Deacon Cornell’s Homily

There is an old story that is used to illustrate of the difference between involvement and commitment: A pig and a chicken are hanging out in the barnyard when the chicken says to the pig, "Are you going to the breakfast the farmer invited us to this Saturday?" The pig replied, "For you that is an involvement; for me it is a commitment!"

If you have been involved with the readings over the past few weeks, you know that we are in the 4th week of listening to Jesus' Bread of Life discourse from Chapter 6 of John's Gospel. As I re-read this chapter it struck me that the Eucharist is an even better example of the difference between involvement and commitment. And if any of these 5 weeks of readings are a little unsettling to listen to, it is for good reason. The Eucharist is the most challenging of all the sacraments. It is a sacrament of initiation but one that we celebrate over and over again. So there is the challenge of keeping it fresh and meaningful. The Eucharist, of course, is probably the single most fundamental thing that separates the Catholics and Orthodox from Protestants. As Catholics and Orthodox, we believe that the Eucharist is the real body and blood of Christ. Most Protestants believe the Eucharist only symbolizes the body and blood of Christ. I would suggest that how we believe in the Eucharist has a profound effect on how we live out our lives as Christians. So the question for us today, is what do we believe, you and I?

So what is Jesus really saying in today's Gospel ? The Protestant theologians understand the whole of chapter 6 as metaphor. I think it requires a feat of mental gymnastics more astounding than the gymnastics we just witnessed at the Olympics to conclude that Jesus is speaking symbolically or metaphorically when he says, "my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink." His listeners did not think he was talking metaphorically otherwise what he was saying would not have disturbed them. But he is not speaking literally either; no one could believe he expected people to come up and take a bite out of his arm. So what does Jesus really mean when he said that: unless we eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, we do not have eternal life within us? How do we believe that? We can look at this in a lot of different waysbut I want to focus on one really important one: celebrating Eucharist, specifically receiving Holy Communion. How do we understand what it is that we do week after week after week? How does this Bread of Life discourse help us understand that?

Jesus tells us that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. When God made his covenant with Noah after the flood, in addition to all the green plants, he gave the flesh of animals to humans for food, but flesh with its lifeblood was forbidden. Because blood represented life itself, that belonged to God alone. When Jesus tells us we must eat his flesh AND drink his blood, he makes it clear that this is not some cannibalistic ritual. He is telling us that we are to feed on his very self, his very live self. This should be even more disturbing to us than it was to his listeners because we know that Jesus is not just commanding us to feed on a human being but on God's very self. The inclusion of blood moves this from a strictly earthly or fleshly experience to one that draws us into the life of God, eternal life. In the Eucharist, we are formed more fully into the Body of Christ, the incarnation of God here on earth. We believe that God became human and walked the earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. When his time on earth was done, Jesus called others, ourselves included, to become the the Body of Christ, the body of the second person of the Trinity, so that God continues to be present in the flesh today, here in Stow, Acton and Boxboro. Is that why you came to mass today? To be the Incarnation of God's love, the Body of Christ?

From ancient times, deacons have been assigned the ministry of the precious blood so I just want to end with a little focus on receiving Communion under both species. This pandemic-induced fast from receiving the Blood of Christ is especially challenging for deacons but hopefully our parishes will restore reception under both species in the near future. And one of the reasons it is challenging for me is that I think the fullness of the Eucharist is most clearly revealed in the Precious Blood. It is what highlights the difference between involvement and committment.

Now I know that there are good reasons why some people might never receive communion from the cup, and why some others might choose not to on a particular day. But for the rest of us, I would suggest that the decision to receive from the cup or not depends on what we believe is in that cup. For starters, in the Last Supper accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and here in this Bread of Life discourse in John, Jesus clearly commands us to eat his flesh and drink his blood. He doesn't say eat my flesh and if you are comfortable with it or you feel like it, drink my blood. Do we really believe that this is the Blood of Christ? Why would we choose to ignore his command?

Of course we all want to be nourished and to be given the strength of this food, this bread come down from heaven. So we take the body of Christ and eat it. But the Precious Blood? That calls us to pour out our own blood, to give over our own lives for others as Jesus did, to enter into eternal life, to become more fully the body of Christ who empties himself of everything for the life of the world. To receive the precious blood we must commit ourselves to that.

As we move from this reflection on God's Word to our physical participation in the paschal mystery that joins God and human, I would ask you to join me in praying for a fuller appreciation of the Eucharist especially when we resume reception under both species, so that when we approach the table we humbly submit ourselves to Jesus' command to eat his flesh and drink his blood so that we might commit to becoming more fully, more effectively, the flesh and blood of Christ for the life of the world.

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