one day live forever in some heavenly existence
have any bearing on how we live this life –
this
life in this real world – that is guaranteed to bring us pain just as much as
it brings us joy.
Why
would we want to live forever?
Because
we fear death – with all its pain and uncertainty?
Because
we fear losing everything we have and everyone we love?
Because
we fear not doing and experiencing all that this life has to offer?
As
mortal beings we are easily enticed by the possibility of living indefinitely.
Our
fascination with immortality is evident throughout our world religions, our
mythologies, and our cultural attraction to stories about human beings who
become immortal beings.
From
the human-like gods of ancient Greece and Rome, to the tales of 20th
century superheroes who defy injury and death.
Even
the monsters we create to scare us reveal our fascination with immortality.
These
days stories about zombies – the walking dead – are all the rage.
Zombies
both repulse and attract us with their ability to live on after death and their
ability to create more zombies by consuming living flesh.
A
few years ago there was a flood of books and movies about vampires, including
an entire young adult romance series where the vampires are the trendsetting
cool kids in town.
Gone
are the days of Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi.
Today’s
vampires are young, attractive, and dangerously mysterious.
It’s
interesting to note that in these stories both zombies and vampires pass on
their immortality by biting into their victims -
mingling
flesh and blood and making the ability to cheat death a communal experience
meant to be shared by all.
And
then we have Jesus -
who
said we must eat of his flesh and drink of his blood in order to live eternally.
I
can just feel some of you cringing at the very thought of lumping Jesus in with
zombies and vampires.
And
I suspect many of us are cringing at the thought that Jesus was being literal
when he talked about eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
I
understand.
I
was raised Catholic and all this talk of blood and flesh is making me cringe,
as well.
As
every Catholic knows, the dry communion wafer given out during Mass becomes the
literal body of Christ when the Priest consecrates the host.
And
after receiving communion, every Catholic knows what it’s like to spend the
rest of the service resisting the urge to use your tongue to pry Jesus off the
roof of your mouth.
It
is interesting to note that while many of us in the church tend to downplay or
distance ourselves from this language in our sacred texts about blood and flesh
and living eternally –the culture outside the church seems to crave the very
real immortality and communal sustenance that Jesus is offering.
While
we talk about the symbolic coming to
Christ we experience in the Eucharist meal, and the metaphorical eternal life we experience by living on through the
legacy of our actions….the wider culture engrosses itself in stories of human
beings who consume literal flesh and blood and defy death, resist pain, and gain
the strength to overcome all obstacles that befall them.
I
suspect that people gravitate towards these stories about zombies and vampires not
because they’re ghoulish or secretly cannibalistic, but because they’re looking
for what they hope to gain through immortality.
They’re
looking for hope – they’re looking for strength -
they’re
looking for something to lift them up out their pain and give them peace, purpose,
and joy.
Like
poor unsuspecting Job, we all are befuddled by the suffering that goes on in our
world and in our lives.
We
long for the day of redemption.
When
our weary and broken flesh will be restored and we’ll feel whole once again.
Which
is why we crave stories that help us to imagine that wholeness – that healing.
We
want to imagine what life would be like without pain, without suffering,
without loss, without death.
And
this story that Jesus has to tell has all of that.
Imagine
a Kingdom – a reign of God – where all of us will live peacefully and equally.
Where
death will be no more and eternal life in the loving presence of God is offered
to all.
Now
imagine that you can experience this kingdom right here and right now, in the
midst of the very real suffering and pain of this world.
Jesus
lifted himself up as the gateway into this experience of eternal life.
He
offered himself as the living bread – the life giving sustenance that we take
into ourselves, in a very real and visceral way.
Not
just intellectually, not just spiritually – but physically.
So
that we might feel that he is a part
of us and we are a part of him.
So
we might feel his comforting presence in our hearts and in our minds.
So
that we might see through his eyes and act more compassionately and more justly
towards others.
So
that we might become extensions of his hands and feet in a world that is in
desperate need of his service.
If
we crave immortality, if we crave meaning and purpose,
if we
crave peace, joy, justice, and love…
We’ll
find it all in Jesus.
