Corpus Christi - This Is My Body || John 6:51-58 & 1 Cor 11:23-26

Kia ora, and welcome to the St. Francis Church

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As a church, we are learning to faithfully follow

Jesus by practicing His way at His pace. For

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among us, head to stfrancis .co .nz. Grace and

peace. Trinity Sunday and now Corpus Christi.

Corpus Christi is usually celebrated on a Thursday.

And why that's celebrated on Thursday is because

that's when the Last Supper occurred. But the

church has that room to move from Thursday through

to the Sunday. So today it's about Corpus Christi,

Christ's body, which is given for us. We do this

every week. I do it twice and have sometimes

done it four times on a Sunday at different places.

We do this as we gather here. It's one of the

central parts of the life and rhythms of this

place. We come forward. Someone places bread

in your hands. We take a cup or a couplet. I

think we've done it enough times that it can

start to feel sometimes like a a little routine.

This is just part of the service where we pause

and do this. Familiar maybe, or even ordinary.

But the weight and the cost of this meal is not

always there. The sacrifice that has gone before

this meal that we share. But Corpus Christi,

this Sunday in the church's calendar, is the

church's way of stopping us and saying, Wait.

Don't let this become ordinary. Because nothing

about this is ordinary. So I want to ask you

a real question. Not a rhetorical. It's not a

warm -up. This is a question I want each of us

to sit with today. And it is, what is actually

happening at this table? Two passages guide us

today. The first one is Paul writing to Corinth,

and Jesus then speaking to a crowd in John 6.

Together, these two readings, they show us three

things that are happening at this table every

single time that we gather here. You see, we

are actually receiving a story today each time

we gather. Listen to how Paul begins. He doesn't

just give instructions. He says this. For I received

from the Lord what I also passed on to you. The

Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took

bread. When he had given thanks, he broke it

and said, this is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. I wonder if you

caught that in this. Words that Paul said, I

receive what I also passed on to you. This is

handed down. It's not Paul's invention. It goes

all the way back to the night before Jesus was

crucified. Now let's take a Christmas day. Whenever

we gather in our homes or parents' homes or other

families, wherever we are, around a meal, we

start to remember stories, don't we? Often myths

that become family legends. We remember people

that are not with us anymore whether they're

overseas or whether they've died. We start to

remember them around food and telling stories.

As we come to communion we're remembering someone

far greater. Something that's far deeper. You

see Paul uses for remembrance, this word, anamnesis

in the Greek, which doesn't mean what we usually

mean by remember. We use remember to mean calling

something to mind, isn't it? Just like around

the Christmas table. But anamnesis means something

more active. It is to make present, to bring

the past into the now with genuine power. So

when we break bread, We are not performing a

memorial for a dead teacher. We, as we gather,

are enacting a living story. Stepping into the

narrative of what God has done in Jesus and saying

that this is still true. This still counts for

my life today. Now a quick map of where the church

has landed on this because how you answer shapes

how you you come to the table. I want you to

bear with me, because this is a bit that could

sound like a church history exam, but I promise

that it matters. Because the Catholic tradition

says that bread and wine are wholly transformed.

It is the body, and it is the blood. Luther broke

from Rome on almost everything, but not this.

Christ is truly present in and with and under

the bread. Calvin agreed, Christ is truly present,

but spiritually through the Holy Spirit. And

many evangelical traditions say their elements

are powerful signs. Nothing more. The benefit

comes through faith and remembrance. What unites

all of them? Something real is happening here.

That's what's uniting all of those differences

of communion. Across 2 ,000 years of disagreement

about the actual mechanics of it, there's wide

agreement that this table that we come to is

not neutral. It's not empty, not merely symbolic.

This is a story that you receive every time that

you come. And every time that you come can be

different from the one before because the Lord

meets you where you are at that moment and you

meet him where you are. It's a way of saying

the story of Jesus isn't over. We're still inside

it. Look on the front of these communion tables.

Presbyterian from Hamilton East, the table there.

Oh, English. Communion table from... over in

Frankdon, in Dinsdale there. This, do in remembrance

of me. It's stating clearly before us what we're

doing and who we're doing it in and with. We're

still inside this story today. It's still very,

very much alive. As N .T. Wright said, the Lord's

Supper is the acted word, the gospel made visible,

touchable and tasteable. God knows we need more

than propositions. We need a story we can hold

in our hands. We're using our senses, our minds,

our taste and our touching. This is real. Now

we move to John 6 and Jesus says something that

shocked people then and honestly still shocks

many people today. He says, I am the living bread

that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this

bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh,

which I will give for the life of the world.

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. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks

my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him

up at the last day. I don't know what the crowd's

reactions are there. It's hard teaching. Who

can accept it? And I think that's fair. It is

hard to understand. But here's what I want us

to hear about it. Jesus is not talking primarily

about the mechanics of it. He's talking about

participation, about union, about something becoming

part of you. When you eat, you don't just encounter

food, do you? You take it in. It becomes you,

literally. It feeds you. fuel for your body.

