World Communion Sunday
In worship this week we continue the sermon series, "Two Words" about the I AM statements in John. What is special about this Sunday is that we will be focusing on Jesus' statement, "I AM the bead of life," from John 6. Here he makes the bold proclamation that his flesh is food, and that this food is far more nourishing even than the manna that God had provided their ancestors in the Wilderness. In a parched, arid land this divine provision kept them alive from day to day. Those who eat this food Jesus describes don't live for another day, but forever. John's Gospel doesn't really describe the Last Supper as the synoptic Gospels do, but this passage in ch. 6 is very Eucharistic and one cannot read it without thinking of the Lord's Supper. In this table, Jesus is both host and meal as we joyfully eat his flesh and drink his blood, represented by the bread and cup. Particularly significant for this Sunday's worship is that we are readin