Quick Summary:

I’d like to do two things in today’s sermon. First, pay some attention to the final installment in our summer series of readings from Samuel and 1st Kings; and second, explore a potential connection between what we learn from 1st Kings with the gospel text, the last of five excerpts on Jesus as the Bread of Life.

This story of the building of the Temple and the dialog around it both here and more especially in the New Testament are archetypal stories about our need as human beings to get a permanent grip on God, like the elusive hold that Jacob sought when he wrestled with Yahweh at the Jabbok River; or like the precise description Moses sought when he asked “WHO SHALL I SAY SENT ME?” and the LORD responded: I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE. We are forever trying to define God, to box God in, contain God, put boundaries around God, and God in turn everlastingly refuses to be boxed in, pinned down, domesticated or house-broken.

In Jesus, at this table, we meet God face to face and out of the box, calling us back to covenant, back to primary relationship, back to fundamentals. Jesus wants me and you literally, to take him into ourselves, to make him part of us and we a part of him, organically, entirely. For when, in the sacred mystery we call Holy Communion, we receive him at this table—eating and drinking, and taking him into our bodies to become part of our cells, flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood—he truly becomes one with us and we with him.

There can be no arm’s length relationship with Jesus here at this table. No safe distance between us. For he is no mere emblem or symbol, he is life itself! And we, having taken him into ourselves, we in turn become his body in and for the world.