The New Mundane: A Sermon on John 6:51-58

“My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”

May I speak to you in the name of the True and Living God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit+

In the past month we have witnessed multiple acts of senseless violence.  On July 20, at a midnight showing of the Dark Knight Rises, a lone gunman shot and killed 12 people and wounded 58 others.  On August 5, another gunman entered into a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin and open fired killing 7, including himself.  On August 13, three were shot and killed near the campus of Texas A&M University.  And August 15, a guard was shot outside the headquarters of the Family Research Council in Washington DC, thankfully, the guard survived.  We know of these tragedies, and there are countless more that are not known to us.  In cities and towns across the nation, there are people who die needless every day.  There are children who live lives where violence is just a routine part of it.  Regardless of where one stands on the issues of gun laws, we can all agree that the senseless violence that exists, whether it be in Aurora or Oak Hill, College Station or Washington DC, no matter where it is, the violence of this world, especially the violence that takes a life, is tragic.

Nothing I can say can alleviate the pain and the tragedy that the victims and families face in the wake of these events.  Nevertheless, there can be some hope in this, for death is not the end.  No matter what, no matter where, God has already conquered death.

“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;”

When Jesus spoke these words, few at the time understood what he meant or what he was saying.  Just a few weeks ago we heard of how Jesus fed the masses with just five loaves and two fishes, and now he is telling people to eat his flesh and drink his blood because he is “the living bread that came down from heaven.”  All of this seemed nonsensical.  

Time passed, and before Jesus’s death, he gathered with his friends and family one last time, and he gave some insight into what he meant that day.  He took bread and said “Take, eat, this is my Body, which is given for you."  He took wine and said "Drink ye all of this; for this is my Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins. "  This mundane bread is the body of Christ; this common wine is the blood of Christ.  No response is given by his friends and family, perhaps they know what Jesus means when he calls the bread and wine his body and blood.  Perhaps the gravity of his coming death overwhelms the situation and the room, and silence is their only response to this cryptic and unusual ritual in the midst of their Passover seder.

Soon after, Jesus is executed.  His death by crucifixion was a relatively common experience in the lives of the people of the Roman Empire.  Jesus was killed because Rome saw him as a rabble-rousing revolutionary.  Thousands before him, including other would-be messiahs, were executed in this fashion, and thousands more would be executed in this fashion after Jesus.  Crucifixion, considered one of the most excruciating and horrible forms of torture and death, is but another common event in the lives of those living in the Roman Empire whether it be outside of Jerusalem or along the Apian Way in Italy, it was meant to discourage dissent and desensitize people to violence and brutality so as to strip even the onlookers of their humanity.

Because of all of this, it is a relatively mundane story.  It’s just another act of senseless violence.  After Jesus’ death, the thousands of people in Jerusalem go about their business as if the next day is just another Sabbath day.  And the world returns to its mundane weekly routine, just like people do today.  Most of Jesus’s disciples go into hiding, or try to return to their normal lives.  The only people around to mourn his death are his Mother the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Cleophas, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and the Apostle John.  He is placed into a tomb, to be buried and then forgotten over the course of centuries like so many others before him.

But the story does not end there, death cannot contain Jesus, the Christ, the incarnate Word.  Hell and death are conquered and the tomb bursts forth as the last of the Old Creation and the first of a New Creation.  Christ is raised and dies no more.  Death no longer has dominion over Christ for he conquered it, and now it no longer holds dominion over us.

The common bread and wine, the simple Jesus and his death have become extraordinary because the extraordinary body and blood of Christ and his new life have become mundane.

God became mundane so that we may be extraordinary.

His broken body has been given to us to become our body, and his blood has become that which binds us all together into that body—we are the living body of Christ.  Every week, every day, every time we are together as a body, we are broken together and our blood is shed, only to be reformed again into a new body again, and again, and again.  We share in this so that in our mundanity, we become extraordinary.

My friends, this calls for us to be and to do more than we are because Christ is “working in us,” and he can make us “do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.”  It demands a response because “his flesh is true food and his blood is true drink.”

When there is violence whether it be by a gun or by some other means, regardless of the situation, when evil enters into our lives and the lives of others, and when evil is done to someone, whether they are Christian or not, violence and harm is done to the body of Christ, for we are all one body and one family.  As Christians, we are called to stand with the victims of oppression and violence, for as Archbishop Desmond Tutu say “God is biased towards the oppressed.”  And there the body of Christ must be, with the oppressed, so as to encounter the body of Christ.

It is in that unusual paradox, the body of Christ meeting the body of Christ, that I think the true nature of what Jesus said to the crowds in the feeding of the multitudes, in the Last Supper, and in his Death and Resurrection is made known.  It is the New Creation being formed and made in the image of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.  In the Beginning, God formed life from the dust of the Earth, and breathed his spirit into it.  Now, in the breaking and sharing of the Bread and Wine, the Body and Blood of Christ, we become the new breath of the Spirit, being given to the world for renewal and rebirth.

Indeed, as the Body and Blood of Christ, we can overcome the evil and darkness in this world.

In the face of tragedy, in the face of sorrow, in the face of death, the story does not end.  Death has been rendered mundane in the face of resurrection and new life, and that extraordinary reality of new life and resurrection as the body and blood of Christ has become the new mundane.

Amen.

