1 Kings 8:[1, 6, 10-11], 22-30, 41-43 Psalm 84 Ephesians 6:10-20 John 6:56-69

Jesus’ words are difficult.  As he describes in these words what it is to abide in him, it is hard to get past the physical image that is a little too gory, even for the disciples.  Eugene Peterson interprets Jesus’ words in more contemporary language in The Message; Peterson writes: “By eating my flesh and drinking my blood you enter into me and I into you.  In the same way that the fully alive Father sent me here and I live because of him so the one who makes a meal of me lives because of me.  This is the bread of heaven.”^[1] Flesh and blood are the essence of our physical life.  As we consume the Holy Eucharist, we consume the essence of life in Jesus Christ.

We come together week after week to receive the Holy Communion, we enter into the essence of Jesus Christ as Jesus Christ becomes our essence.  Thus, we speak of Christ abiding in us so that we too may be the essence of Christ in the world.

We are not at all unlike the Israelites struggling through the Wilderness in the years after their Exodus from Egypt. Confronting their daily ordeals of the Wilderness trek, the Israelites needed to experience God abiding in them. Their lives – the purpose of their struggle – was useless without God’s presence; God’s abiding presence was their purpose.

As humans, we often need tangible focal points to help us sense God’s abiding presence.  We need to physical presence of the bread and wine to experience the reality of Christ’s body and blood.  We stand in awe of the Christus Rex here above the altar and the Good Shepherd window in our parish hall; the beauty of sacred music and stirring scripture passages continually inspire us; we sense more profoundly the reality of God abiding in us aided by these tangible elements.  God doesn’t need these tangible elements, but we do.

For the Israelites, God’s presence was tangible in the Ark of the Covenant.  The 25^thchapter of the book of Exodus describes in technical detail the construction of the Ark; these instructions were given to Moses as he met God on Mount Sinai.  Per God’s specific design, the Ark was a chest built of acacia wood covered with gold veneer that the Israelites would carry with them on their sojourn.  From their melted down gold and jewelry, the Israelites were to sculpt angels on each end and attach gold rings through which poles were to be inserted so that the Ark could be transported from place to place by the Levites who were assigned the job of carrying it.  In the Ark, Moses was to place the stone tablets containing God’s covenant with his chosen people.  As nomads on their wilderness journey toward the Promised Land, the Ark would be a continuous visible presence of God – their wilderness altar around which they would pause to gather for worship and the offering of sacrifice.  God’s faithful people would carry God’s presence through the Wilderness.

The Ark would continue with the Israelites as they made their successful habitation of the Promised Land under Joshua’s leadership. It would continue to be their gathering place focal point of worship until it was confiscated by the Philistines in battle.  Centuries later, under the reign of King David, the Ark was restored to Israel; and, as we have read today, upon the successful completion of the Solomon’s Temple, the Ark would find its resting place in the Holy of Holies within the innermost sanctuary of the Lord.  There, God would abide.  We continue to honor that innermost sanctuary as, in this inner sanctuary, we celebrate the presence of God through Jesus Christ in the one holy and perfect sacrifice at the altar of the Lord.

We read in our lesson from 1^stKings that the Ark was laid “underneath the wings of the cherubim.  And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.” [1^stKings 8:6, 10-11 (NRSV)]

From the time of the completion of Solomon’s Temple in 960 BC until its destruction by the Babylonians in 587 BC, the Ark of the Covenant would continue to represent the presence of God among his people.  Scripture indicates that the contents of the Ark were scattered in foreign lands at the time of the Babylonian defeat and exile of the Israelites; there is no evidence of the destination or destruction of the Ark itself; but it seems, in physical terms, it was lost forever.

Yet even in the absence of this physical, tangible focal point so sacred to God’s people, the people of God would come to celebrate the newly discovered reality of God’s ever-abiding presence with them.  God was not destroyed when the Ark was lost; God abided in the Israelites; God abides in us.

Centuries later, God would again provide his earthly physical presence in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.  Through this flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, God abides in us and we in God.  We cannot separate the heavenly Jesus who abides in us from the human Jesus who abides through us.  The flesh and blood of Jesus Christ abides through us.

And, like these earliest believers described in our Gospel lesson, when we believe, we come to understand our faith in the presence of Christ in us as not something we posses but something we do.  Jesus abides in us and we in him.  When we believe, there is no separation of faith and works; our faith is our call to mission.

And, if Christ abides in us and we in him, that means Christ abides in the person seated next to you in the pew, in the indigent strangers who beg us for money at the shopping center, in the crying child with snotty nose and sticky hands, in the disconsolate family member, in the cynical and ungrateful co-worker, the disgruntled neighbor.  St. Benedict reminds us that all who come into our hospitality should be received as Christ.

There is the sweet story of the little boy who sets off on his journey to meet God, packing a good supply of potato chips and root beer. At the local park, he encounters an old man feeding the pigeons.  They sit together and share the chips and root beer.  As evening approaches, the little boy gives his new friend a big hug, receives a heart-warming smile, and heads home to report his encounter with God – “He has the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen,” the little boy tells his mother.

Across town the old man arrives home to greet his son with radiant joy.  Asked what he had done for the day that had resulted in such happiness, the old man reports, “I ate potato chips in the park with God.  You know he’s much younger than I expected.”

Too often we fail to acknowledge God’s ever-abiding presence in the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.  Much like the Ark of the Covenant for the Israelites, these are tangible, visible means through which God through Jesus Christ abides in us and through assuring us of his presence.

We cannot separate the heavenly Jesus who abides in us from the human Jesus who abides through us.  This is our call to mission.

Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”  Keep coming to the table.  Keep coming to the table.  Take, eat, believe.

^[1]Eugene H. Peterson, The Message – The Bible in Contemporary Language(Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2002) p. 1466.