An Endless Feast

51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

John 6:41–51 NRSV

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

John 6

Consuming Eternity

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

So far, throughout the discourse, we have discussed how Jesus invites to a deep abundance. That we can rest. That an abundant life is built around compassion for others - the same compassion Jesus had for all of those who were following him. That to those who were hearing then - and perhaps now - it feels a little unbelievable, and for some of those who knew Jesus and his family, a little scandalous.

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Take for instance this whole “flesh” business. Here, more than anywhere else, these images become their most vivid. John is inviting us to first remember what was written earlier in the Gospel - that the Word became flesh. The word that John used wasn’t a metaphoric word, but this one - sarx, meaning meat. John is inviting us to think about God becoming meat, visceral and real in every way. And we come to and we see this same word - flesh. And moreover, Jesus is inviting us to consume it - the words here are not polite, dinner party terms, but more like chewing, gulping. We are to ravenously feast on Jesus. Again, this might be another reason to be a bit sympathetic with the crowds again, who started to argue a bit.

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, Volume 3 Homiletical Perspective

Those of us who have been conditioned to think through cool, detached, distant, and dispassionate consideration will find it strange to be told that if we are to think about the Word made flesh, we must think through ingestion, consumption, and intimate, deep engagement. The metaphor reminds one of Paul’s claim of “no longer I … but … Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). There is no knowing who the Christ is without visceral, total engagement. We will not be able to comprehend him by sitting back, comfortable in the pew, and coolly considering him as if he were an abstract, disembodied idea. Incarnation means that we must get up, come forward, hold out empty hands, sip wine, chew bread (the verbs in the Greek here move from polite ones about eating and drinking to more visceral verbs of chewing and gulping).

But it almost seems like they’ve missed the point here - and if we get too buried in the scandalous nature of this passage, we can, too - that Jesus is invited us to be ravenous when it comes to him - that our life with Jesus Christ is not just meant to be a detached, dispassionate one, abstracted and disembodied. Instead of an image of a slight distracted and disengaged person sitting in a pew lightly nodding off, we’re better to imagine standing in line in the narthex, the kitchen window just recently thrown open, revealing what our other senses intuited - another delicious potluck Sunday. All of the dishes you look forward to on the counter. And you didn’t eat breakfast. So you fill up, you stack your plate. And you chew, gulp, consume - you laugh with your friends, you’re meeting new folks. It’s good… really good. It’s a taste of home. Jesus is asking the same of us with him. Devour the choicest meal from your best moment but better.

But there’s been one more part of this discourse that is even more scandalous, even more unbelievable - that we are eternal. If we are consuming Jesus - with all of the gusto we can muster, and he is in us - we are invited to an entirely different way of living. Even more unbelievable may be that if we take him at his word, as folks who may have deeply consumed Jesus, we are eternal right now. There’s no waiting for being eternal, after all - we’ve been eternal people.

So let’s say we do take Jesus at his word - what doesn’t give us the how.

How do we live as eternal people?

So how do we live as eternal people? Put another way - how do we live as people of whom time has no influence?

What is timeless living?

This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about time during in the last couple months - we have calendars that at best order and at worst control our lives. We still have schedules, we still have watches on our wrists. I’m thankful for a clock that faces towards the pulpit so that I can track my timing. The world rotates on its axis, around the sun.

We are not babies anymore. Grey hairs pepper my beard and my hair, but I have been here less time than some of you, and there are some of who have been here less time than I have.

As a result, time feels pretty well set into the way that we do things - that the universe is set by some kind of divinely ticking clock, ever moving.

But Scripture doesn’t just explore time in one way. Instead, the Greek has two words that it would use to describe time. The first one is chronos - it describes a defined time, the time we have in our calendars. That makes sense, too because when you think of a lot of words that have “chronos” in it that we use in English - chronometer (time measurer), chronological (time ordered), anachronistic (an error in chronology) - they deal with being able to piece out time.

But then there’s a second type of time: kairos - which is definitely a word Old Stone has heard a few times. And kairos is described less by its measure, but by its moment - the due season that something should occur. It’s God’s time - God’s holy inbreaking into our world.

