Lectionary Reflection — 12 August 2018

John 6:35, 41-51 (MSG; adapted):1

35 Jesus said, “I’m the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever.

41-42 At this, because he said, “I’m the Bread that came down from heaven,” the Jews started arguing over him: “Isn’t this the son of Joseph? Don’t we know his mother and father? How can he now say, ‘I came down out of heaven’ and expect anyone to believe him?”

43-46 Jesus said, “Don’t bicker among yourselves over me. You’re not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge. He draws people to me — that’s the only way you’ll ever come. Only then do I do my work, putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End. This is what the prophets meant when they wrote, ‘And then they’ll all be personally taught by God.’ Anyone who has spent any time at all listening to the Father, really listening and therefore learning, comes to me to be taught personally — to see it with her own eyes, hear it with her own ears, from me, since I have it firsthand from the Father. No one has seen the Father except the One who has his Being alongside the Father — and you can see me.

47-51 “I’m telling you the most solemn and sober truth now: Whoever believes in me has real life, Life of the Ages. I am the Bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna bread in the desert and died. But now here is Bread that truly comes down out of heaven. Anyone eating this Bread won’t die, ever. I am the Bread — living Bread! — who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live — and forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self.”

Other readings: 1 Kings 19:4-8; Psalm 34:1-8; Ephesians 4:25-5:2

                 

Conditioning.

It means to “have a significant influence on or determine (the manner or outcome of something).” When I read the Gospel Lesson for today, I’ve been conditioned to read it in a certain way. This conditioning makes it quite difficult to not hear that “significant influence” and hear something else.

I’m talking about Calvinism.

See, when one’s a Calvinist, one’s conditioned to pick up on the little words, phrases, or passages that supposedly speak to the beloved five points of Calvinism or TULIP. In the case of our Lesson, one of those passages is verse 44. In the Common English Bible (CEB), it reads, “No one can come to me unless they are drawn to me by the Father who sent me, and I will raise them up at the last day.”2 This means that people can’t just come to Jesus on their own — that is, they don’t “decide of their own free will” to come to Christ — they have to be “drawn” to him by God.

The next thing we were conditioned to “see” is the Greek word for “drawn.” The Greek word is ἑλκύσῃ (helkysē) and it means, “drag, draw, pull, persuade.” And, of course, we were conditioned to emphasise the “drag” part. The explanation went something like, “The Greek word translated as ‘drawn’ actually means ‘drag.’ This means that God drags the person dead in their tresspasses and sins to Christ.” The image is that of a person being grabbed by the scruff of his neck like one would grab a dog and dragging him against his will to Jesus. The picture is then expounded this way, “See? People don’t want to come to Jesus on their own — they won’t ‘decide of their own free will’ to come to Jesus. God has to grab them by the neck and drag them to Jesus.”

That’s what I hear when I read this passage.

I don’t hear about Jesus giving up his life so that people can have “real life, the Life of the Age.” No. I hear about God grabbing people by the scruff of the neck and dragging them against their will and tossing them at the feet of Jesus.

And then I’m supposed to feel like I’ve given people the “real truth” about how God works through Jesus to rescue the world. And what I’ve really done is driven another wedge between someone and God’s Love.

How in the world did I ever fall into that trap? How did I ever believe such a horrible picture of God and God’s Love and Grace?

You may fall into that same camp. You might have been conditioned to “read” the Bible in this way. If so, I’m so, so sorry.

But, you know, the passage today is kind of describing the same thing. The passage states that the “Jewish opposition”3 started arguing amongst themselves because Jesus said he was “the bread that came down from heaven” (verse 41). They said, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph? Don’t we know his mother and father? How can he now say, ‘I came down out of heaven’ and expect anyone to believe him?” (verse 42).

In other words, the “Jewish opposition” was conditioned to see their scriptures in a certain way. The Messiah had to be a certain way and act a certain way. When Jesus came on the scene and started doing and saying things that challenged their understanding — when he didn’t tick the right boxes of their interpretations — they just couldn’t see it.

