While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many. Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.” (Mark 14.22-26)
Each year, the church offers us the opportunity to reflect specifically on the gift of the Holy Eucharist, placing on the calendar the feast that is called the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ,” back in the day known by its Latin title, “Corpus Christi Sunday.” Whereas much of the pageantry of the celebration has been muted, such as a priest holding a monstrance while leading a long procession around the outside of the church, sometimes extending the procession through the neighborhood, the main point has remained unchanged. That is, the Lord Jesus gave us the gift of the Holy Eucharist shortly before his death.
While we might think that the feast day each year would offer us the story of the Last Supper, that is not the case. In Year A we have part of the “Bread of Life” discourse from Chapter 6 of John’s gospel. In Year B we are given Mark’s truncated story of the Last Supper, a part of which we hear today. Then, in Year C, we have Luke’s telling of the feeding of the multitude with five loaves and two fish. So, there are different approaches to understanding the feast, although there clearly is connective tissue among the stories.
As we look specifically at the text that we have before us today, a part of the Last Supper account in Mark’s gospel, it is important to emphasize that we do not have the whole story, an unfortunate slicing away of a significant section of the text that steals away the full intentionality of Mark in his telling of the story. Clearly, there are three parts, two of which we have today. The first part is the preparation for the supper, which entails Jesus sending two of his disciples to meet with a man who is going to lend them a room in which to have the meal.
The second part, which has been excosed, takes place at the meal when Jesus predicts the betrayal of one of the twelve, telling them, “One of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” Of course, there is the same protestation by each of them, “Surely it is not I.” The third part is the actual meal in which Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them, telling them, “Take it, this is my body.”
Without the middle part concerning the prediction of the betrayal, we have a key part of the story missing, much like a sandwich without the slice of salomi. It is difficult to say exactly what was in the minds of the experts when they chose to remove this section, not allowing us the full story. My guess is they thought they needed to get to the important stuff.
But for Mark, the betrayal of the disciples is very much the important stuff. All along the way, they have failed to live up to the expectations of Rabbi Jesus, mediocre students on their best days, flops on their worst days. So, Mark wants to make clear that they haven’t changed their tune even towards the end of the journey. They still have a long way to go, and cramming for the final exam isn’t going to help them at this late date. While they may not know it at this point, we do. They are going to bomb the test.
Mark put the prediction of betrayal at the heart of the story of the Last Supper because he wants to make clear to us that receiving the Eucharist cannot be separated from the challenge of being a faithful follower of Jesus. Sadly, in taking out this part of the story, someone has inadvertently led us to believe we can fill up our stomachs without chipping in for the cost. While it might be an attractive idea for some, it isn’t Mark’s idea of discipleship at all.
For Mark, the failure of the twelve serves as a warning to the rest of us. They all sat at table with Jesus, protesting his prediction of their betrayal while mouthing aloud their commitment to stand by him, and, within hours, fell asleep in the Garden, leaving Jesus alone in his agony and, if that was not enough proof of their lackluster response, they disappeared into the night when the Temple guards and soldiers appeared on the scene to haul Jesus away.
We need to hear this, even if the ugly part of the story has been cut out and put on the back shelf. We need the reminder that following Jesus doesn’t mean grabbing onto his coattails and hoping we’ll get through the gates of heaven without being stopped by the bouncer. Discipleship means we do as Jesus did, even at a great personal cost to ourselves.
If we pay close attention to the Last Supper scene in Mark’s gospel, we cannot help but notice that Jesus explains the gift of his body in the bread and in the cup in terms of personal sacrifice. Mark describes Jesus giving the cup to the twelve in this way, “He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.”
For Mark, then, the Eucharist is all about sacrifice. Not only the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, but the sacrifices that his followers must make if they wish to follow in his footsteps. If they sit at a table with him and eat the bread and drink from the cup, then they also must hang from a cross as he did. The wood of the table and the wood of the cross are conjoined, neither separated from the other without irreparable damage to both.
