Sermon for the 10th Sunday after Trinity

Sunday 16th August 2009

Preached by Rev Paul Hewitt

If you ever had the good fortune to be on holiday in Israel and you happened to stumble in to a MacDonald’s restaurant where you ordered a Big Mac; the Big Mac would arrive and look exactly like any of the millions of other Big Mac’s you would get in almost any corner of the world.

There would be one difference, however. The piece of cheese that you find inside wouldn’t be cheese at all – perhaps it might be called cheese, but it would be made out of some sort of dairy substitute. Thereby, one of the most basic Jewish food laws would not be broken; that dairy products should never be mixed with meat products. Many Jewish households would practically have two separate kitchens, to keep separate ‘milk’ products from meat products – often two dishwashers and everything.

And the verse all this is based on? Deuteronomy chapter 14 is one of the most important chapters in the Hebrew Scriptures when it comes to food laws. Some might say it is almost a ‘throw-away’ verse, a passing comment of just ten words where it says, “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk” – Deuteronomy chapter 14, verse 21.

Our New Testament reading this morning still finds us in John, Chapter 6, and we are still in the Bread of Life Discourse.

It is full of extraordinary words and phrases; often strange and fantastic and perhaps often at times, even quite grotesque.

But in that chapter, we come up against one of the earliest, and again one of the most basic, of all Jewish food laws, that of ‘the laws of kashrut’ – the laws of Torah regulating kosher diet. The word kosher just means ‘OK’ and we use in that way even today. This comes from Genesis, when the flood had receded and Noah was establishing life again on dry land and God gives his command as a part of his covenant with Noah, Genesis 9, verses 3 and 4, “Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.”

Of course, part of Kosher is the lists in the Bible of animals one can eat; ones which are permitted and ones which are not, eg. only those animals having divided hooves and chewing the cud are permitted – in practice, cow sheep, goat and deer, but not pig, camel, horse or rabbit. The lists are found in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 which are often hugely complicated, and in practice today has lead to varying degrees of what is allowed and what isn’t. The truth is that in modern Judaism custom, family and social relations and personal temperament will determine where an individual finds him or herself on the kashrut spectrum.

I don’t want to get too bogged down in Jewish food laws, but some Christians do ask about these laws and wonder should we obey them. For a moment, just think about your favourite meal, starter, main course and pudding and, I know in my case, I would probably break every kashrut rule there is.

So, have we conveniently put aside all the food rules in the Hebrew Scriptures so we can enjoy the best of everything, although these rules are still in our Holy Bible; are these rules still not the Word of God, or have we changed our view on these rules? Do we fall in to the trap, yet again, of just using the verses and the passages which suit us, as we seem to have done on so many other issues? There’s no question in my mind that Jesus himself would have abided by these strict food laws. But the answer is, of course we have changed our views, particularly because of the words of St. Paul, and, famously, St. Peter’s vision.

But, whatever the case (to return to our main theme) in Jewish thought, the blood stands for life, and the blood belonged to God and that is why any meat should be completely drained of blood – “you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Deut 15: 23).

So what is Jesus saying in John 6?

In an extraordinary way, Jesus is saying that you must drink my blood – you must take my life into the very centre of your being – and that life of mine is the life which belongs to God. When Jesus said that we must drink his blood he meant that we must take his life into the very core of our hearts.

We have a greater understanding of this today. We know what is behind the Holy Communion Service and we have discussed such issues before. We know that when Jesus told us to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he was telling us to feed our hearts and souls and minds on his humanity and to revitalize our lives with his life until we are filled with the life of God. That’s always been our understanding of the Last Supper, our Holy Communion or Eucharist.

But given our basic understanding of Jewish food laws, I think these words of Jesus would have been mind-blowing to Jesus’ audience; and trying to understanding it all, and to take it all in, would’ve been be almost impossible. In fact, if you read on to practically the next verse (v.60) it says, “On hearing it, many of his disciples said, ‘This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” And in v.66, “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him”.

There’s no doubt that John had in mind all along the Lord’s Supper, the institution of our Holy Communion, and his explanantion of it. He was saying that, “If you want life, you must come and sit at that table where you eat that broken bread and drink that poured-out wine which somehow, in the grace of God, bring you in to contact with the love and the life of Jesus Christ.” For Jesus says, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life” (v.63)

We understand these words, we’ve been coming to Church long enough to know the grace and wonder and mystery of the Lord’s Supper.

But here is the most extraordinary thing about John’s ‘Bread of Life Discourse’ in Chapter 6 of his Gospel – that no where else in his Gospel is there a narrative or an account of the Last Supper, the meal that Jesus shared with his friends the night before he was crucified.

The Synoptic Gospels, all three, Matthew, Mark and Luke are all very clear about that last meal and, indeed what was said. But in John’s Gospel; not a word!

We should remember that what John is doing in Chapter 6 is what John so often does. He is not giving, or trying to give, the actual words of Jesus. He has been thinking for 60 or 70 years of what Jesus said; and now, led by the Holy Spirit, he is giving the inner significance of Jesus’ words. It is not the words he reports; that would merely a feat of memory. It is the essential meaning of the words; and that is the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

How blessed we are in having the New Testament Scriptures as we have them. Between all four Gospels we have all we have to know, and all we have to believe.

Amen.