Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Living Bread
“This is my body.” The church calls these the “words of institution.” With them, the pastor presiding at communion invokes Christ’s presence in the bread. In our communion service we remember that Jesus spoke these words as he offered bread to his disciples in their last meal together—as the story is told in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
In the Gospel of John’s very different story of that Passover supper, Jesus does not offer bread as his body. But Jesus’ words in John 6 also express his presence in the life-giving substance of bread. He calls himself “the living bread.” He says that those who eat this bread have eternal life and will be raised on the last day. He says that those who eat this bread abide in him, and he in them.
In John, the image of bread is not a body broken, but a body ever whole—a body in which we may dwell, a body in which we live forever.
Our communion liturgies declare that whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death. To that proclamation, John’s Gospel adds words of life: living bread; eternal life; the promise of abiding in Christ, and Christ in us; the promise of resurrection.
Christ’s body was broken for us, and Christ’s body lives in us and through us. In this body, may we exemplify to the world Christ’s offer of living bread and the promise of resurrection.
Ginny Tobiassen, pastor, Home Moravian Church
Winston-Salem, NC