And Jesus is saying, that's what I'm offering.

Not information about me. Not proximity to me.

I'm offering me. He's offering himself. A real

participation in his life. This meal that we

have week in and week out and during the week

when you may be in home groups or whatever else,

this meal is an encounter. Augustine in the Confessions

said this, I am the food of the fully grown.

Grow and you will feed on me. And you will not

change me into you like the food your flesh eats,

but you will be changed into me. I think that's

really extraordinary. Normal food, you consume

it. It becomes part of you. With Jesus, actually

something else happens here. Receiving him changes

us into him. This is the ancient Christian idea

of theosis, being transformed, shaped, made more

like Christ from the inside out. The table that

we come to isn't just about forgiveness, though

it includes that. It's about formation, who we

are becoming. We come not just to be pardoned,

we come to be changed. For me, those that have

been around in the life of this church for a

while and seen me taking communion all these

times, sometimes I'll pause. Because if I opened

my mouth, I'd start crying because of the words

that I say, the words that Jesus has given. us

to say and remember him becomes powerful. This

is a sacrifice that he died for me. He died for

us. Gordon Fee in the first epistle to the Corinthians

says this, the Lord's Supper is not a re -sacrifice

of Christ, but a genuine participation in the

once for all sacrifice that is eternally present

before God. It is alive right now. It is before

God eternally. As we come, we are receiving a

community. And it's hiding in plain sight in

Paul's words. He says, for whenever you eat this

bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's

death until he comes. Whenever you. plural. You

eat together, you drink together, and you proclaim

together. There is no private Lord's Supper,

even if you are taking communion by yourself

at home. It's not a private thing. From the very

beginning, the table that we come to was the

place where the community gathered, where people

who had nothing else in common, they sat down

and said, we belong to each other now, because

We belong to him. The one who gave us this meal

to remember. And that's exactly why Paul here

is writing to Corinth in the first place. Because

the church there was splitting communion along

the social lines of the day. The wealthy eating

well, the poor going hungry. Paul, if you know

and follow his readings in there, he's furious

about this. He says, when you come together,

it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat. Because

if it excludes and divides, it's not the table

of Jesus. It's just a meal. I don't always sit

with the traditions of the church, of what you

need to do to come to the Lord's table. For me,

this table is open. It welcomes anyone at any

stage. It's not just for the baptised, it's for

people that want to come and meet Christ. Some

stage, we'd have the conversation about being

baptised to know that you come into this family.

If we divide it, it just becomes a meal. Bread

and wine. Nothing of Christ. It's still worth

sitting with. And it shapes how we come. Because

Paul says, let a person examine themselves. Not,

well, are you good enough? You're never good

enough. I'm never good enough. But are you coming

honestly? Are you coming and saying, Lord, I've

had a crap week. But I want to come and meet

you in this meal. Are you aware that you need

this? The only person who can't receive it are

those who think they don't need it. The table

is not just between you and God, it's between

you and the person sitting beside you, in front

of you and behind you. Because we are one body.

We share one bread. We drink one cup. And we

are sent back into Hillcrest as people who have

been at this table together. So what's happening

at this table? There's three things. Firstly,

you are receiving a story, the oldest, truest

story in the world, that God came in flesh, died

and rose, and that this table is his ongoing

invitation to step back inside that story every

week, not as a memorial, as an act. And you are

receiving a body. Not just bread, not just wine,

you are receiving Christ himself. Not to consume

and move on, but to be changed by, to be formed

into the one that you share the meal, the one

who gave you this meal. And you are receiving

a community at the same time. You are being knit

to these people who are around you in this room.

Across every difference, across every awkwardness,

This table says, you belong here. You belong

to each other. Brennan Manning says this about

the Lord's Supper, that it is the most dangerous

meal in the world because it claims you. It says,

this life is not your own. You have been bought

with a price. Come and eat. Come and drink. Come

to the one. who gave us this meal. That's the

invitation to us. Not just today, every time.

Come hungry, come honest to the table. Come with

your questions and your doubts. Come with what

you're carrying. And receive what you could never

earn. So we're going to move to the table. The

invitation's being given. I want us at some point

very soon to say the words together, which normally

I just say, and that's words around on the night

before he died. Let us enter into that story.

We come to this table today every time that we

come, not because that we have it all together.

It's often because we don't that we come. We

come because Jesus said, come. It was on the

night that he was betrayed, not the night everything

was going well. He had someone sitting right

next to him sharing the meal that was going to

betray him. Not the night that everything was

falling apart. He took bread. He gave thanks,

he broke it and then he gave it away to those

that were sitting around him. And today we do

exactly the same with everything that we're carrying.

All the doubts, the questions, the celebrations,

the worship, and we do so in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And as

you come and take it, remember that you are not

drinking alone. You are drinking with every person

in this room, every person that is celebrating

communion in this land and around the globe.

And with every Christian who has come to this

table before you, all the way back to the night

in Jerusalem at the Last Supper, we come to this

table with the sacrifice that was given to us.