And that’s just what Jesus confronts in the next section. After quoting the prophet Isaiah, Jesus said, “Anyone who has spent any time at all listening to the Father, really listening and therefore learning, comes to me to be taught personally — to see it with her own eyes, hear it with her own ears, from me, since I have it firsthand from the Father” (verse 45; emphasis added). In other words, the “Jewish opposition” learned to see the Messiah through the lens of their tradition instead of “really listening and learning” from God.

Likewise, while I was conditioned to see verse 44 as God dragging people against their will to Jesus, Jesus explains what “draw” actually means. It means “really listening and learning from God.” And that person — the person who’s been taught by God — will come to Jesus and believe in him. As it states in the CEB, “Everyone who has listened to the Father and learned from him comes to me.” Not just those who follow Jesus’ ancestral tradition or our more modern ones. No. Everyone who’s been taught by God comes to Christ.

Saint Paul picks up this statement in his most famous letter. In Romans 2, he wrote —

When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong (vv. 14-15).

Here we see that great truth the ancient Celts picked up on and emphasized, most notably, in their art. God’s Light “is not something alien, imposed on us from without.” No. God’s Light, God’s Self, is “woven into the very fabric of our creation.” For the ancient Celtic followers of Jesus, God’s Grace wasn’t opposed to our nature; Grace enabled our nature to be what God has created us to be — God’s children.

While reflecting on many of the prayers of Celtic spirituality, John Philip Newell observed, “[These prayers] draw our attention not simply to the goodness of what has been created but to a perception that within creation there is something of the presence of the uncreated, that is, God.”4 “Sin has buried the beauty of God’s image,” notes Newell, “but not erased it. The gospel is given to uncover the hidden wealth of God that has been planted in the depths of our human nature.”5

I explain it as Grace coming into a dark room searching for the Inner Light of creation buried beneath all the “stuff” dumped in the room. Grace comes in and starts moving things around like a woman searching for a lost coin. And once Grace finds that part of God planted in the heart of all creation it adds fuel to the ember revealing the Life of the Age that was there the whole time, hidden like treasure in a field.

And then Jesus turns again to talk about “bread.”

Like a lot of people today, the “Jewish opposition” looked at the surface (or literal) interpretation instead of the deeper meaning to which the surface pointed. Jesus is saying that Life — “real life” — the Life of the Age is his own life. Just as bread gives people life, Jesus gives people “real life.” The picture of bread from heaven given to the ancient Hebrews was a picture of Jesus coming and giving his life for “the life of the world” (verse 51; CEB).

And here’s something that just came into my mind —

Bread isn’t given to the dead but to the living.

This illumination ties into what we’ve seen above. The life found in the bread nourishes the life already existing within the person. Likewise, Grace comes in looking for the Life that’s already there.

While contemplating the spirituality of John Scotus Eriugena, a ninth century Irish theologian and poet, Newell points out, “[Eriugena] regarded grace not as opposed to nature but as cooperating with it, restoring it or releasing its essential goodness.”6 Elsewhere, he wrote, “[Nature], says Eriugena, is the gift of ‘being’ that God has given us, rooted in the light of the first day. [Grace] is the gift of ‘well-being’.”7

So, rather than being a passage about God grabbing dead people by the neck and dragging them against their will and throwing them at the feet of Jesus, this passage is about God’s Grace being given (in the “bread” of Jesus) to living people still held captive and wandering the wilderness. This bread — God’s Grace and Life — cooperates with the Life planted in the heart of our nature and releases it to its essential goodness of well-being. But it’s not limited to one tradition or nation. No. This Grace-bread is for everyone. Indeed, it was given for the life of the world.

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In the Love of the Three in One,

Br. Jack+, LC

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1. Scripture quotations marked (MSG) taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

2. Scripture quotations marked (CEB) are taken from The Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible.

3. I really appreciate the way the Common English Bible emphasises that there was a “Jewish opposition” instead of implicating the whole nation — “the Jews” — as most translations have it.

4.  Newell, J. P., (1997). Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality, pg. 25. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

5. — (1999). The Book of Creation: An Introduction to Celtic Spirituality, pg. XVII. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

6. Newell (1997), pp. 36-37.

7. Newell (1999), pg. 13.