Perhaps
this Christian story we tell has become so familiar it has lost its ability to
shock, entice, and attract those of us who need to hear it most.
It
wasn’t always that way.
As
we heard in our intro to the scripture from John’s gospel, Jesus’ talk of
eating his flesh and drinking his blood was designed to get people’s attention.
It’s
likely that Jesus knew such language would shock his Jewish followers. Taken
literally it violated Torah teachings that prohibited the consumption of blood,
and even more shockingly it suggested that his followers must resort to
cannibalism.
Taken
figuratively, Jesus’ words set him up as the source of eternal life – a gateway
to God.
Many
of Jesus’ followers walked away in disgust when they heard these words that
they considered to be blasphemous,
but
others stayed because they were intrigued and curious as to where Jesus was
going with this.
They
trusted that what Jesus was saying was meant to be heard at a much deeper level
than what the others were hearing.
Those
who stayed,
those
who stuck around long enough to learn more about this teaching,
those
who experienced the sacrifice that Jesus made of his flesh in his death, those
who continued to come together and experience Jesus’ presence in the sharing of
the bread and wine of communion,
they’re
the ones who came to understand what Jesus meant when he said he is the living
bread that gives us life and strength.
And
they’re the ones who discovered that Jesus gave them the ability to tap into
this life giving strength in the most trying times of their lives, and
experience a glimpse of what it will be like to live eternally in peace.
Jesus’
disciples said to him,
“This
teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”
Those
of us inside the church and outside the church continue to struggle with what
it means to have eternal life.
If
God has the ability to create a world where we will live in peace, where
suffering and death will be no more, why not do it now?
Why
must we wait for some future Kingdom or own death to experience what it means
to live eternally in the presence of God?
Why
must we rely on our faith, strength, and intermittent moments of joy and hope
to sustain us in this life?
In
the summer of 2014, The Rev. Dr. Steven Haynor was serving as the president of
Columbia Seminary in Decatur, Georgia when he learned that he had pancreatic
cancer.
Rather
than pursue aggressive treatment he chose to spend his last months enjoying his
grandchildren.
As
Haynor’s body began to whither away to a shell of what he used to be, his
five-year-old granddaughter, Anna, asked her mom and dad when she might get her
regular grandfather back.
This
led to a conversation about her grandpa’s prognosis and the new body Jesus
would give him when he died.
To
which young Anna replied,
“I
wish I knew if Jesus was going to heal him here or in heaven.
But
I know that Jesus keeps his promises. We can trust him.”
While
we wrestle with questions of faith and immerse ourselves in stories that make
us long for immortality, it helps to hold onto the childlike trust we once had.
The
trust that Jesus really meant it when he promised us that we would find new
life and eternal life through him.
The
trust that God is doing something in our world through us,
that
will come to fruition in God’s time.
The
trust that the meaning, purpose, and growth that we experience and name after
we pass through a struggle in life is not just us grasping at straws or our
delusional attempt to paint a silver lining around a dark cloud.
Jesus
didn’t die on a cross for the sake of maintaining a delusion.
He
didn’t spice up his teachings with hot button phrases like “eat my flesh” and
“drink my blood” simply to shock the traditionalists or stir up trouble.
And
he didn’t say things like “I am the living bread. Take me in and I will sustain
you” because he knew how much we love comforting and meaningful metaphors.
He
did and said these things to wake us up.
To
shift our perspective.
To
remove the blinders from our eyes that keep us from seeing the potential for
joy and goodness in this world…and in ourselves.
Why
would we want to live forever in THIS world?
This
imperfect, violent, and broken world?
Because
God is doing something GOOD in the midst of it all.
Through
our individual and collective acts of love, compassion, mercy, and generosity
God
is creating something through us that we don’t yet have the ability to
comprehend.
We
might say that eternal life is not a state of unending spiritual bliss…
Rather
it is found in the cycle of birthing, living, and dying that we all experience
throughout our lives.
As
we allow old beliefs, old habits, old perspectives to die, and nurture new ones
to grow in their place.
As
we let go of the things that cause us harm or pain and seek to cultivate that
which brings us joy and love.
In
this cycle, death is an end but it also a beginning.
And
it is the eternal expression of God’s love in our world.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
