The passage today is difficult, for it brings up the issue of the nature of the body and blood of Christ. The theologian whose commentary I turn to when puzzled most often argues that not disputing and understanding this point is laziness, and falls into the error of the Jews, arguing overmuch out of obstinacy and not to define the word of God.
He again mentions the Jews, not by way of honor, but to reproach them with their unbelief, because they do not receive the well known doctrine concerning eternal life, or, at least, do not inquire modestly into the subject, if it be still obscure and doubtful. For when he says that they debated, it is a sign of obstinacy and contempt; and those who dispute so keenly do, indeed, block up against themselves the road to the knowledge of the truth. And yet the blame imputed to them is not simply that they inquired into the manner; for the same blame would fall on Abraham and the blessed Virgin, (Genesis 15:2; Luke 1:34.) Those persons, therefore, are either led astray through ignorance, or are deficient in candour, who, without taking into account the hardihood and eagerness to quarrel, which alone the Evangelist condemns, direct all their outcry against the word how; as if it had not been lawful for the Jews to inquire about the manner of eating the flesh of Christ. But it ought rather to be imputed to sloth than ascribed to the obedience of faith, if we knowingly and willingly leave unsolved those doubts and difficulties which are removed for us by the word of the Lord.
So we better look at the passage. It is short. I have added the passage of scripture read in almost every communion I have attended, from Paul, where he summarized this. The plain part of the teaching of Jesus is that he is prefiguring communion and the command for us to perform this sacrament.
52The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53So 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. 54Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” 59He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for[e] you. Do this in remembrance of me.”[f] 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
Now what are we to make of all this? Calvin has an explanation, but interestingly he starts by saying that this has been so contested and he wants to really not go through all the errors that have been made on this passage.
This is my body I shall not recount the unhappy contests that have tried the Church in our times as to the meaning of these words. Nay rather, would to God that we could bury the remembrance of them in perpetual oblivion! I shall state, first of all, sincerely and without disguise, and then farther, I shall state freely (as I am wont to do) what my views are. Christ calls the bread his body; for I set aside, without any disputation, that absurd contrivance, that our Lord did not exhibit the bread to the Apostles, but his body, which they beheld with their eyes, for it immediately follows — This cup is the New Testament in my blood Let us regard it then as beyond all controversy that Christ is here speaking of the bread. Now the question is — “In what sense?”
It seems to me that we in the Church fall into the same trap as the Jews did. I find the explanations of the Reformed faith acceptable because, in part, they are simple and follow the rule of William of Occam. Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation, are, to my quite Presbyterian eyes, too complicated.
However, all sacraments have an element of mystery. We will never understand them completely, and when we speculate we, being human, end up in error.
And when we approach the table of communion, with bread and wine we need to recall that Christ said that in eating these it is for us his body and blood. The symbols. Matter. Paul adds that if we do not see or discern that Christ is in the symbols (and that can be as a symbol, in my view) the we approach the table in an unworthy manner, as unbelievers, and corrupt the sacrament.
There may be a second meaning here. Paul is writing in a different context, where the feast of the table had been corrupted by turning it into a party or picnic, with each family bringing their own food and eating that. It may have been more like the US custom of tailgating.
And this is not what the sacrament is about. It is about, in part, the body of Christ. It is something we do together.It is not only the body of Christ Paul says we need to discern, but it is the church, which acts as his body here. For it is in Christ we are saved, and in Christ we are one.
So let us learn from the geek of the reformed movement some caution. We need to think about these things, and we need to partake in communion with faith and with a knowledge about what we are doing.
And we need to hold the more baroque explanations, from the ultra, who take any theological system and turn it into an ideology, with some skepticism. For as Calvin criticized the Romans of his day of worshiping the bread and not Christ, so we and worship our theology and not the one the theologians are trying to describe, or make our explanations too neat about a mystery that no human fully understands.
