Midweek Sermon

In today's Gospel, Jesus says some startling words:

Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

When I was at vicar school as my sister likes to describe it, we were asked the question ‘What does the Eucharist mean to you?’ The best answer I heard from my fellow ordinands was this….    ’It is sustenance for life’s journey’. Not only is the Eucharist a form of physical food and drink that our bodies need every day in some form to prevent us from dying, but it is also spiritual sustenance for our life of faith in an increasingly non-faith world.

Every time we come to the altar, heaven and earth touch fingertips in a magical and mystical encounter. It is meant to be awe-inspiring and life giving.

Just as marathon runners thirstily reach out their hands for bottles of water to sustain and refresh them for what lies ahead, we reach out hands at the Lord’s table for the same reason.

We come because we are still running the race of life. We come carrying joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments, questions and fears. We come because we need sustaining.

As the priest and writer Dave Tomlinson often reminds us, faith is not about escaping ordinary life but discovering God's presence within it. The Eucharist is not an escape from the realities of life; it is God's gift to strengthen us in the midst of them.

A friend telephoned me recently and asked, "How are you?" I replied with the usual answers. "I'm fine. Keeping busy. I’m good." She laughed and said, "Are you telling me the truth, or just repeating what you're supposed to say?"

Her question stayed with me.

Most of us spend a great deal of time talking about what we are doing living life - appointments, family commitments, health concerns, volunteering, gardening, shopping, and all the countless tasks that fill our days.

And yet there is a profound difference between simply living life and truly being alive within.

Beneath all the discussions about bread and wine lies a deeper question: Is there life within us?Is there life within us?

That can be an uncomfortable question because it asks us to plumb the depths. It asks us to notice our hunger for meaning, our desire for peace, our hunger for love, our need for God.

Notice that Jesus does not simply offer teaching, or rules, or even religious comfort. He offers himself. ‘Those who eat and drink of me abide in me, and I in them’.

This is the language of relationship. Jesus is describing a life lived in communion with him. Is there life within us? So when we come to Communion today, let us come as runners in life’s race, seeking strength for the road ahead. Let us receive God's sustaining grace for the journey.

But let us also come remembering that the greatest gift is not the bread itself, but the living Christ who meets us in it – that magical, mystical, holy encounter, touching fingertips with the living God. For he is not only the food for the journey. He is the companion on the road. He is the life within us. And he is the One who promises that nothing—not even death itself—can separate us from the life he gives.

Amen