John 6:56-69 (NRSV)
Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”
Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
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"Jesus asks “Does this offend you?” [...] I imagine the disciples thinking, “Yes it does! It offends me! I am very offended. I don’t like the idea of gnawing on anybody’s flesh or drinking anybody’s blood, particularly yours. If that’s what it takes to be connected to you I am not sure I want to. Jesus goes on; if this offends you, “What if you were to see the Human One going up where he had been before.” Jesus seems to be saying if they are offended now they would be even more offended if they knew who Jesus is and where he came from. He doesn’t back down for he knows they must face into the offense. It is the message! Can they believe in someone who says something both offensive but true or will they stumble and turn away in revulsion. This is the alternative they face. Believe in him or be offended by him. That’s the choice the gospels always present us.
"Jesus then said, “The Spirit is the one who gives life and the flesh doesn’t help at all.” The Spirit is the carrier of forgiveness and mercy. Forgiveness and mercy give life. Forgiveness and mercy is the spirit of Jesus. The flesh doesn’t help because it subsists on consuming human flesh and drinking human blood. This is not an empty metaphor. It’s the way the world works. We talk about our dog-eat-dog world and this is what we mean. We talk about how we divide the world between the haves and have-nots and keep it divided through violence and rules hidden in systems of power that give some the advantage and make it nearly impossible for others. [...] This is what the writer of Ephesians meant when he tells us, “We aren’t fighting against human enemies but against rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness, and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens.”
"“The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life” he says. They come from another place; a place John identifies as heaven; that restful place outside the force-field of human striving and ambition that we generate in our rivalry with each other. By contrast, Jesus’ words come from a place of self-sacrifice not human sacrifice. We tend to sacrifice the other and not ourselves. We gnaw on each other’s flesh and drink each other’s blood in our wars and economic systems designed to maintain the current distribution of wealth. Jesus sacrifices himself saying gnaw on my flesh and drink my blood instead of your neighbors. I give you my own flesh for you to gnaw on. Does that offend you?
[...]
"We are on this earth and we have begun to face the truth about ourselves. We are the ones destroying this planet with our strivings and fear but [Jesus has] the words that lead to lasting peace. We will either consume each other or eat the forgiving and merciful flesh of Jesus. When we take him in he gradually changes our desires and gives us life that does not end."
- Thomas L. and Laura C. Truby, from sermon delivered on August 23rd, 2015 (http://girardianlectionary.net/.../Proper16-2015-Four...)
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"We are back again with that recurring theme of the Gospel of John, life, and not just transient life, but eternal life. John speaks of life and how to experience it, in many ways – by metaphors like water and bread, by mystical or philosophical images like light and Logos – but here he attributes it to the discourse of Jesus. Eternal life comes in and through what Jesus has to say.
"It is significant that Peter the respondent does not say “You speak the words of eternal life,” but rather “You have the words of eternal life.” The difference between speaking and having is important. Jesus asks the shaken disciples, who remained when others were shocked into apostasy by the demand that all eat his flesh, “Are you going too?” and Peter answers “To whom Lord shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” He says not “speak” but “have.” The idea is perhaps best translated by the idiom used above, “... have to say.” Eternal life comes through what Jesus has to say.
"Why is this small difference important? Because if we say the power is in what he speaks, we can hear the message, detach it from the messenger, and take it away with us to use on our own. If however, it is in what he has to say, we cannot leave because he himself is the substance of what he says. His whole being is an expression in time and space of what he has to say."
- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, from sermon delivered on August 27, 2006 (source no longer available)
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"“The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” So here he brings out that it's actually the words that are the important thing. Every sign that he has done, they've been tempted to look just at the physicality of the sign, and it's always been the word that he's speaking, the thing that he has been bringing into being through the word. In Greek the word 'rhema' can mean word or thing, just as the Hebrew 'dabar' can mean word or deed. So it's this thing, this speaking thing that I have spoken to you, are spiritual life. It's that which I'm bringing into being.
"“But are among you there are some who do not believe.” And here I want to alter our word believe because we're inclined to hear it, I'm afraid, far too much as an individual thing that we do ourselves, kind of something that I've got to do starting from me. But the Greek word 'pistis' means persuasion and the word that we translate 'to believe' means 'to be persuaded or to be convinced'. In other words, it's someone doing something to you so that you trust them.
"So he says, “The words that I have spoken to are spirit in life, but among you there are some who have not been persuaded, who are not persuaded. [...] For this reason, I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is given by the Father.” Because he's well aware that it's the being given to be persuaded that is the gift of the Father. Jesus is doing what he's doing, he's perfectly confident in that. He knows that that is what persuades, but it doesn't guarantee persuasion. There are some who only see what he's doing as something useful for themselves, it's not because they're allowing him to persuade them, it's not given to them to be persuaded that this is God himself speaking into their midst.
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"So Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” [...] Simon Peter answers him [...] “Lord to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” In other words, Peter has understood that the words, the thing, the utterance - something close to the oracles which are speaking and living Jesus - they're the ones that bear eternal life. [...] So he says, “We have come to be persuaded and really know.” That's the wonderful thing, that's why I think it's such a good idea that we translate 'believe' by 'be persuaded', because the process of someone persuading you does lead to knowledge. When someone has persuaded you, you actually do know something. Just remember that's a process of coming to be persuaded and then knowing.
"[Peter] said, “We have come to be persuaded and now genuinely know” - the verb is emphatic in Greek - “that you are the Holy One of God” - the one who was coming in, the messianic priestly figure, the one whom John [the Baptist] had recognized in the presence of these disciples as the lamb of God. They're beginning to get the picture. They don't entirely get it yet of what his giving himself to be the bread, the fruit of sacrifice - which will be the same thing - what that's going to mean. They haven't yet seen him going up to where he was before, the very beginning of all feasts, before even the rite of atonement, certainly before the Passover. They haven't yet seen that but they're going to stick around with him.
"So I think that this Gospel encourages us to say: gosh, often we're falling behind on allowing ourselves to be persuaded. Let's pray to the Father to give it to us, to be taken on to the inside of what Jesus is doing, so that we can be persuaded and know that he is the Holy One of God."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 20/21 in Ordinary Time, Year B" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ufGsbQEVbE)
[Source of the links to Thomas & Laura Truby and Robert Hamerton-Kelly sermons, and for extensive analysis and discussion on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper16b/]
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