More than speech: The effects of Chick-fil-A on the lives of LGBTQ people

The past few days have been ones of revelation regarding the popular fast food company of Chick-fil-A.  Before now, it was a generally open secret that Chick-fil-A was opposed to LGBTQ rights because of the various organizations that it donated money to.  Some worked to repeal legal protection of LGBTQ rights, and others offered and promoted psychologically damaging reparative therapy for LGTBQ people to attempt (and fail) to change their orientation.  Recently, son of the founder of Chick-fil-A and president of the company, Dan Cathy, said in an interview to the Baptist Press that when it came to supporting the so-called traditional family he was “guilty as charged.”  He later said in an interview to The Ken Coleman Show:

“I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,' and I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about,”

Dan Cathy’s statements continue a cycle of rhetorical violence that justifies the dehumanization of LGBTQ people.  Sure, Chick-fil-A will continue to sell their sandwiches to LGBTQ people, but they will continue to donate money to groups that will continue the oppression of LGBTQ people.

For over a year now, a powder keg has been building regarding those donations.  People already were committed to boycotts.  Dan Cathy’s remarks though were the spark that set off the powder keg, and now Chick-fil-A has become a symbol in the ongoing debate about the status of LGBTQ people in society.  

In the wake of Dan Cathy’s remarks, there has been an almost hesitant response from people.  Certainly Mike Huckabee and his ilk continue to defend Dan Cathy’s remarks.  And though many others have openly pledged a boycott, I have also seen responses from people who under any other circumstances would stand with oppressed people, shy away from a confrontation with the business.  Attempts are made to minimize Chick-fil-A’s donations and their president’s statements either by stating that the amount of money they donate to these groups is very small (except they have donates hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars to these groups) or point to other charitable organizations that they donate to that do not work towards the oppression of LGBTQ people. 

I do not like this line of thinking because it appeals to a pseudo pragmatic/utilitarian mentality that I find immoral.  At best, it attempts to white wash the donations; at worst, it attempts to legitimize it by implicitly saying, “well, its okay that they donate to these groups because they donate to these other groups.”

Furthermore, in response to Dan Cathy’s statements, the mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino, has said he is going to work to push Chick-fil-A out of the city.  The Alderman of the First Ward of Chicago, Joe Moreno, also said that he would fight against Chick-fil-A’s attempt to get a permit to open a restaurant in that part of the city, and has the support of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. In an article on the Huffington Post, a person on their blog crystalized the push back against the mayor of Boston’s and others statements by saying “the state is not there to arbitrate opinions, but to protect rights -- even rights of people we dislike.”  He goes on to say “If politicians who claim to be friends of the LGBT community want to really put it on the line, they should help organize a picket line and be seen there as often as possible. Use the legitimate power of boycotts instead of state power.”  This all can be translated down to saying that a community boycott is legitimate, but the state must be tolerant of intolerant people.  However, it is absurd to ask for a group that is being discriminated and oppressed to be “tolerant” of their oppressor.  The lack of sensitivity is overwhelming. 

In recent days, those elected officials have backed off on using state power to limit Chick-fil-A’s growth as a company.

Here is the problem, this is not a “First Amendment issue” or “Free speech issue,” it extends beyond that.  Dan Cathy has the right to say what he wants, he even has the right to donate money to whomever he wants, and the state will not stop that ability to donate.  But, those donations have consequences, dire ones, ones that we should not be willing to tolerate and respect.  And it is those consequences that warrant state action because people’s loves and lives are on the line. 

Over the past ten yeas, Chick-fil-A has donated millions of  dollars to groups that seek to deprive the rights of LGBTQ people.  This is beyond a simple matter of disagreement.  For LGBTQ people, organizations like Exodus International, the Family Research Council, the Marriage & Family Foundation, and the Georgia Family Council are organizations that create and maintain a climate of fear and shame for LGBTQ people.  These organizations create the rhetoric that allows for violence against LGBTQ people.  And these concerns are well founded, in the past few days, a lesbian in Nebraska was carved with a knife, a gay man in Oklahoma was firebombed, and a girl in Kentucky was kicked and beaten, her jaw broken, and her teeth knocked out while her assailants allegedly hurled anti-gay slurs at her.  This is not a matter of “oh well, life goes on,” people’s lives and safety are at risk.

Furthermore, Chick-fil-A also has a record of discrimination in its employment policies, which it does not, or should not, have the right to do.

Upon researching the Human Rights Campaign’s website, they have rated Chick-fil-A Inc. with a zero in their policies and benefits.  Meaning that they are actively discriminating LGBTQ people since they provide no benefits for LGBTQ employees or their spouses and partners, do not provide insurance coverage for a trans-persons needs, and does not have a non-discrimination policy for sexual orientation or gender identity.  Chick-fil-A in essence, is creating a hostile work environment, and in some cases is breaking the law.  However, since there is no Federal Law against the discrimination of LGBTQ people, people sometimes have no recourse because 29 states have no legal protection for LGBTQ people.  So Chick-fil-A may be covered in many states by being discriminatory, it still speaks to the greater issue of LGBTQ personhood.  One should not be fired because of their sexual orientation or gender identification; it is as simple as that. 

I support boycotting Chick-fil-A, but boycotting is not enough.  Boycotting is also a means to raise awareness so that government can step in and create a resolution to the situation.  Sit-ins and boycotts were effective tools to combat segregation in the South, but it was only with the 1964 Civil Rights Act that segregation officially ended.  This is a fair and legitimate power of the state because it ensures a certain equity for people that otherwise does not exist when we are allowed to let prejudices dictate society.  It is my sincere hope that in the wake of this scandal Congress can finally pass Federal non-discrimination legislation for LGBTQ people, that marriage equality becomes a reality, and that we can begin to work towards a better society in which none have to live in fear about who they are.