Rev. Amjad Samuel
Easter 3 B
April 22, 2012
Open the eyes of our faith, O Lord, and let Christ be known to us in the breaking of
bread. AMEN.
Today’s Gospel lesson is why Jesus Christ is my Guru! Can any one of you guess the
words of Jesus that make him my guru? [Yes indeed], “Have you anything here to
eat?” These are perhaps the most important words of Jesus; words, which I often
repeat. And when I repeat them, I must say, in most occasions, I receive a faith filled
response; which is rather fulfilling, if you know what I mean.
I was teased some twenty years ago, by my fellow seminarians, that my theology
originated, dwelled, and ended in the stomach. In order to be intelligible to my Duke
Divinity friends, who took great pride in their knowledge of this scholar and that
philosopher, and their ability to think theologically, I had termed my theology
splanchnatology. You see, as my wife, a theology student now, struggles these days
with theological jargon, I am constantly reminded of what I find increasingly painful:
theology today has unfortunately been rendered subservient to technical terms and
ideas. The mark of a good theology book is essentially that it should swim in its own
world of jargon. Jargon, that is accepted as essential because without which the
correctness of ideas would be at stake. So, to respond to the criticism of my fellow
frustrated philosophers, otherwise known as theologians, I termed my theology
splanchnatology based on the Greek root word splanchna which means abdomen but
also means compassion. And for those who wanted Scriptural proof, I had gathered
all the verses in the New Testament where this word appeared and then based on my
exegesis presented my hermeneutics for a plausible case for splanchnatology ! 
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On the one hand we laud the jargon laden writings and on the other we complain
that no one wishes to come to church, and that our churches are dwindling in
numbers, and for the most part they are irrelevant. Of course, if philosophical
discourse is the means to knowing God, then churches are irrelevant!
They are irrelevant because unfortunately we have arrived at a very wrong premise.
We have started thinking that Jesus Christ is an idea that we can discuss, debate,
find nuances, clothe in jargon, and then enforce compliance through the correctness
of doctrine and the teachings of the church. All through the last two thousand years,
time and again, we have broken the body of Christ into pieces, simply because we
have found our brothers and sisters in Christ incompatible with each other’s views
and ideas about God and Christ. Our reliance on ideas has been so arrogantly
defended that we have time and again forgotten that Jesus Christ is not, was not, and
will never be an idea.
Jesus Christ was flesh and bones. He was born of a woman. He grew in maturity.
He was tempted. He ate and drank with his friends. He was not an idea. He was a
living person. And that I believe was for a reason. The God of our ancestors was
perhaps sick and tired of being dismissed as an idea. He decided to do something
radical. He decided to take on human flesh and bones. God decided to be a human
person so that people can no longer say, “I kind of don’t like the idea of God who
causes suffering, so I think I cannot believe in this God”; or some other such
statement of doubt that is the work of one’s thinking.
God is not an idea; Jesus Christ was not an idea; and we Christians are not called to a
covenant that has its foundations in an idea. So let’s get over this innate desire to
control reality by defining it through words that restrict and create boundaries that
exclude more than they can ever include.
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Let’s make the flesh and bone Jesus our guru; the guru whose ultimate proof of life is
in the consumption of food. “Have you anything here to eat?” Dead bodies do not eat
food! Ideas do not consume food! Ghosts do not eat! Only a living organism requires
food.
Food is a good indicator of life. It is for this reason that Jesus gave us food, the bread
and wine, as symbols of his remembrance. It is around such real tangible things that
Jesus asked his followers to gather and turn their lives into living proofs of the living
God’s desire for universal salvation.
So, we Christians are not bound in a covenant through words of some law, but
through living proof of life itself.
As far as I am concerned there are three characteristics to life that make life what it
is. First is of course food. Without food life does not exist. Second, Life is dynamic, it
cannot be controlled. We cannot box life as we can box an idea through words.
Third, life is being in a relationship. We are born because two opposite sexes had a
specific kind of a relationship. We cannot survive a day after birth if it were not for
someone feeding us and taking care of our needs. And even when we grow older and
think that life can be lived independently, we still need relationships to survive.
So we Christians are to have these three characteristics that prove that we are
inheritors of eternal life. We are to eat. Our lives are to be dynamic and free of any
kind of boundaries; even free of the boundary of death which Jesus Christ has
removed once for all through his resurrection. And we are to be in relationship;
relationship with one another and in relationship with the living flesh and bone God.
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That is why I take great pride in being a Christian. Not because I believe in certain
things in certain ways, not because I pride being a rightist, leftist or a centrist, but
because I believe in a living God, who was and is flesh and bones. Whose proof of life
is that He invites me to His table and breaks bread with me. And then he tells me to
do the same with every person on planet earth in remembrance of Him. He does not
say in my remembrance hone an idea and transmit it word for word just as you want
it understood and then threaten people with excommunication or breaking of the
communion if they fail to comply.
Friends, the early Christians did understand it right that Christian faith is living
together, breaking bread together, sharing each other’s burdens by being in
relationship. They knew that by eating together, praying together, and having a life
together was the only way to understand and experience the living God. It is truly
such an experience of the living God that heals and brings peace to us who believe.
So we too, starting today [tomorrow] after this service [after the 9:15 service] will
gather together in the narthex and share the burdens and joys of our life. We will
pray for each other. We will affirm our relationship with each other and with our
God. And I believe that when we cast away the notion that Christ is an idea, we will
cast away the doubts that arise in us for he is not a point of discussion but a flesh and
blood being. I believe then we shall receive healing and our eyes of faith will be
opened. I believe we shall become stronger as a community because our lives will be
relevant to each other. And therefore the church will be relevant. I believe then we
shall not include or exclude people for what they think or do not think to be true but
for who they are, food consuming, relational, flesh and blood beings who believe in a
flesh and blood food consuming alive Jesus Christ!
Amen.
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