If anybody understood this connection, it was the Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was hanged because of taking a stand against Hitler in the dark days of World War II. Only thirty-nine years old when he was executed, he bravely faced his end, knowing discipleship comes with a cost. In fact, he entitled a book he wrote in 1937 “The Cost of Discipleship,” arguing in it that people who think they can skip over the tough parts of following Jesus haven’t a clue, believing in what he called “cheap grace.” In other words, grace without a cost.
Or, as Mark might say, sitting at a table and partaking of the bread and the cup with no intention of staying with Jesus throughout the night and the next day as he faces his executioners. Mark issues a warning and a challenge. We have to do better than the Twelve, meaning we shed our blood for many in the same way that Jesus shed his blood for many. If there is no blood, there is no discipleship.
Our lives, as faithful followers of Jesus, are to be laid on the altar of sacrifice or, put another way, are to be nailed to a cross. We shed our blood and spend our lives in service to “the many” that Jesus speaks of when he says his blood will be shed “for many.” And the many, as Jesus has made abundantly clear by his service to others, must include the poor, the dispossessed, and the powerless. In other words, those who will ask the most of us and from us.
Some years back, a foreign affairs writer for “USA Today” shared a story that he witnessed as he visited Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia in East Africa, during one of the horrendous famines that hit the region. In one village in which he and his group walked everyone was dead, having starved to death. He said that the stench of death was so strong that it couldn’t be washed off.
Then they saw a little boy. It was apparent that he had worms and was malnourished. His stomach was bloated and his hair had turned a reddish color, a sign of starvation. Even his skin had become crinkled as if he had lived a hundred years, not six or seven. One of the photographers had a grapefruit that he gave to the boy who was so weak he couldn’t even hold it in his hands.
So, the men cut it in half and gave it to him. He picked it up, looked at the men as if to say thanks, and then began to walk back towards his village. The group walked behind him in a way so that he couldn’t see that he was being followed. When he entered the village, there on the ground was another little boy whom they thought was dead. His eyes were glazed over.
It turned out that he was the other boy’s younger brother. They watched as the older brother knelt down next to his brother, bit off a piece of the grapefruit, and chewed it. Then he opened up his younger brother’s mouth, put the grapefruit in, and worked his brother’s jaw up and down. The group learned that the older brother had been doing much the same for the younger brother for two weeks. A couple of days later the older brother died of malnutrition, but the younger brother lived.
The reporter said that he was haunted that night as he drove back to where they were staying and he asked himself one simple question. “I wonder if this is what Jesus meant when he said, ‘There is no greater love than to lay down our life for somebody else.’” Hearing that tragic story, I think we all know the answer. It’s exactly what Jesus meant.
And it is exactly what Mark also wants us to understand when he tells us the story of the Last Supper, Jesus’ final meal with his disciples, a meal in which he takes bread and gives it to his disciples, and takes a cup and gave it to them so that they might drink from it. As he offers them food and drink, he knows that he will die in a short while, his blood shed for many.
As I’ve already said, the two are intimately connected–the meal and his death–and we do a grave disservice to the text if we recall only the meal and ignore the death. Not only in reading the story, but more importantly in living the text. If we only focus on the meal and what it does for us and do not see that it carries a cost, requiring us to feed others and give drink to the many, then we have missed the greater truth.
Augustine, the great Christian theologian of the fourth century, made the same point more eloquently when he preached to his people about the significance of the Eucharist, telling his listeners, “Behold what you are, become what you receive.” He makes it quite plain that we are to become the same bread that will provide food for the hungry.
One last note. Jesus ends the last supper with the twelve with another prediction. He says to them, “I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.” It is his final statement about the Kingdom of God in Mark’s gospel. His words are a reminder to his followers that those who are faithful to the calling to shed their blood for many will eat and drink again, but this time it will be at the banquet table in the Kingdom of God.
It is much the same way that Matthew ends his gospel when Jesus tells his disciples of the Last Judgment, saying, “Come you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink.” Here, both evangelists are in agreement.
The Last Supper was not the last meal. For those who have sat at table and eaten bread and taken from the cup, and then do not betray Jesus by failing to follow his ways, but instead give their lives for others, they will eat and drink again in the Kingdom of God. They have understood that receiving requires giving, the two actions impossible to separate without betraying the One who first broke the bread and gave it to us.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 