Hard Teaching - Bread and Wine, Body and Blood?

Inspired by the words of John 6:60, I asked my congregation to give me the things about the Christian faith they found hard to accept.

They responded! See my last post for the list they gave me. Some questions we tackled in the service, and I promised to blog and write about them all.

I thought I should begin with the one that made the first hearers uneasy. Jesus had told them, "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."

What on earth did he mean?

Of course, these words were echoed when at the Last Supper he took bread and wine and gave them to his disciples telling them, "This is my body..this is my blood...do this in remembrance of me."

Most Christian churches regularly have a service in which we eat bread and drink wine, calling to mind this moment in Jesus' life, and consciously trying to obey his instruction "Do this in remembrance of me."

But what we believe about what we're actually doing differs a lot.

 For some of us, this is an act of commemoration. It calls to mind Jesus' death on the cross, the sacrifice he made for us.

Others of us are more literal minded about this issue, and hold that in the bread and wine is the real presence of Jesus himself, and that we are in some way re-enacting his sacrifice.

Books have been written, ink has been spilled, battles have been fought over this issue down the centuries. I'm well aware I'm not going to add anything new.

Well, I'm struck by the word Jesus used when he said "eat my body." He might as well have said "chomp" or "munch." Nom nom nom. It's that sort of word.

Eurrgh! is my reaction - perhaps it's yours too. Intellectually, I run a mile from this.

So you might expect me to veer towards thinking that communion is just a memorial.

Except that something happens at communion. It's very hard to say what, but at this moment in our worship, there is a level of closeness, of intimacy, yes of communion - there's no other word - with God that I never experience anywhere else.

When I receive the bread and the wine, I receive Jesus. It is the most precious gift.

This is a hard teaching - the list

Last Sunday in church I asked my congregation to write down the "hard teachings," the bits of their faith that they struggle with. I promised to try and answer some of them in church, and to blog about them as well.

Here's the list that people came up with.

How important is the spiritual side of the Christian faith? I love the practical application of “love thy neighbour” and the parables, but struggle with the Holy Spirit.

Give up all that you have.

Transformation – what happens at communion?

What was going on when Jesus appeared after death? Could heaven be on earth?

Christian doctrine tells us that we are saved by faith – what about those who never hear about Jesus, or indeed the many who do not accept him?

I absolutely believe in Jesus and my Father God; my husband and children don’t. How do I accept the fact that I will one day be with the Lord and they won’t?

Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Is God in control of bad things on earth, and if so, why does he let them happen?

Why, in some parables, does the character who represents God not show mercy and instead punishes the wrongdoer?

Where is heaven?

Where do non Christians go when they die?

Why did Jesus tell his followers to leave their families behind to follow him?

Loving those who hurt you!
In the great pantheon on time, why is our life on earth so short?

Original sin.

An all-powerful, all-loving God and the existence of evil.

Why does God seem to pick and choose between those whose prayers he answers?

John 3:16 implies that those who don’t believe in Jesus will “perish.” Is this right?

Trusting God to work in others.

Did God really send plagues in Egypt?

What did Jesus mean when he said of bread and wine, “This is my body,” This is my blood?”

What do you think of that? There's some superb questions there, aren't there? Some are theoretical and perhaps unanswerable; some represent real pain and difficulty and need to be treated with utmost respect. Few, if any, can be adequately answered in a blog post, or indeed by me - I'm just not up to the job. I am as my strapline says, just another follower stumbling after Jesus.

So please join in with your comments. Hold me to account if I give flippant or unsatisfactory answers. But please remember - both for my sake and for everyone who comments - be gentle. I'm going to get things wrong, we all are, and we all depend on the loving forgiveness of our Lord Jesus.

This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?

Last Sunday, inspired by these words from John's gospel, I asked my congregation to think of aspects of the Christian faith that they found hard to accept. I promised to discuss some of their "hard teachings" in the service, and to publish the rest on line and in print, together with my responses.
So, there's going to be a series of posts on this subject.
Why did I do this?
I do it from a belief that Christianity is not a dodgy cult, but a solid, rational, trustworthy faith. That means that it's OK to go digging around in its dusty corners, we won't unearth any unexploded bombs that are going to blow our faith out of the water.
I've also been encouraged by this book Blind Spots in the Bible by Adrian Plass. In preparing to look hard at some passages we tend to avoid, Adrian says this: "I found myself driven, as ever, to the crucial conclusion that we can safely explore the strangest of avenues as long as we are safe in Jesus." I like his attitude, which is all about giving people freedom to ask questions and have doubts, without pretending that we have a simple, solid faith with answers to everything. Such simple, apparently earthquake-proof beliefs often cave in alarmingly as soon as an unanswerable question comes along. I'd rather have a faith that looks more ramshackle, but which is capable of stretching or flexing when the ground shakes beneath it.
So, come with me onto some dodgy ground, and let's see what our faith is built on!
Solid rock, or shifting sand?

Olympic Inspiration

(Nearly) Everybody I know has been wowed by the London Olympics.

Everybody who likes sport, that is. My long-suffering wife plaintively asks "how much longer is this going on?" from time to time, while the rest of us pump the air and exchange delighted grins.

The feelgood factor has been immense. From the charming, original and heartwarming opening ceremony, through the long stream of British successes, and thanks to the brilliant broadcasting of the BBC, the olympic spirit has shone out.

Here are people who are pouring their hearts out to compete: how refreshing, when so many professional sports people no longer even try to look as though they mean it, but cynically collect their pay cheques and go through the motions ... or so it seems.
I know appearances can be deceptive, and perhaps all those well paid footballers are trying their hearts out, really. But it doesn't seem like it.

The athletes who lose are queueing up to apologise to the nation and to their support team for letting them down; the athletes who win are queuing up to thank the same people. Has anybody complained about the referee? If they did, I haven't noticed.

It is truly marvellous to see that, even in 2012, even in this age of manipulation and gamesmanship, there are still some sportspeople out there who play it the way it was meant to be played.