One of the accusations made against the first Christians was that they were cannibals. It was said that they gathered in secret and took part in abominable rites which included the eating of human flesh and the drinking of blood. Both the Romans and the Jews were horrified, especially one writer who alleged that a baby would be laid on the altar, ritually killed and then torn from limb to limb before being eaten. I’m sure that, if these accusations were being made today, the BBC would carry out some investigative journalism, social media would be full of horror stories and questions would be asked in Parliament!

Of course, none of those charges was true – in fact they say more about the opponents of Christianity who were seeking to discredit this new faith. But it’s easy to see how the rumours spread. For early Christians did, of necessity, often meet together in secret. The focus of their worship was indeed the Eucharist in which they celebrated Jesus who had told them to “eat his flesh” and “drink his blood”. Theologians were stating the first inklings of a belief that the bread and wine taken at Communion were miraculously transformed as prayer was made over them. And that gruesome baby story shows a woeful confusion between Christmas, the Last Supper and Old Testament animal sacrifices.

So we can understand how these stories took hold – just as lurid stories about Freemasonry or African religions sometimes surface today. For, when you think about it, the Eucharist, Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper, or Mass (call it what you will, although the names do reflect different understandings of what’s going on) is a very curious rite. At its simplest it is the re-creation of part of a meal – probably a celebration of the Jewish Passover – eaten by Jesus and his disciples on the night before he died. At its most complex it’s an elaborate ritual performed by a host of clergy clothed in rich and archaic costumes, who give sacred elements to ordinary people. Most Communion services lie somewhere in between; and all of them involve eating a tiny amount of bread and drinking a sip of wine which wouldn’t keep anyone alive for five minutes.

Of course the starting-point for all that misunderstanding can be found in Jesus’ own words: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”. And those words are horrible – especially when we realise that the word Jesus uses for “eat” basically means to “gnaw” or “munch” like an animal! It can also be used in a human context when people enjoy a tasty meal together: a good way of bringing out the meaning would be to imagine some friends digging into a big bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (when did I last eat that, I wonder?) and declaring it to be “finger-lickin’ good”! Now there can be no doubt as to what Jesus said because he repeated it several times, to ram home his point. And we’re told that the people listening to him – or, at least, the more theologically astute ones who John calls “the Jews” – were puzzled by what he meant and started arguing among themselves; that argument has continued, sometimes fiercely, to the present day.

So we need to ask two basic but related questions about this passage. First, did Jesus really mean what he appears to have meant: that we literally need to eat of his flesh or body? For not only is the thought a ghastly one, but it’s also wildly impractical: Jesus only had one, finite, human body and it’s no longer here on earth! That must direct us to a meaning which isn’t literal but symbolic. Certainly John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had no doubt on this score, as he wrote: “Eating Jesus’ flesh is only another expression for believing”. And the Baptist theologian George Beasley-Murray comments, “We are more familiar with this kind of ‘eating’ metaphor than we may realize as we devour books, drink in lectures, swallow stories, ruminate on ideas, chew over a matter, and eat our own words. Doting grandparents [even] declare that they could eat up their grandchildren” – not that I’ve ever been tempted! It seems certain that Jesus was using striking picture-language – even though he’s moved on from talking about “God’s bread” to “his flesh”.

That brings me to the second question we must ask about this passage: although Jesus’ discourse follows on from the Feeding of the 5000, is it really about the Eucharist or Communion service? Certainly that’s what many commentators have believed over the years: one of the first was Ignatius of Antioch, writing about 80 years after the time of Jesus, who claimed that “breaking one and the same bread … is the medicine of immortality and the antidote to prevent us from dying”. Equally a recent writer has said that, apart from the story of the last supper, “this text is the primary reflection on the Eucharist in John”. And it is of course true that any Christian readers of John’s Gospel would have been familiar with the Eucharist as it formed part of Christian worship from the very start – they would have inevitably made the link between what their own worship and what Jesus had said here.

