We now enter our fourth week of reflecting on Jesus as the Bread of Life. We have left literal bread a long way behind us and are now confronted with the assertion that this bread is the flesh of Jesus and that we need to consume him. We are now being invited into a strange and all consuming relationship with the divine. No wonder those who were keen to be fed bread are now asking questions and perplexed, resistant even. (John 6:51-58. Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 15, Ordinary 20)
It would probably be helpful to read what I wrote on this text three years ago.
Because we have been given five weeks by the lectionary to explore this metaphor, and most of us here have reflected on these texts many times before, I have chosen to go deeper and broader in pursuit of the layers of meaning of Jesus as the Bread of Life for us in our time. Let’s review the spiral of the journey so far. We began by considering how the fullness of God infuses everything in our world and how therefore we can rest in the enoughness of God and God’s good creation. And we acknowledged that despite this we tend to suffer from insatiable hunger. In the following week we considered how our hunger can be a blessing as it motivates us to seek out the wisdom and love of Christ. And then last week we reflected on the saying of Jesus that unless we are drawn by God we cannot believe. We concluded that driven by hunger and drawn by the divine enticement of the bread that satisfies we will find ourselves both consuming the bread of life and being consumed by it.
We come now to the solemn words of Jesus: “I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in me and I live in them. As I, who am sent by the living Father, myself draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will draw life from me. This is the bread come down from heaven; not like the bread our ancestors ate: they are dead, but anyone who eats this bread will live forever.” (John 6:53-58 The Jerusalem Bible)
Another way of saying this might be: ‘Eating bread that my hands have blessed and broken is not enough to satisfy you beyond the moment. If you wish to dwell in the divine then you must consume me, take into your self my very self. This is the nature of my relationship with my Father, with my Source, that I draw life from the divine, and so you must too. And you can only do that by taking me, in bread and wine, flesh and blood, word and spirit, into your inner most self.’
This language requires us to engage with Jesus as a wisdom teacher as well as healer, prophet, saviour. (This is made clearer by the use of the image of Lady Wisdom in the reading from Proverbs 9:1-6.) In some ways Jesus has much in common with other wisdom teachers in terms of his vision of what a whole and holy person might look like but his understanding of how we become this person is radically different. For Jesus teaches not the conservation and containment of the human spirit or the narrow following of rules but a generous to the point of foolishness giving oneself away, a pouring oneself out.
Firstly, as a wisdom teacher Jesus role models and teaches the way of kenosis or self-emptying love. He holds nothing back, not even his flesh and blood, but pours his whole self out into the world for the sake of the world. His incarnation itself is an emptying out of his divine self into frail human flesh and his way of living, loving, dying and rising is an endless giving away of his very self. Jesus gives himself away to the least and the lost; the sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes; to the ordinary and to those on the edge of society; to the hungry and unwise; and to the seekers of his time and our time.
Secondly such self-giving love invites us into ultimate intimacy – to abiding in, being in union with, being consumed from within by that which we have consumed. There is nothing small or polite or particularly reasonable about such an invitation. Certainly this is not an invitation to relationship that can be contained and constrained by Sundays, by particular rituals and creeds, by rules or covenants, even though all these may play their part in our ongoing journey together. This is the language and imagery of passionate consummation, of domestic co-habitating, of communal living and common purpose.
And thirdly, this intertwining of lives will transform us from within. Do you remember as a child being warned by a playful grandparent or elder to be careful when you ate an apple lest you eat the seeds which just might lead to an apple tree growing within you? My grandfather did. And in a cheerfully childish way we might imagine that having consumed the very flesh and blood of Jesus in bread and wine that the seed, the kernel, of his teachings and very self, have been taken into our inner most being and will not be able to help growing within us. Which suggests that transformation is not so much a product of our will but a fruit of the spirit of this Jesus now planted within us and quietly, deep within, doing its work of growth and changing the host. It is not a new thought – are there any? – for St John of the Cross said: “Each of us is called to cultivate an inner garden in which the Divine Word may grow and flourish.”
If we are feeling some reluctance or resistance to this “invasive” image then we are probably hearing the text and understanding the enormity of what is being offered. Next week we shall explore this reservation and seek to find a way through.
Even so, come Lord Jesus Christ, gardener of our hearts and minds, come make us yours.
This is my work informed by all I have heard, read and experienced. I am indebted to the wisdom of others. This week I am especially grateful to:
Cynthia Bourgeault, “The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind – A New Perspective on Christ and His Message”, particularly chapter 6 Kenosis: The Path of Self-Emptying Love, Shambhala, Boulder, 2008.
Rev Elana Keppel Levy www.somuchbible.com
John T Squires ‘Disputing the claim of Jesus to be “the bread of life”’ (John 6)” www.johntsquires.com
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