We carry both of these kinds of time inside of us, but we so often live into only chronos without sensing the kairos around us. As we watch time move in chronos fashion, we may watch the measurements move from one end to the other. We may start to become fearful of what we have left in chronos. There’s never enough time. Time is running out. We cannot collect it, but we are beholden to it. The questions being to creep into our conscious - about the use of our time. I’m reminded of TS Eliot’s famous poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” where the main character is looking a portion of his life. He considers where he’s been and in his own internal monologue, tries to justify his actions, saying:

And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair — (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”) My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin — (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair,

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”Time to turn back and descend the stair,With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— 40(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)Do I dare 45Disturb the universe?In a minute there is timeFor decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all:Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;I know the voices dying with a dying fallBeneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:

For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

So how should I presume?

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

So how should I presume?

Christ declares that he is living, and always.

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

That question haunts us as people who can live in the clutches of only chronos time - how do we presume? To be audacious enough to go forward?

But if we are truly eternal beings, then the grasp of chronos time on our lives is not nearly as firm as we might sense it - and it might not even be as firm in the universe.

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In The Order of Time, physicist Carlo Rovelli talks a little bit about quantum physics and how it influences time. I have the book here in case you’re interested in learning more or want to take a look.

Carlo Rovelli and a world without time.

In essence, he says that if one continues to break down the universe into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces, there’s a point when there’s nothing left to break down. And when you get down to that level, the universe doesn’t need to function with time as a constant, but instead, it’s objects responding to each other - as one object moves, a group respond to that movement. That perhaps all of what we are and what makes the universe go are complex networks of interaction.

That sounds a whole lot like kairos time. That it isn’t about the shifting sands in the hourglass, but all the ways that the Creation interacts with itself. How the forces around it respond to one another. The life that Jesus Christ calls us into is one where we discern God’s holy inbreaking - the kairos moments - and speak to them. To show others towards God’s entering into the world. To devour those moments as if they were the bread of life gives us eternal life! The deep, full moments of God in the world happening right now.

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Living as an eternal people means that the past is not just sequestered to a time before, and that the future is not only something to hope for, but that we can witness it all in a real and present now - that Jesus still speaks to us today. That the final redemption of the world is not somewhere far off but has signs everywhere. That we live in the already but not yet. Living as eternal people means that our gaze is fixed to what’s happening now. For every chronos moment that we measure with our coffee spoons, there is an infinite about of kairos - an infinite amount of ways to witness God in the world.

Discernment and Redemption

There’s another part of living as people living in kairos, pointing to and inviting the moments where God has been good to God’s people and where we can be stewards in people’s care as well, and that’s Paul’s encouragement to “understand what the will of the Lord is.” The word that Paul uses for “senseless” can mean two different things - the inertness of a statue, or a person who is frantic and silly. These two posts often describe how we can so easily respond to the passing moments our lives. We can freeze: the problems are too big, too overwhelming, too much for us to take. Or, more cynically, we can freeze because our job is to care for our own - our own house, our own church, our own tribe of any sort. We witness someone outside of those groups do nothing.

We can also find everything so overwhelming, so big, that we just run around and do every last thing in every way we can. As we get more cynical, we degrade others because they are not active enough - their silence is assent to evil. We’re not mobile enough, not allied enough, not “woke” enough. In either case, they’re reactions of folks who are afraid of the time - who believe more in the measured chronos time than in the alive moments of living into kairos time.

The letter to the Ephesians encourages us to use the gifts that we have and to discern the will of God. Right after the service today, the elders, deacons, and trustees will be meeting together, and we will be working together to discern the will of God for Old Stone. We’ll think about who we are, we’ll think about our corner of the Kingdom of God to which we are caretakers, and we’ll trust that the Holy Spirit is with us as we think about God’s holy inbreaking into Delaware. We make choices not based on watching the time tick by nor because we only have so much time so we need to do something now now now, but instead we trust that we are eternal people, and we respond to the brokenness of the world a little bit at a time, causing the little pieces of the world to react. It is the time where we take Wisdom up on her invitation - we simple people come to the banquet - once again we eat from bread and wine that brings us life! And this is the invitation to each of us in every corner of our lives, not just as leaders in the church. We don’t need to run around, and we don’t need to stand still. Instead, we feast on the wisdom God provides.

