Journey's Weekly Homilies

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 17, 2003
Homily by Marcia 

Proverbs 9:1-6
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58 

          “Eat my flesh and drink my blood?”  Jesus’ command sounds like something from a vampire novel, like the following passage from a novel by Laurell Hamilton:  “…it was as if I could smell how tender his meat would be, how fresh his blood….  I watched his pulse beat against the skin of his neck.  I had an urge to…run my tongue over that frantic pulse, set teeth into that tender flesh, and set that pulse point free….  I knew that if I bit down the pulse would be destroyed, that it would die in a spill of red blood, but…the thought of blood spraying in my mouth didn’t seem terrible.”[i]

          That passage, from a vampire novel, describes the desire to eat flesh and drink blood.  Jesus’ hearers must have been shocked by the command, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood.”  They were as revolted by cannibalism as we are.  Besides, meat that had not been purified, drained of its blood, was not kosher.  Blood was not kosher because blood was life.  Blood, and life, were the property of God alone.  No mortal was allowed to drink blood.[ii]

          In vampire novels, blood also signifies life.  A vampire takes life with blood.  Vampire novels illustrate the danger of allowing someone to be close to you.  Jesus’ hearers seem aware of this danger.  They are wary of Jesus’ invitation of intimacy with him.  Jesus has done two miracles.  He has fed five thousand people and walked across a lake.  When the people who have witnessed these miracles follow him, he invites them to believe “into” him.[iii]  He says, “This is the work of God, that you believe “into” the one whom God has sent.”[iv] But they stall and invent excuses.  Why?  What does believing “into” Jesus mean?  The tense of the Greek word ‘pisteuo’[v] that Jesus uses, when he says ‘believe’, connotes ongoing or continuous action.[vi]  Believing “into” Jesus is a lot more than just momentary agreement with something he has said.  Believing “into” Jesus means agreeing to join his community of disciples.  This community of disciples thought of themselves as a family.  And family in Mediterranean society determined identity.[vii]  Individual opinions were an unknown concept.  Your opinions were those of your family.  Your identity was determined by what your family thought of you.  The invitation to join Jesus disciples was an invitation to be born again, to change one’s identity and opinions.

It’s really no wonder that Jesus’ hearers stall when he asks them to be born again, to believe “into” him.  They see the danger in Jesus’ invitation.  Jesus’ hearers say “Well…why don’t you give us a sign?  Work a miracle for us and maybe we’ll believe that you’re a prophet.”[viii]  Jesus has just done two flashy miracles, and they want another one before they will believe he’s a prophet?  Yesterday, when he fed five thousand, before he’d even walked on the water, they called him a prophet and even tried to make him king.[ix]  The tense of the Greek word Jesus used, when he said ‘believe’, implied a long term, continuing belief, but Jesus’ hearers respond using a tense of the Greek word for ‘believe’ that avoids any long term implications,[x] when they offer to believe in him if he will give them a sign, work a miracle for them.  The belief that Jesus’ hearers are offering him is short term.

          I don’t blame Jesus’ hearers for hesitating.  Jesus is making an offer of long term bread, bread that satisfies for longer than only a day, but he is also making clear that the work that one does to make that bread is to make a complete and permanent change of one’s loyalty and identity.[xi]  The price that one pays for that special bread is to leave behind one’s old family, one’s old loyalties and identity.  As Jesus’ hearers come up with more and more excuses not to join his new family, not to make such an ultimate commitment, Jesus’ language, his description of what he is offering, becomes more and more extreme, more and more compelling.  “I’m not only offering you bread that will last, bread that will satisfy you for longer than a day, bread that will satisfy you for all time.  I’m offering you myself, all that I am, all that I have.  I’m offering you my flesh and blood, as a mother offers her breast to her nursing infant.”  Jesus offers us himself.  He offers us a new kind of life, a life where we abide in him and he in us.

          Jesus’ hearers probably found his words both seductive and frightening at the same time.  “Eat my flesh and drink my blood?”  By saying, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood”, Jesus is underlining the radical nature of the break his hearers will have to make with their past lives.  They are being asked to violate the kosher laws against drinking blood.  Violating those laws will cut them off from their families and friends, from their Jewish culture.  Jesus is replacing the kosher laws with a new eating requirement that will bind his new family together.  He binds his family together by offering himself, his flesh and blood, his body.

          I find Jesus passion and generosity difficult to ignore, difficult to walk away from, but if I were in the crowd, I would still have some questions, some doubts.  If I’m being asked to change my identity and opinions, what am I being asked to change them to?  Who is this Jesus, who is asking me to abide in him, to change my opinions for his, to change my identity for a new one that he and his family will determine?  Who is this Jesus?  Who does the Gospel of John say that he is?  He is generous, generous enough to give his body for the world, generous enough to allow himself to be crucified.  He is courageous, courageous enough to speak the truth to those who become uncomfortable, who become angry, who don’t want to hear what he has to say.  And he is wise, wise enough to look into people’s hearts and see what they really need, wise enough to know that bread alone will never feed their hunger.

In the first chapter of his Gospel, John tells us who Jesus really is.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….all things were made through him, without him was not anything made that was made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all people….The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth;”[xii]  In John, Jesus is the Word through which God creates the world, the Word which then becomes flesh and dwells among us.  This description of the Word of God has parallels in the Old Testament.[xiii]  In Proverbs, Wisdom describes her origin.  “God created me…at the first, before the beginning of the earth….when God marked out the foundations of the earth, I was beside God, like a master worker….whoever finds me finds life….all who hate me love death”[xiv]  After Wisdom describes her origin, she invites us, in today’s first reading, to dine with her.  She invites those without sense to eat of her bread and drink of her wine.  As we have the courage to accept what wisdom offers, she comes to dwell in us, and we in her.

I say courage, because the truth Wisdom offers us, about ourselves and those around us, about our own world, is not always pleasant.  When something is wrong, sometimes it is easier to shut our eyes and pretend it doesn’t exist, than to experience the pain and acknowledge the hurt.  But acknowledging that something is wrong, that something is broken, is the first step towards healing, towards mending what is broken.

When Jesus offers us his flesh, he is offering us the Word of God, the creative power and wisdom of God.  Jesus is offering us an opportunity to allow the creative word, the creative wisdom of God to dwell in us, and we in it.  Although this is a glorious offer, it is dangerous.  A creative life, a life lived fully, is not safe.  Jesus is offering us the chance to live life as fully as he did.  Jesus is offering us the chance to open our eyes, look around us and see the world as it is, rather than sleepwalking through our existence.  He is offering us the chance to see the world as he sees it, with eyes of compassion, with understanding of people’s frailties, folly and hidden greatness.  When I hear about pollution, the dangerous poisons people continue to dump into the water and the air, I want to cry.  When I saw the Berlin wall come down after many years, a sight I never expected to see in my lifetime, I experienced a lightness of heart, renewed hope and a belief that all things are possible.  We are all offered an invitation to eat at Wisdom’s banquet.  Jesus urges us to eat his flesh and drink his blood.  Do we have the courage to accept his generous offer?  Do we have the courage to choose life?