Food Fight

Introduction

This week’s Gospel reading [John 6:35, 41-51, the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year B] confronts us with Jesus’ provocative self-identification, “I AM the bread of life” [John 6:35a]. In this week’s reading, Jesus repeats his statement three more times. His was not a slip of the tongue. For years now, I’ve been struck by a verse that follows this week’s lesson:

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him’ (John 6:66).

The Gospel writer’s stark statement reveals the shocking impact of Jesus’ words on His original audience. To devout Jewish believers of the time, Jesus’ statements about eating His flesh and drinking His blood likely sounded not just strange, but blasphemous.

Yet, we must recognize that Jesus’ words don’t just belong to a distant past. They continue to challenge and potentially unsettle us today. The call to consume Christ’s body and blood—whether understood literally or metaphorically—remains a radical proposition in our so-called modern world. It demands a level of faith that can be as difficult for 21st-century Christians to swallow as it was for our Lord’s original listeners.

Three years ago, when the cycle of the Lectionary last elevated the John 6 passage as the Gospel reading (and when my readership consisted of only a handful of friends), I crafted a Wednesday meditation that broke from my usual style. It took the form of an extended conversation that sought to explore the tensions, fears, and hopes that might have arisen among those who heard Jesus in the flesh. As we revisit this challenging text, I offer a slightly modified version of that dialogue again. My hope is that it will not only provide historical Biblical perspective but also prompt us to grapple with our own response to Jesus’ radical invitation. How do we, in our time, wrestle with teachings that may seem strange or difficult? Are we ready to embrace a faith that, if true, changes everything?

As you read, I encourage you to engage deeply with these imagined voices from the past. But more importantly, listen for the echoes of their doubts, fears, and hopes in your own heart. For Jesus’ call—as strange and unsettling as it may sometimes sound—remains as true and transformative today as it was two millennia ago.”

The Meditation

Jesus said to them, Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink [John 6:53-55, NIV].

“Come on, we’re leaving,” said the Hebrew man to his son and daughter. “He’s speaking blasphemy.”

The son, who was in his mid-teens, protested, “Father, please. This man is different. You heard some of them say it earlier, ‘He teaches as one with authority.’ He asks for nothing; he doesn’t accept alms. He seems only interested in helping us.“

The daughter joined in, agreeing with her brother. “And Father, none of us can deny that just a few days ago, He fed more than 5,000 of us as we sat in the grass. We were all filled—with baskets of food left over—and yet He only had five barley loaves and two fish.”

Drawing strength from his sister’s words, the son quickly retorted, “What signs and miracles we have seen and heard! Reliable witnesses saw him grace a wedding over in Cana. He turned water into wine! Everyone is talking about how He healed the man who’d been an invalid for 38 years” [John 5:8].

“Ah,” said the father, “but with the invalid, even then he broke the law since his healing action—if that’s what it truly was—took place on the Sabbath” [John 5:9]. If the man named Jesus had any respect or regard for the sacred law, he would not have broken Yahweh’s commandment. We need to leave immediately.”

“But, Father,” said the daughter. “If I may say so without any disrespect, as you have taught us, does not Yahweh send rain to nourish the soil, even on the Sabbath? Does not Yahweh provide life to little ones who are born on the Sabbath? If one of the animals was caught in a thicket, would you not release it from its bondage, even on the Sabbath? Can it be so different that Jesus provided relief from the man’s long suffering also on the Sabbath?”

“What Yahweh allows for Himself is one thing. Yes, Yahweh provides life on the Sabbath. But this is different. The one named Jesus; he is merely a man, and I tell you, a wicked one at that. He speaks ill of Father Moses.”

“No, Papa,” interjected the son. “The one called Jesus said nothing evil about Moses. He spoke truth: that it wasn’t Father Moses who provided our ancestors with manna in the wilderness; it was provided by Yahweh” [John 6:32].

“That’s where the blasphemy begins,” continued the angry father. “Did you not hear him speak of the ‘bread come down from heaven’ [John 6:33] and then so presumptuously go on to say that he was ‘the bread of life’? What does he mean when he says that that anyone who comes to him will never be hungry or thirsty? How dare he say that he has been sent by the Heavenly Father or that he descends from Heaven. Was he not born of woman just like you and me?”

One of the other elders, a man who had heard most of the conversation going on between the father and his daughter and son—a man with important connections in the synagogue—came over and joined in. “And what about this talk of flesh and blood? Didn’t you hear him say that he is the bread from heaven and that whoever eats this bread will live forever? [John 6:51] That’s blasphemy, if I’ve ever heard it.”

“Indeed,” said the father with renewed vigor, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? It is strictly forbidden.”

“He was speaking metaphorically,” said the daughter.

“No, he was not,” argued the elder who had joined the discussion. “If he’d said it once, then yes, I might think he was speaking metaphorically. But he repeated it over and over and over. And didn’t you notice? When the elder asked him how he could give us his flesh to phagein [i.e., “eat”], the man called Jesus smiled and said, ‘Whoever trogein [“chomps”] my flesh ….”

The father quickly chimed in, “And he didn’t stop with his flesh, Jesus said ‘whoever drinks my blood’ has eternal life. Since the olden times, it is forbidden that we consume blood [Leviticus 7:26]. This man named Jesus is nothing but trouble. He would undo our sacred law.”

The elder leaned forward toward the father, looked left and right to see if anyone was listening to their conversation, and continued, “I’m not certain that this Jesus is an ordinary man. In fact, I fear he may be the evil one come to torment us and anger the authorities so that we all might suffer.”

“No,” cried the son and daughter in unison. The son continued, “That can’t be true. We’ve never heard him say anything unkind. He’s been casting out demons; he can’t be one himself! And look at him—He’s been surrounded night and day by a throng of people. He never seems to grow weary of ministering to them.”

“Hear me out,” said the elder. “Consider the history of humanity. How did we come to our estranged relationship with Yahweh? The Torah teaches us that the serpent—the evil one—came to the woman and man in the garden and told them that if they wanted to be like Yahweh, then they should eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. They did so, launching generations of strife, warfare, pestilence, sin, and pain. And now, this man named Jesus comes along. He draws us in with signs and wonders. We don’t know their source. He could be from Yahweh, but doesn’t it bother you that he speaks of a new kingdom that is ours and all we have to do is eat his flesh and drink his blood, two things which are as forbidden to us as was the original fruit forbidden to our earliest father and mother, their consumption of which caused our demise.”

“Again, I say it, we’re leaving,” said the father to his children.

From this time many of Jesus’ disciples turned back and no longer followed him [John 6:66].

Later, however, the son and daughter heard about His execution, of how most of His band of followers had forsaken Him, but a few had collected His body, and placed it in a tomb. They heard how, on the third day after His death, the women found that the rock had been rolled away, that the “dead” man, Jesus, was alive again, making appearances in many areas.

They heard of additional signs and wonders, and they said to each other, and to some others around them, “On this man’s life, on this man’s gift, we want to feast always. We want to chomp on his selfless sacrifice, his abiding love, his salvific power. We want to taste and eat, to join with others in never-ending worship and praise. The bread come down from Heaven has satisfied the thirsty and filled the hungry with good things [Psalm 107:9].

How ‘bout it? Let’s all join in on the Feast.