The Gospel for Wednesday, February 4, 2004
John 6:52-59
"Then the Jews started arguing among themselves, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ Jesus replied to them: In all truth I tell you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise that person up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person. As the living Father sent me and I draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will also draw life from me. This is the bread which has come down from heaven; it is not like the bread our ancestors ate: they are dead, but anyone who eats this bread will live for ever. This is what he taught at Capernaum in the synagogue." -- The New Jerusalem Bible. 1995, c1985. Doubleday: Garden City, N.Y.
A Study
The big flap over the cannibalism issue is quickly put to rest in verse 63, just a few verses later:
"‘It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life."
Jesus certainly knew Torah. For him to suggest, at this point, that the Jews ought to drink blood, literally, doesn't fit. And his words a few verses later confirm the inconsistency of thought that some in the crowd then -- and some modern people -- have generated, that he was encouraging Jews to break one of their own laws.
The principle in today's Gospel is the connection between"living" (translated "remaining" or "abiding" in other versions) and "bread." Grain, sowing, reaping, and bread are all pervasive themes throughout the Hebrew Bible and much of the New Testament. And bread always is the mainstay for life, along with water, or the symbolic stand-ins for life. When Jesus talks about drawing life from the Father and we drawing life from him, and uses the metaphor of eating bread or his flesh, they are all one thought.
Now Jesus knew that those hearing his words were not going to understand them. All the Gospel authors knew that, and it does not seem authentic that they would consistently all use the metaphor(s) as often as they did, just so they could plant an "I told you so" opportunity after the Last Supper.
But if only one, or a few then in that crowd, had the idea planted, and that idea survived and was mentally digested, and then served to draw that one or those few to God, Jesus would have declared it a huge victory. His attitude was clearly conveyed in Matthew 18:12:
"... Suppose a man has a hundred sheep and one of them strays; will he not leave the ninety–nine on the hillside and go in search of the stray?"
Theologians would tell us that we try to constrain God when we put him in the "God robes" of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling painting. God is NOT finite, and He can easily "leave" the 99 -- or 99 billion -- and go in search of the one that needs Him in that instant. And he searches, still, through his Word given to us in this time. We continue to wrestle with "hard sayings" like this one to extract God's message to us from them. Few things that are easily gotten persevere. This one is clearly intended to last a long time!
A Reflection
People often have conversion experiences in which they find that God and Jesus and Holy Spirit have been standing next to them for a long time, hidden only by a thin veil of human pride, resisting the concept of Other as having a place in that person's life. Are we not sufficient unto ourselves?
Briefly, no.
The lyricist Bill Withers' words to "Lean on Me" provoke something in all of us. They generate memories of times when things weren't going well, when we seemed down and out, when life looked bleak - or at its bleakest. When I try to lean on myself, I suddenly become the illustration for a two-legged-stool. Unstable. Bad design. But our Designer puts it in our hearts to reach out, to try to find some one to lean on, someone with whom we can share our pain. As children, there's Mom or Dad to kiss it all better. As teens, we begin rejecting such silliness until, as the plaster sets and the mold comes away, we, as adults, think we're self-reliant.
God does not send adversity. But adversity does happen. How we choose to deal with it is not God's choice, is it? When we fix ourselves on the here and the now and tough it out, sometimes we appear to succeed.
How much better a success might we have by drawing Life from Him?
7:04:40 AM 
|
