I love 'em all (my parents people were German Lutherans for 500 years), so I don't participate in these pissing contests very often.
I must say, however, that the most fervent literalists on Earth turn away from eating His flesh and drinking His blood (watch how fast they will say, "it's just symbolic). So it is with tu et Petrus. It is Peter's FAITH which is the rock, yes, not his sinful flesh, but that big "Rocky" had a real, designated role in His Church - and still does.
Jesus eating blood would have made Him a sinner you know.
Considering the reverence given to Christ’s body and blood in evangelical churches, and the things believed about who Jesus is, what His death meant, and how we have eternal life, as well as other things, such as that Jesus was the new Passover lamb (and the Passover lamb was eaten), I don’t believe evangelicals mean that Communion is just a symbol in the way we think of human symbols, such as the American flag or the World Trade Center. I do understand the point that’s being made, but think evangelicals should really consider anew what they really believe about Communion, for the sake of greater understanding. It seems to me that in some way, a spiritual way, we are partaking of the Lord’s body and blood, but it’s a mystery beyond our understanding. If Jesus literally wanted to give the twelve disciples His actual body and blood, then He could have done so, either at the Last Supper, or after His Resurrection. But very clearly He didn’t, and let’s acknowledge the truth that He did not.
Many a time, too, I’ve heard Catholics say that Jesus said “this is My body,” etc., so that is literal language, but that doesn’t prove their point. Metaphor can take that grammatical form, as elementary English classes teach children over and over again during their time in school. Simile uses “like” or “as” for comparison, and metaphor doesn’t.
Throughout all the Gospels, a major concern is belief and unbelief. And sometimes Jesus judged unbelief, especially as the Jews were a people that God prepared to receive the Messiah. But repeatedly the Gospels talks of the people’s unbelief, and one place that happened was John 6. A group of people were miraculously fed by Jesus, and He tells them a day later that they were desperately seeking Him not because they’d seen the miracles He’d done (which were to show them He was the Messiah, the Bible says) but for the meal. Then they even after that demand a sign from Jesus. At that point, they were so faithless that they couldn’t respond to Jesus, and drove them away out of judgment by offending their sensibilities. And the same with His disciples who didn’t trust Him, unlike the Twelve who as a group (Judas of course wasn’t faithful) seemed not to think of leaving Him as the other did, and confirmed that when Jesus asked them. They had faith that kept them with Jesus even when doubt was thrown their way.
Just to try to get to the bottom of things, think of what it would mean if a person said to you that you were going to have to drink of their blood and eat their flesh, or if you said that to someone else. We can agree that the literal meaning would be people actually eating and drinking of each other’s physical bodies, as is and has sometimes been done in religions. That is what was in the mind of the Jews Jesus spoke to, too. But, it was not, when Jesus and the apostles gathered at the Last Supper, what He instituted, even though, Jesus was there in the flesh. He was also there after His resurrection, eating with them to prove He was physically there. But He did not mean His actual physical flesh. So what did He mean? I think parts of it are mysterious, since we can’t exactly understand how Jesus is God’s Word, and the Trinity is something we can’t quite grasp too while in this world, but a part of it we can understand is Jesus dying for us to have life, which means He is our food. Consider, too, in John, after Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman, He told His disciples that He had food to eat that they knew not of, and when they wondered about what He said, He explained that His food was to do His Father’s will.
We also know that those who are saved will eat of the Tree of Life, and I believe IIRC that the Bible identifies that tree as Jesus. The things here, like our eating food, are shadows of Heavenly things, which are no doubt to teach us of those Heavenly things. So on food, the food of eternal life, Heavenly food, we have to realize there’s so much we don’t understand about it here. When we fall into reversing things, and make God into the image of man, then we do what the Muslims, for example, do, when they’re offended by Jesus as God’s Son, because “God can’t have a son.” They think of Him in a natural, pagan sort of way. But the spiritual things aren’t shadows of the natural, but the natural of the spiritual, which is mostly beyond us right now.