For the life of the world
12. August 2012
Homily for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2012 (August 12 2012), Abbot Gregory Collins
Judean dessert
Do we know him?
During the Sundays of August this year we hear passages from the 6th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. They record a real turning point in the mission of Jesus. He began to teach doctrine that many of his disciples found repulsive and unacceptable. From that time on, many refused to follow him. We can see very easily what the problem was. They knew him – or thought they knew him - all too well! After all, was he not Jesus from Nazareth, whose father and mother they certainly did know? We are reminded of a comment made by Nathaniel earlier on in the Gospel: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
We might also remember the assertion made later in the same Gospel that no prophet arises out of Galilee. It is a typical theme in Holy Scripture that people often cannot see the truth even when it is standing right in front of them. For example when the prophet Nathan once went to identify and anoint the future king of Israel, David’s brothers all confidently lined up, expecting that one of them would be the chosen one, but it was in fact to be none of them at all. The real king-to-be was a boy, away on the hills, looking after the family’s sheep…
Bread from heaven
In the case of Jesus though, we can even feel a certain amount of sympathy with his hearers. Actually, what he was claiming was quite outrageous! “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” He was claiming that he had been uniquely sent by God, whom he confidently referred to as “Father,” that no one could come to him unless drawn by the Father, and that he would raise them up on the last day. And most jarring to Jewish ears was that everything he said recalled the experience of the chosen people in the desert, recorded in the Book of Exodus, when they put God to the test even though he fed them there with manna from heaven.
Once again, later on in the same Gospel, we hear that they were going to stone him because though he was a mere man he spoke as if he were God’s equal. Of course we should not forget that the Gospel of John, probably the latest of the four, may not contain the ipsissima verba Christi, the literal words of Christ. It was probably written after many years of reflection, and of course under the influence of the Holy Spirit. But we can also tell from the earliest strata of the apostolic witness and from the Synoptic Gospels that Jesus did claim an authority many of his listeners felt was blasphemous, an authority that placed him on an equal footing with God - the ultimate religious error in a Jewish context.
Is this man mad?
An English writer, Roland Knox, once observed that either Jesus was what he claimed to be - or else he was the biggest egoist in history! Hans Urs von Balthasar in turn pointed out that that is precisely how the Gospel of John presents him: making the most outrageous claims about himself. As we listen to him, we find ourselves placed in the exact same position as those people in the synagogue in Capernaum. As the writer of the letter to the Hebrews put it, we are probed and tested by God’s relentless Word. In response have to make a definitive choice: is this man mad? Is he a megalomaniac egoist or one whom the Father really has sent into the world and who speaks words from God? It is a painfully existential choice and no one else can make ever make it for me. I have to decide myself.
Von Balthasar also pointed to the Johannine Jesus’ use of, “Ego eimi,” (“I am”), another evocation of God in Exodus, but he drew attention most powerfully to the witness of the Beloved Disciple at Golgotha, when blood and water flowed from the wounded side of Christ: “I saw this - it really happened! I believed - and I am telling you, so that you too may believe.” Faced with a witness like that one hits the ultimate crux – the crux Christi, the turning point - when one has to decide: either to surrender and follow Christ, or to go away disillusioned and disbelieving.
We have to decide...
And yet towards the end of this Gospel passage, things get even harder. Jesus begins to speak really outrageous words, words we will hear over the next few Sundays, words which tore apart not only the unity of Jews and Christians, but which continue to divide his followers:
The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.
(John 6:51)
(Next week’s preacher can deal with the problems caused by that!)
Can I follow his way?
Today however, I want to leave you with a single word: it is the word “gift,” the real meaning of this week’s Gospel passage. Only if we dive deeper into what Jesus is saying, if we really listen, if we open our eyes and ears, our hands and hearts, and stand empty before him ready to receive, will we understand what he is really saying: “I am the Bread of Life, the true Bread sent by the Father, the living Bread that comes down from above, from God. I am the only Bread that satisfies your hunger and that offers life – indestructible, undying life - to all who come to me and eat. And if I can say, “Yes,” to that gift, if I can accept it and give myself in return as a gift to him, then that eternal life is mine, at this very moment, and - if I follow the way of his cross, the way of his self-giving love – it will be mine for all eternity. May Jesus the True Bread feed us with this gift of life!
Amen.