Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The reading of today’s gospel is a hard saying, especially if one is squeamish about “flesh and blood.” But then again we all have some degree of uncertainty about flesh and blood. It is no wonder that the philosophers and the theologians have wanted human beings to find their true selves, not in flesh and blood, but rather in spirit or intellect, in heart or soul.

We are all too mindful that flesh and blood are limited, finite and mortal. For that reason it is uncomfortable that we should speak of God made known to us in flesh and blood. It is easy to assert that God is spirit, and scripture does assert that. But to say that God is spirit does not mean for us that God will have nothing to do with flesh and blood.

The scandal of the gospel is stated classically in the Gospel of John.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

The sending of the Word of God in the person of Jesus Christ is the defining event for Christians. For we find our true selves when we encounter the Word of God in the presence of Jesus who is made real to us in the church’s proclamation of Jesus in word and sacrament. Yes, we do not find our true selves like some kernel of seed surrounded by a useless shell. We do not go inward to find an immortal soul. We are not spirit only, but we are flesh and blood, something to be celebrated and wondered at.

We find our true selves when we realize that we are created beings. As created beings our true selves are discovered in the relationship to the Creator. This relationship is understood in terms of the speech. In the Hebrew heritage which is ours in the Old Testament, God speaks and the cosmos comes into being. God speaks and the promise of life is affirmed in the patriarchs. God speaks and the prophets call the people back to a good and right relationship to God.

It should be no surprise then that Jesus is understood as God’s great “speech act” from the beginning of the formation of the church. Jesus is sent by God as the Word made flesh. It is this Word that addresses us today. As we are addressed by the Word, we find our true selves because God first found us.

We should not be surprised by this constituting reality of address. From the time of our birth we must of necessity find ourselves in the wooing and cooing of parents and the ongoing development of speech as we grow up in a home, branch out into school, and ultimately take our place in the adult world of work and play. When we are denied these ongoing encounters, we are denied the discovery of who we are.

So then we should understand today that Jesus is the fleshly and really present Word of God. We encounter this Word in the midst of the assembly as we read the biblical lessons and sing the psalm, and proclaim the life-giving benefits of the Word made flesh. This Word continues in fleshly form in the church, which is the body of Christ.

At no time does God approach us un-embodied. The proclamation of God’s eternal encounter with humanity is done in the assembly. The encounter may be in the reading of scripture and the faithful interpretation of scripture through the sermon. But it takes physical beings like us with eyes, ears, brains and hands for this event to occur. And that is not all. The physicality of this encounter with God through the word is extended deep within us—deep into our own flesh—through the “eating and drinking” of this word at the table of the Lord.

Perhaps now we can understand the difficult and uncomfortable words of Jesus.

So Jesus said to them, "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. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. (John 6:53-57)

Dear congregation, it is time that we claim fully what is offered in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. When we gather at the altar we take in the Word made flesh deep into our own flesh. We are re-constituted as God’s own creatures. We live!

Lutherans have for 500 years confessed the gift of the Sacrament as nothing less than the true presence of Jesus Christ. We have learned and continue to teach our children the meaning of this act.

What is the Sacrament of the Altar? Answer:
It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.

How can bodily eating and drinking do such a great thing? Answer:
Eating and drinking certainly do not do it, but rather the words that are recorded: "given for you" and "shed for you for the forgiveness of sins." These words, when accompanied by the physical eating and drinking, are the essential thing in the sacrament, and whoever believes these very words has what they declare and state, namely, "forgiveness of sins."

For this reason we see in this meal a gift from God by which we come to know ourselves as flesh and blood beings to be the work of God once again to extend God’s work into a broken and misguided world.

There is no need for us to control who comes to this table. Or as one preacher announced. “This is not our restaurant. We just work here.”

This table is God’s own invitation to “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight” (Proverbs 9:5-6).

And the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.