20th Sunday August 17 2009
A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin, 7, Tom 5. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. "If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.'" Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, "Ryan, you be Jesus!"
You be Jesus! We are called to be Jesus. How?
--Last week, as part of the series of talks on the Eucharist, we reflected on the “Bread of Life discourse and the OT.” And I had suggested three themes that connected the bread of life discourse with the OT: The murmuring of the Jews in the Gospel of John is linked to the murmuring of the Israelites against Moses; The manna that Moses gave is contrasted with the Manna that Jesus gave; and the question and answer format during the Jewish Passover meal is the structure in which John formats the bread of life discourse.
Today we move forward to examine the history of the controversy of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. The controversy as old as the gospels themselves. The crowds quarrelled, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (Jn 6:52) Jesus’ answer to that question stresses two things: First, “The bread that I will give is my flesh,” (Jn 6:51) and second, “My (his) flesh is real food and my (his) blood is real drink” (Jn 6: 55). And the controversy continues today. In a survey done, only 30% of the Catholics believed that the bread and wine they received at Eucharist was indeed the body and blood of Jesus. I bet you the 70% who do not believe do not read the scriptures and have certainly not read the John’s bread of life discourse.
Once again, let me give you the context in which John is emphasising the reality of the flesh of the Son of God. The gospel of John is written over a span of 50 years. While the other three gospels and the New Testament letters were completed by 75 AD at the latest, John was not completed till 95 AD. When John’s gospel was being composed, groups such as the Docetics and the Gnostics were inclined to emphasise the spirit in opposition to the flesh. As a result there were believers who were beginning to question the incarnation of Christ. Now we know why John begins his gospel with “… In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (Jn 1: 1-14). Similarly, some people were beginning to doubt the reality of the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist, which, by now had a well-established ritual in the early Christian communities. Once again John makes the effort to counter the Docetic and Gnostic heresies by emphasising the reality of the bread and wine being the flesh and blood of the Son of Man. Thus Jesus is today’s gospel reading says, “For My flesh in true food and my blood is true drink.” (Jn 6:55)
Like John, most of the Church Fathers (people who were the immediate successors to the apostles), stressed the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. However, we must keep one thing in mind. The Eucharist or the Mass as we have it today is the result of much historical development. In the beginning the Eucharist was a very simple domestic celebration. But once Christianity became the state religion under the Emperor Constantine in 380 AD, the Eucharist became an elaborate celebration and developed a definite structure, much like the imperial celebrations of the imperial courts. Even at this point, however, in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, Justin the Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Ambrose and other Church Fathers, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is taken for granted. Problems began to arise in the way later theologians began to interpret the writings of St Augustine. Augustine himself clearly wrote, “The bread which you see on the altar, once it is sanctified by the word of God is the body of Christ. And that chalice, or rather what the chalice contains, once it is sanctified by the word of God is the blood of Christ. [Serm. 227] However, Augustine used the word sacrament in relation to the Eucharist – a word so far not used to refer to the Eucharist. A sacrament is a sign. Taking on the cue, some theologians began to interpret the Eucharist as merely a sign or a symbol of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. The most prominent of these theologians was a person by the name of Berengar of Tours who in the 11th Century represented those over the centuries who questioned the real presence. Berengar’s reasoning was very simple. According to him, the mind saw things just as they are – in their very essence and therefore what was seen was the very essence of things. Thus, if what is seen on the altar is bread then it is bread. Thus even after consecration since the bread looked like bread, it must be bread and not the body of Christ and wine must be wine and not the blood of Christ. Taking the clue from Augustine, he called the bread and wine “the sign of a sacred thing.” Thus for him the bread and wine and indeed the entire Eucharist became a symbolic celebration.
It was not until Thomas Aquinas in the 12th century that the word “transubstantiation” was coined to counter Berengar and suggests how the bread and wine, even if it looked like bread and wine, were indeed the body and blood of Jesus. During the Reformation, both the real presence and sacrificial nature of the Mass was denied. For the Reformers, a person is saved by “Faith alone, Grace alone, Scripture alone!” Not even the Church that Christ himself founded could be an intermediary in the work of salvation. Luther however, unlike Swiss and French reformers, insisted in the real presence of in the Eucharist but only at the moment of consecration and the moment of communion. The presence of Christ does not endure beyond these moments. In opposition to the reformers the Council of Trent in the mid 16th Century crystallized the Catholic position on the Eucharist, in which the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist was firmly asserted and it did so in continuation of the teaching of Christ in the gospels, in the letters of Paul, and the teaching of the Church Fathers.
Some practical implications:
1. Most evangelical Churches interpret John’s bread of life discourse as Jesus giving himself not in his flesh and blood but his word. So for them, flesh is the word of God. Even if that is true (and such interpretation can be reached scripturally argued for), the fullness of the Catholic Eucharistic celebration does not exclude the word. Catholics do not exclude the word for the Eucharist or the Eucharist for the word. The Eucharist contains both these elements. Vatican II called the Eucharist “The summit of all our worship.” It is the perfect worship that a Christian offers to the Father – and it contains both the word and the flesh and blood. Remember what Jesus said in last week’s gospel passage? “…Whoever believes has eternal life…”
2. We have something to learn from Luther as far his faith in the real presence and scripture is concerned. When it came to the real presence, Luther believed that in comparison to everything else that everyone else was saying, he would rather take the words of the gospel seriously. And so, taking the realism of John’s gospel – “My flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink,” – seriously, Luther continued to believe in the real presence. The word of God led him to the sacrament. As Catholics we need to immerse ourselves even more deeply in God’s word. God’s word leads us to the sacrament and the sacrament leads us to the Word.
3. The most serious implication of the words of Jesus in the bread of life discourse is this, “Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” From a Christian perspective there is life and then there is life. Both of these are a gift from God. We have one life to live on the earth… just one… and each of us knows how precious and dear that life is. However, God offers us the opportunity to take that life beyond this earthly life. In many ways our journey toward that life begins in baptism in name of the God of life. But as Jesus says in today’s gospel reading “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. Let us then, chose life.
