The Rev. Kristin Krantz, St. James’, Mt. Airy
Pentecost 12/Proper 15B, 8/15/2021
1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
Psalm 111
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:35, 51-58
Gracious God, take our minds and think through them;
take our hands and work through them;
take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.
Today we are celebrating the two great sacraments of the church as received in scripture: baptism and Eucharist.
It is always a joy to baptize and welcome people into this family of families we call the church on the special feast days the church sets aside for such rites.
But it is also joyous to gather in the dog days of summer to bring some of the children in our midst into the fold, as we will do outdoors at the 10:30 service / shortly.
Whenever I sit down to do baptism prep with families, one of the things we discuss is the “what and why” of baptism. What does it mean? Why do we do it? In short, we look at a theology of baptism.
There are centuries of changing theology – as well as cultural overlay – that can obscure our current understanding of this sacrament. It’s one of the reasons I often ask families preparing for baptism to share a story or memory they have of baptism – to use our previous experiences as a jumping off place.
So what do we believe? We believe that we are all created in God’s image and beloved of God. We don’t baptize to “save” people or keep them from going to hell or purgatory. We understand baptism as a sacrament – a symbolic ritual – where we affirm what already exists.
When you get married what you are doing is entering a sacramental rite – a symbolic ritual – affirming the love and relationship that already exists between the couple.
The same is true for baptism. We baptize to remind us of who and whose we are. Baptism is a formal way to claim our identities as Christian people, and we do it because there is power in making promises to God and the Church in the context of community.
This is why no matter when it happens, heaven and earth rejoice when we gather to call on the Spirit, splash water, and anoint with holy oil.
Now I started off by saying it was scriptural – and by that I mean that we have the example of Jesus being baptized in the Gospels. The other sacrament we get from the Gospels is the Eucharist.
Most often when we think of Eucharist, or communion, we think of the Last Supper Jesus shared with his friends before his passion, death, and resurrection. We find similar stories of that night in each of the Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
But Eucharist looks different in the Gospel of John – and today’s passage, the fourth installment of our ongoing reading from John’s sixth chapter, is the capstone to John’s Eucharistic theology.
It began with Jesus feeding a crowd of 5000 with just a few loaves and fish, It continued when he then went across the sea, the crowd followed him, and he told them he was the bread of life which came from heaven – and that whoever believed in him would never be hungry or thirsty.
Now in today’s passage we get to the heart of it – and it hinges on the word flesh.
In John’s Gospel we don’t get a birth narrative, instead we have that beautiful poetic beginning: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
For the writer of John, the Word (or Logos) was synonymous with flesh – as Jesus the Christ was God incarnate.
In other words, when Jesus says, “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh,” in the context of John’s Gospel, he’s effectively saying, “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is the divine Logos, the Word made flesh.”[1]
Are you still with me? Because what I’m swinging back to is the “what and why” of communion. What are we doing and why are we doing it?
The why is easier: because Jesus told us to, and because the church has been doing it for centuries.
The what, if we use John’s Eucharist as our guide, is that communion is a symbolic ritual that looks something this:
Think of it as a kind of meal – not a conventional meal, but a heavenly one. Open your imagination to higher things. For true life you need true food and true drink – and Jesus is that food and drink. Communing with Jesus is communing with the Logos, the source and pattern of all life. Like the loaves and fishes, this meal will start with what appears to be a paltry portion, only a bit and a sip – but in fact this is an abundant feast![2]
Then end result is that our Eucharistic meal more than just bread and wine – it is a communing together with God, it is mutually abiding with one another, and most importantly, it is the sharing of a common life with and in God. Through it we are fed as individuals and as a community. Through it we are equipped to proclaim God’s redeeming love to the world.
So there, folks, is a brief theology 101 for both baptism and Eucharist. Now let’s get ready splash some water and feast together! Amen.
[1] SALT commentary for August 14, 2018.
[2] SALT commentary for August 14, 2018.