But I’m not convinced that’s the main thrust of this passage. That’s partly because Jesus was speaking well before the Last Supper, his death and resurrection – although he may have been hinting at what he knew would soon be happening! But there’s another reason, which is that John wasn’t primarily writing for Christians but for people who as yet had not come to faith: he has presented the miracle of the Feeding of the 5000 as one of seven clinching proofs that Jesus is the Son of God and so worthy of faith and discipleship. Granted, some of his readers might have been puzzled by what they’d heard about the Eucharist and wanted to become unpuzzled; but I don’t think that’s the main reason for John giving us this story and this section of Jesus’ teaching. What he wants to show us is that Jesus not only offers but actually is the “Bread” (or “flesh”) from heaven who gives us God’s life. It’s not by eating bread and drinking wine that we receive this life: it’s by an act of faith.

And there’s something else (and this where I’m afraid I may tread on a few toes). I believe that Holy Communion is important – it does have a tendency to get tacked onto the end of nonconformist services, with everyone surreptitiously looking at the clock and hoping that it won’t go on for too long because they want to get home and put on the potatoes! That’s a shame because, in many ways, our eating and drinking should be the high point of the service, not a rushed anti-climax. But – and this is the toe-treading bit – although I do think that God comes especially close to us as we “partake” or “commune”, I do not for a moment believe that the bread and wine are miraculously changed into Christ’s body and blood as they are prayed over: that seems to go far beyond both what Scripture and human reason suggest. No; as far as I’m concerned they are merely (if I may use the word in such a sacred context) physical or tangible elements that help us to focus on Christ and remember him. His sacrificial death was a one-off event, two thousand years ago; there is absolutely no need for it to be repeated every time we are in church.

We will soon share bread and wine together. That won’t be a gruesome act although it will take us to a place – Calvary’s Cross rather than a barren hill beside a lake – which is both awful and awe-ful. And our ritual, though simple, will engage all our senses: we shall hear spoken words, we will see the Deacons moving around the church and serving, we will hold the little cups in our hands, we will taste the elements in our mouths, we may even smell the wine before we drink it (although that’s more likely in an Anglican Church than here!) In other words, it won’t just be a cerebral activity, every part of us will be involved.

It’s true, of course, that the metaphor of ‘eating Jesus’ flesh’ and ‘drinking his blood’ is repulsive; I can’t deny it. But, then, the Passion story is hardly a pleasant one: although there are hymns which exhort us to gaze in wonder at the Cross I think that most of us would actually turn away in disgust and dismay. As Steve Turner the poet put it, Easter is not really suitable for children nor good for people of a nervous disposition as it has whips, blood, nails, a spear and allegations of body snatching, and involves politics, God and the sins of the world. Yet, as Christ gives himself, he brings the hope of eternal life to all.

I want to finish with a story. In my first church there was a man who was a distinguished wildlife photographer. He was short, grumpy and one of my fiercest critics – yet we respected each other greatly. And I got used to the fact that, just like the birds he loved, he would migrate to warmer climates during the winter in order to pursue his vocation; even in his 80s he was climbing African trees in order to get the best shots.

A few months after we arrived, one of my Deacons came to me. “Have you noticed”, she said, “that Eric is never in church on Communion Sundays?” I was surprised by this and thought that absences must just be random and coincidental; but my informant was quite correct. Now I never had the guts to tackle Eric and ask why he never took Communion, but I suspect he found the symbolism and imagery difficult to handle. Was it that he found Christ’s suffering so unattractive that the last thing he wanted was to be forced to recall it? Or was he filled with disgust at the thought of eating and drinking Jesus’ flesh and blood? I have no idea – and of course the true answer may have been something else entirely!

Well, we have gone a long way from the Feeding of the 5000 and Jesus calling himself “the Bread of Life”. Or have we? While John Wesley declared that “this whole discourse concerning his flesh and blood refers …remotely, if at all, to the Lord’s Supper” he also believed that it related directly to his Passion, that Jesus was definitely looking ahead, to his death. We will be looking back as we share Communion together; we may have different beliefs about precisely what is going on (after all, this is an Ecumenical church!). Nevertheless we will all hope, in some way, to have our hunger met and our thirst slaked by Christ.