Journey's Weekly Homilies

The Body and Blood of Christ
June 22, 2003
Homily by Marcia

Exodus 24:3-8
Hebrews 9:11-15
Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

When I was about eight, I was standing in church with my mother singing a hymn.  It was a hymn everyone knew, so the whole church was singing along energetically and cheerfully, "Are ye able", said the Master, "to be crucified with me?"  "Yea", the sturdy dreamers answered, "to the death we follow thee."  I turned to my mother and whispered urgently, "Mommy, this song is a little bloody!"

 I found that song disturbing, when I paid attention to the meaning of the words I was singing, we were all singing.  "Wait a minute, what do you mean we have to be crucified?  I thought being a Christian was about loving your neighbor, singing hymns and going to church on Sunday."  That Sunday, at the age of eight, was the first time I thought about Christianity in a completely different way, as something dangerous, challenging, risky.  The first time I heard "Are Ye Able", said the Master, "to be crucified with me?" I was horrified.  But after I thought about the song for a while, it
started to grow on me.  I liked the idea of being challenged to do something brave, something significant.

This is Corpus Christi Sunday, the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.  I don't know if you've noticed, but today's readings are a little bloody.  What does Corpus Christi have to do with the crucifixion?  Why talk about the crucifixion on Corpus Christi Sunday?  This is the year of Mark, the year we read passages from the gospel of Mark.  Everything in Mark's gospel is about the crucifixion.  Mark was the first gospel written, so Mark has to answer the question that is on everyone's mind.  "Why should we believe in someone who was crucified?  How can Jesus be the Messiah, the promised king and war leader who will throw out the Romans and reestablish the kingdom of Israel, if he was crucified?  Why should we follow someone who was so unsuccessful that he got himself crucified as a common criminal?"
 
Mark's answer, which we already know, but which must have seemed strange and audacious to his hearers was, "No, no, you don't understand.  Jesus is the Messiah because he was crucified."  This is a rather tricky case for Mark to make, which is why he requires a whole gospel.  This purpose of Mark's explains the Messianic secret in Mark.  All through Mark, Jesus is keeping a secret, the Messianic secret.  People and demons recognize Jesus as the Messiah-- and Jesus orders them not to tell anyone.  Why is Jesus telling everyone not to say who he is?  Jesus knows that no one really understands what the word Messiah means.  The message of Mark's gospel is that you can't understand the word Messiah until you see Jesus crucified.

The passage in Mark that we are looking at today is from the Last Supper, when Jesus shared bread and wine with his disciples.  Jesus offers his disciples a cup.  What is this cup that Jesus offers his disciples?  The meaning of the cup becomes clear a little later in the same chapter, in the garden of Gethsmane, when Jesus prays, "remove this cup from me, yet not what I will but what thou wilt".  The cup represents suffering, the way of the cross.  When Jesus offers his disciples the cup of wine at the last supper, he is asking them, "Can you drink the cup that I must drink?"

I would like to make it clear here that this is not about suffering for its own sake.  We are not all supposed to become masochists.  What Jesus did was challenge authority.  He challenged the temple authorities when he touched a leper.  The temple authorities were the ones who decided who people were supposed to touch and who they weren't.  By cleansing the leper, Jesus did something only the temple authorities were supposed to do.  He took someone the authorities had said was an outcast and brought him back into society.  The temple authorities were supposed to be the only ones who 
had the power to decide who was accepted into society and who was not.

If you read Mark carefully, you begin to realize that Jesus challenges the authorities repeatedly.  He continually honors people of low social status like the woman with a flow of blood and the gentile Syrophoenician woman.  Jesus' life was a continual challenge to the people in authority.  That is why he was killed.  That is why he warns that anyone who imitates his actions is very likely to suffer the same fate.

All three of today's readings speak of a covenant sealed with blood.  I would like to suggest that as we step into the circle and accept the bread and wine, we remember that when we accept the bread and wine we are accepting a covenant.  We are making a solemn commitment, sealed in blood, witnessed by our community, to follow after, to follow Jesus, to follow the way of the cross.  We are making a commitment to speak out, to speak out especially, on behalf of people who have no voice, people who are powerless.

We are making a commitment to speak out on behalf of people who are not entitled to protection under the bill of rights, because they are not citizens of our country.  We are making a commitment to speak out on behalf of people who are not allowed to marry, because they don't love the right person.  We are making a commitment to speak out on behalf of people who are too mentally ill to speak for themselves and so end up living on the streets.  And we are making a commitment to forgive one another and ourselves, when we don't always live up to what we believe.

Eucharist isn't something we do once a year, or once a lifetime.  We come together every Sunday to remember, not only that Christ died, that he sacrificed for us, but that we must be reborn, that we are being challenged to live.  We are being challenged to live as Jesus lived, to take risks, to refuse to count the cost of our actions, to step forward into a new world, a world remade, the dominion of God, a world where God is the ruler, and peace and justice reign.

Like Eli, we should have no doubt in our hearts and minds that we are included in this day. All of us are invited to this Pentecost celebration, this day that marks time in our faith, this event of the Holy Spirit. Our gospel tells us that Jesus’ disciples were afraid when he arrived. After he greeted them and assured them it was he, Jesus, John tells us, inspired the disciples—literally, he breathed life into them. The story suggests that Jesus breathes life into them so they have the energy and the will and the creativity to be sent out endowed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

The verb we hear from Jesus is “receive.” He asks his disciples to receive the Holy Spirit. In Greek, the verb translates as “receive, take, get.” When I looked this up in my English-Greek lexicon I couldn’t help but imagine Jesus attaching a popular understanding of the verb “get,” as in “Do you get this?” Do we get it? Are we awake enough, gracious enough, courageous enough to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit? I know what Nancy meant when she said this is “a biggie” and yet it is so simple, so accessible, so inviting-- if we let it be. 

Let’s mark this time, this moment and close our eyes and take a few deep breaths. Listen to the sound of the air God provided so you and I can fill our lungs. Note the sounds of the lungs filling around you. Listen. Breathe. Listen again.