In our scripture readings for this fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Jesus performs the incredible miracle of feeding 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish, and the people are overjoyed and well fed. Then Jesus performs the incredible miracle of walking on the Sea of Galilee, and the disciples are terrified in amazement. But when Jesus foreshadows the incredible miracle of Holy Communion, that he will give his own flesh as the bread come down from heaven giving life to the world, well, THAT'S impossible....and disciples walk away as a result of this teaching....
In his book, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, author Lewis Caroll writes the following conversation between Alice and the White Queen, where the White Queen reveals her age. "I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day." "I can't believe that!" said Alice. "Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes." Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast...."
Of course, if you asked 100 people whether five barley loaves and two fish can feed 5000 people with twelve baskets of leftovers, 100 people would say that's impossible. Of course, if you asked 100 people whether someone can walk on the surface of the unfrozen Sea of Galilee, 100 people would say that's impossible. And yet, Jesus did these things in front of 5000 witnesses and 12 witnesses respectively. Jesus obviously has the divine power to do what people think is impossible. So why was such great offence taken at his claim to be the bread of life, that his flesh is true food and his blood is true drink? Was it their strong and frankly, very valuable taboo against cannibalism? Was it their sense of bodily autonomy, resisting the thought of Jesus abiding within them? Or was it that they could not comprehend the usefulness of the impossible miracle of eating the flesh of the Son of Man?
We like the incredible miracles of healing, when the doctors say there's nothing more that can be done, and God does it anyway. Those make sense....we get to keep our loved one with us and avoid the sorrow of death. We like the incredible miracles of provision, when an inch of rain falls from what the forecasters called a dry July sky. Those make sense....we and our cows get to continue eating. We like the incredible miracles of spectacular life-saving, when a live baby is found in the rubble of a collapsed building. Those make sense....life is preserved and God's power is displayed. But Holy Communion is different. Jesus says, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” And like a frustrated three-year-old, we say, “But why?” The standard answer for the confirmation students is “for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation,” “for the inclusion of more senses in the experience of God,” “for the physical presence of Jesus within us,” and “for the building of community by sharing food,” but that's pretty weak tea. Jesus himself said, “it is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless,” and then he instituted a sacrament in his flesh, we don't know why. That's why as a church, we have given the option for parents to allow their children to commune at any age, before the formal training of confirmation class, because Holy Communion is obviously effective without our intellectual understanding.
And if we don't understand the WHY of Holy Communion, don't get me started on the HOW! It's funny, as a church, we don't even CARE HOW Jesus fed the 5000, whether like Elijah's oil jug, the disciples kept pulling pieces off the five loaves, and just never ran out of pieces, or if the loaves and fish spontaneously multiplied. As a church, we don't even care HOW Jesus walked on the Sea of Galilee, whether Jesus suddenly had the density of styrofoam, or six inches of ice spontaneously formed under each footstep. But, oh boy, have we as a church ARGUED for 2000 years on HOW Jesus gives us his body and blood. Some denominations deny the miracle – for them the bread and wine is a SYMBOL of Jesus' flesh and blood. The Catholics insist that the bread and wine are miraculously changed at the molecular level into true flesh and blood, with the fancy long word transubstantiation. And we Lutherans take the middle path – the miracle of prepositions – we believe we miraculously receive the true flesh and blood of Jesus, IN, WITH, and UNDER, the bread and wine, with its own fancy long word consubstantiation. But in the final analysis, the explanation boils down to the three-year-old's favourite response, “because Jesus said so.”