Year B Proper 15 2021 The Problems with Metaphors

 

Year B Proper 15, 15 August 2021

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“The Problems with Metaphors”

Collect: Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

John 6:51-58

Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So 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. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This 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.”

“Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” St. Paul urges us to rise up to who we should be in Christ. Today’s readings point us to what true Wisdom is. Something to be sought at all expense, so that we can apply it and reap its benefits. If we have Wisdom, she will gift us with everything else we require.

But so much of Wisdom is context and perspective. What seems foolish to one can be so clear and perfect to another.

One time when the kids were young, we were shopping at Costco. My youngest was in the seat in the basket, hard to imagine now that she was ever that small. But she was. We were walking down the housewares aisle, and they had a nice set of drinking glasses. It came in a few sizes in the set, and they had a sample on the shelf. I picked one up, hefted it. Good weight, good feel in the hand. I grabbed the smallest one, and asked Sojo, “Does this fit your hand?” And I handed it to her.

She took the cup, looked back at me like I was crazy, and then proceeded to stick her other hand in the cup. She did exactly what I had asked her to do. Her understanding and actions took literally what I said. Her hand fit in the cup. My understanding, and meaning, were more socially understood. The cup fits my hand, and for her, her hand fit the cup.” Who was the fool, and who was the wise? I could not fault her. She did exactly what I asked of her to the best of her understanding. I was the fool to think a toddler would know what that phrase meant.

Language, especially socially constructed meanings and metaphors, can get us in so much trouble and get in our way. Today I am going to ask you to put on your thinking caps, and join me. Hopefully we can share some wisdom, and as the poetry of Proverbs said, Wisdom invites us. “You that are simple, turn in here!”

We use language a lot, but today I am inviting you to think about how you think, how you use language, how you modify your behavior by what you think. Thinking on how you think is a higher level request, turning on the meta-cognitive as we called it back in my education days. (Metacognition: definition- awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes.)

One of the key things we use in the spiritual realm is the use of metaphor and metaphorical language. Going back to our early grammar, a metaphor is “This is That.” You know, “God is Light.” “I am the Bread of Life.” This is That.

A simile is like a metaphor, but it uses like or as. “God is like the stars, distant but always looking down on us.” “Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed…” Metaphors are stronger because there is no wiggle room. It is clearer, but it creates some problems. And that is where we are coming in today.

In today’s Gospel, we have some very clear metaphors from Jesus.

Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

I am the Living Bread.

The Bread I give is my Flesh.

Wow! Clear. Kinda gross. Easily argued and misconstrued. In fact, that is what was fired back. Some folks… “then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

They took the metaphor and made it literal. Any metaphor has gaps and places where the analogy breaks down and does not work. And that is where our problems emerge. So many problems we face in this world are when we take the metaphorical and treat it literally.

Because this is church, let’s just look at some of Jesus’ statements.

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.” Matthew 5:29-30

Jesus did not want you to pluck out your eye or chop off your hand. Hyperbole, exaggeration, is a rhetorical device to make a point. When we take some of these statements literally it can have disastrous results. (Ask Origen!)

The folks who countered Jesus on his metaphor, I am the Bread of Life, were being obtuse, intentionally or to be contrary. Anyone with any wisdom would see what he is doing, but some are obstinate just to be oppositional. I prefer doers and thinkers and dreamers to contrarians. But in every system there are those who choose that as their role. As leaders our role is to invite, encourage, cajole them, appealing to the better angels of their nature as Lincoln put it.

Metaphors have a strength and resilience. We celebrate Jesus’ metaphor almost weekly in the Eucharist because it still has value and weight.

One of the facts that we as a people of faith need to admit, is that anything intangible is metaphor. These intangibles are constructs of our minds, based on faith and experience, but each and every one of us approaches and conceives of them differently. Through years of walking in faith, they may have the proof of the Tangible in our minds. We forget that. As we grow in our faith, the Metaphors gain the weight of the Tangible in our minds. Metaphors give us common language for these ambiguities, but they do not conform our interior constructs, our personal metaphors. Those apart from faith, that is one of the great leaps that they are most uncomfortable making. They need proof more than what an intangible can give.

So many things we treat as hard facts are nothing more than socially agreed upon constructs. National borders. The value of a piece of paper we call money. The zeros and ones in our phones that allow us to conduct business. What we value most in the world too often are the things of no inherent worth outside of the metaphor, the social construct, that we give them.

For Jesus to be the Bread of Life, we must treat him as such. For his Flesh to be that Bread we have to change to make it so. If not it is just electrons flitting through our brains like a daydream or a fantasy. But for those of us who believe, who act on this belief, it is everything.  “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” I Corinthians 1:18

The opposite is also true. So many problems we face in this world are when we take what was meant literally and we take them metaphorically. “You have heard that it was said, 

“You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” 

That was not metaphor. Heal the sick. Feed the hungry. Quench the thirsty. These are the simple and easy and clear literal things Jesus said. To these Tangibles, he adds the metaphorical faith statement. When you have done it unto one of the Least of These, you have done it to me. Too often we let the Intangible distract us from the Tangible, the Metaphor consumes us to the Literal’s expense.

On that trip to Costco, we never did get those cups. But everytime I walk down that aisle, and they have those cups, I pick it up and hand it to whoever is with me. “Does this fit your hand?” We are crazy creatures. 

Friends, as we face the problems of this life know what you are dealing with, metaphor or the tangible. If metaphor, know its strengths and weaknesses. If something tangible, ignore it to your detriment. “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Amen