Redeem the moment!

The kind of discernment that holy wisdom provides also changes our approach to how we care for the world. Instead of pining away for a past, or only sitting and waiting for a future redemption, we are invited to work in our now. In our passage in Ephesians, the writer suggests that if we live wisely, we “make the most of the time, because the days are evil.” The words here are more closely translated to “be continuously redeeming the moments, because the days are evil.” There are forces of evil in this world that are constantly reacting to the kairos of this world - the tendency to reject the eternal life before us and head towards death. We are broken people. The systems that we created are broken. As good as they can all be, they’re still imperfect. And so evil seeps its way into our systems. And as people who live eternally, who live into now, we have an opportunity to be redeeming the moments where there is evil and to respond against the network of evil, in the same way Christ did. Our compassion for others like we discussed last week - the looking over to the person snarled by the evil of the world, the brokenness of the world - to look over to them and feel the same gut-wrenching compassion that Jesus did invites kairos into the world. To hold the hand of the person who disagrees deeply with you, and, in spite of that disagreement, let them know they are loved, we invite kairos into the world. And even when we gather here - or wherever we gather, and we sing psalms and hymns, give thanks to God for everything and all that we are - we point to the moments when God breaks through to God’s Creation, showing how God has been faithful always and now. We invite people to witness kairos here again.

Living as eternal people also changes our approach to how we care for the world. Instead of pining away for a past, or only sitting and waiting for a future redemption, we are invited to work in our now. In our passage in Ephesians, the writer suggests that if we live wisely, we “make the most of the time, because the days are evil.” The words here are more closely translated to “be redeeming the moments, because the days are evil.” There are forces of evil in this world that are constantly reacting to the kairos of this world. We are broken people. The systems that we created are broken. As good as they can all be, they’re still imperfect. And so evil seeps its way into our systems. And as people who live eternally, who live into now, we have an opportunity to be redeeming the moments where there is evil and to respond against the network of evil, in the same way Christ did. Our compassion for others like we discussed last week - the looking over to the person snarled by the evil of the world, the brokenness of the world - to look over to them and feel the same gut-wrenching compassion that Jesus did invites kairos into the world. To hold the hand of the person who disagrees deeply with you, and, in spite of that disagreement, let them know they are loved, we invite kairos into the world. And even when we gather here - or wherever we gather, and we sing psalms and hymns, give thanks to God for everything and all that we are - we point to the moments when God breaks through to God’s Creation, showing how God has been faithful always and now. We invite people to witness kairos here again.

Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, 28th Edition Chapter 5

ἐξαγοραζόμενοι τὸν καιρόν

Our invitation to eternal life...

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There’s one other part of living as people living in kairos, pointing to and inviting the moments where God has been good to God’s people and where we can be stewards in people’s care as well, and that’s Paul’s encouragement to “understand what the will of the Lord is.” The word that Paul uses for “senseless” can mean two different things - the inertness of a statue, or a person who is frantic and silly. These two posts often describe how we can so easily respond to the evil moments our lives. We can

Jesus invites us into this kind of life - an eternal life. Not one that’s limited by the slipping measurements of the watch, but one that sees the universe as pregnant with possibilities of justice, grace, and mercy. One that looks around for God’s mercy and grace and seeks the wisdom of discernment to continue to expose and celebrate those kairos moments in the world. One that we can be a part of because of Jesus Christ within us. We cry for mercy, for grace, for hope because we know it is here. We remember those merciful, graceful, hopeful moments here, and we go out to remind others of the same.

Thanks be to a God who reminds us of our eternal life, and our opportunity to live into the eternal moments of grace in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Related Media

Related Sermons

An Endless Feast

Gospel Reading

Consuming Eternity

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How do we live as eternal people?

What is timeless living?

Christ declares that he is living, and always.

Carlo Rovelli and a world without time.

Discernment and Redemption

Redeem the moment!

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Our invitation to eternal life...