Home, Part 1

My sermon from last Sunday, based on John 6:56-69, Part I

Many, many years ago, my family and I were sitting in worship.  The pastor – not the one we have now, and not the one before him, but the one before him – was talking about communion.  I was watching my son, who was about four at the time, and who was listening intently to John, the pastor, as he talked about the bread and the juice.  Grant (our son) was paying attention as John spoke about the body and the blood of Christ.  I was feeling great about this.  I was feeling blessed to belong to a church family where our sons could learn about Christ, could grow in their faith.  I thought John was doing a great job explaining a hard to understand topic to all of us, but especially to our four year old.  I was smiling to myself.

Right until our son yelled, “Blood!  We drink blood?!” with a oooh yuck kind of tone.  I was stuck trying to explain to him, during the communion liturgy, that we do not, indeed, drink blood.

I think my son’s reaction to John’s explanation of communion might be very similar to my own – and to yours, perhaps – when we listen to the passage that was read from John’s gospel this morning.  It’s one of the lectionary readings for today, and when I read it, I thought, “Oooh yuck, I don’t want to preach about that.”  And then I read it again, and I realized that once I got past that initial reaction, this passage of scripture is filled with words for us to hear.