"live forever"

The Tuesday morning lectionary group really struggled with the lesson from John 6.51-58 for Sunday. It is week #4 of the bread of life. It is full of cannibalistic imagery. It talks about "living forever." And it just is not easy to preach. But we did spend an hour talking about it, and some great insights came out. Here's what I wrote down.

• Life/Living - What does it mean, now that you've been fed to live - really live?
• Live Forever - What does it mean to live forever? When does eternal life begin?
• Heaven - When all hell breaks loose around you, can you hold onto heaven?
• Heaven - Is it a place or is it absolute availability to God? (See this good article on the subject)
• Flesh and blood = bread and wine = love and forgiveness - Transubstantiation
• Sacraments - Jesus promises those who eat his flesh and drink his blood eternal life - he says HE will raise them up on the last day. That raises the question, can what's done at the table be undone?

So that's where we got. Good stuff to preach and teach and know.