August 15, 2021 - 12th Sunday after Pentecost - Ready to be Consumed by God?

This Bread of Life discourse at the heart of John’s understanding of the church hinges on the verse in chapter 1, “the word became flesh” (John 1:14). Yet how does the church receive life from Jesus and that incarnation? How is it that we, centuries later and without direct and unambiguous experience of Jesus in the flesh, still receive his incarnate life?

We chew and gnaw on the Word as expressed in scripture. It can comfort us when we are afflicted and it can just as easily get stuck between our teeth when we are comfortable. Today's Gospel continues a scandalous and offensive discourse. The temptation is to tame it with our Eucharistic language that is yet to come for this crowd. How would Jesus want us to process this "eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood" today? How were the crowd to process what Jesus said at this point in his ministry?

Jesus again engages in a rather obnoxious discourse. When the crowd is bothered and confused by what Jesus describes as the bread of life, he makes an even more offensive statement: they will need to eat his flesh and drink his blood (verse 53). The vocabulary of the text only heightens the scandal. In verses 49-51, Jesus had spoken about “eating” the bread from heaven, using a very common word (esthio). In verse 53, however, Jesus switches to a less common word, trogo, a rather onomatopoetic word that has a connotation closer to “munch” or “gnaw.” It is a graphic word of noisy eating, the sort of eating an animal does. The audibility of the eating, however, is not the important point; this is eating that is urgent, even desperate. It is eating as though life depends on it, because it does.

Why is Jesus being unclear in what he is saying to this crowd? I say unclear because because what it means to eat his flesh and drink his blood and what he means by eternal life is open to interpretation. After the repeated Lectio Divina readings for the past few weeks where he have read about Jesus repeatedly says about "eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood", what this reading means for me today is clear. And it is related to what I wrote in the August 1st blog.

He is inviting the crowd to be consumed by God like Jesus himself is consumed by God. However when, like Emily Dickinson advocated, you tell "all the truth but tell it slant" passages like this take on the quality of a parable where different meanings are true at different times.

The word must also struck me today. Pastor Janell preached about the importance that this Bread of Life must be shared with all, including the people we don't like and would want to exclude. The body of Christ must be consumed and we, collectively are the body of Christ on earth. What does that communion look like? 

 Yes, the teachings of Jesus are constantly at odds with ways we are tempted to live our lives.