John 6:51-58

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life… whoever eats me will live because of me.

I was reading this passage in preparation for our weekly Holy Communion and prayer for healing service at Wollongong and I was shocked by the words. I hadn’t realised or noticed or I had forgotten that Jesus said these words in such an explicit way. In my mind I thought that they were the words of the church not of Jesus. Whoever eats me will live… eats me? I looked back over my notes on this lectionary reading from 2009 and I read how I had much the same reaction. This passage confronts. As a vegetarian it is not too my taste.

In the whole discourse about Jesus as the bread of life in John chapter six, it seems to me that the absorbing of Jesus’ teaching is more than feeding the mind. It is absorbing God’s life into our lives. It is so much about becoming one with Jesus. Elsewhere Jesus says, “As you Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us… so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, as we are one (John 17:21-23)” and ‘Abide in me as I abide in you’ (John 15:4). And here in John 6:56 Jesus says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them”.

We human beings are so absorbed in each other, often devouring one another, and so absorbed in ways of relating that are learned from institutions based on rivalry and the survival of the strongest, the richest, the powerful at the expense of the poorest and weakest; that the words of Jesus seem nice but ineffectual in our reality they are insipid, utopian, idealistic. Yet the invitation to us is to instead be absorbed in all that distracts and consumes us in this life to be instead absorbed in God’s eternal life.

So Jesus shocks us with his cannibalistic talk but I think that somewhere between merely learning from him (or about him and the ways of God) and eating him, is a path. Discipleship is always more than understanding the message, it is following despite not understanding, it is relating without fully knowing someone.

When we eat food on earth it keeps us alive but one day we will all die. When we eat the flesh of Jesus and drink his blood we are eating eternal food, food that will keep us alive eternally. Can we be alive eternally and yet die physically? In eating this food we are becoming one with Jesus, one with God, we are becoming eternal. This is more than listening, more than learning, more than taking notes, more than remembering, more than knowing, more than mimicking, more than imitating, more than being like Jesus; it is becoming one with God, one with God.

That is too much to get one’s head around. How can we live forever and yet die? When we die we all fall into the eternal (the elements) or are absorbed by the eternal but what of when we are alive? Are we not part of the eternal anyway? Do we not live and move and have our being in God whether we believe it or not? While we live on this earth, during this time of temporal life, do we have the choice to live at the same time connected to the eternal yet using our own thoughts, our own ways rather than the ways of God, the ways of the kingdom of God?

John 6:35, 41-51

 ... and they shall all be taught by God (V45)

When Jesus says, ‘…and they shall all be taught by God’ seemingly Jesus is quoting the prophet Isaiah who says, ‘All your children will be taught by God’ (chapter 54:43). Did this mean that one day in the future the descendants of the exiles will be taught directly by God? Has that time now come in the person of Jesus? In quoting this could Jesus be saying that when you listen to me you are being taught by God? Could he be saying that he is more than a prophet, more than a priest, more than a rabbi, more than a teacher? If Jesus’ words are the words of God, how do we respond? How do we discern which words are authentically the original words of Jesus and which words were added when handed down orally to the gospel writers and how have they edited them? And when we read these words how are we interpreting them through our experiences and other life knowledges?

When I sit listening to eulogies at funerals and especially when I hear the children of the deceased person speaking about their father or mother, I wonder to myself what my children will say about me at my funeral. Will they state my achievements? Will they say they were loved? Will they recall what they learned from me?

Rene Girard talks about how we learn from each other by mimicking one another. We get out desires from watching one another, wanting what the other has, or wanting more than the other has. Lots of good things are learnt from each other too. Jesus seems to have more than learned behaviour and mimicking him in mind when he talks about the bread they are to eat as his flesh. These are part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus but becoming one with Christ, one with God, seems much, much more than becoming like Christ.

When it comes to church life? Will the church community have any children, a younger generation to hand the church on to? What are young people and children learning from us adults in the church? What are we teaching them? What are they absorbing into their minds, when and if they attend church? While we are reading them stories what are they reading into our lives? Are we passing on bible stories or have we become part of the story of eternal life? Are we talking about kingdom life or living the kingdom life? What do those experiences teach them about us, about God?

The recent National Church Life Survey in Australia says that the retention of 15-19 year olds by the church is one of the three key attendance measures in regards to growth or decline in the church. This is an irrelevant measure if there are no children in the church in the first place.

Walter Brueggemann in his book ‘Biblical perspectives on evangelism’ describes evangelism as ‘an activity of transformed consciousness that results in an altered perception of the world, neighbour, and self and an authorisation to live differently in that world’. For Brueggemann evangelism is more than telling people about Jesus and in particular when sharing the message with children. He says children need people who are crazy about them, showing unconditional grace and unconditional love. Faith is caught not taught. Faith is taught by passionate lives.

I think that the transformation Jesus is talking about is eternal, of which a transformed consciousness is part. Jesus challenges us to absorb his words, to digest them, to let them become all of who we are not just part of us. Then we will no longer just say what Jesus said, but we will be and do and become all that Jesus was and is and is to come.