August 19 2012 12th Sunday After Pentecost

John 6:51-58

⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

   ⁵² Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

   ⁵³ 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. ⁵⁴ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁵⁵ For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. ⁵⁶ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

This is a troublesome text.  As one theologian said of it - 

“The language in this text is raw and probably ought to shock our sensibilities.”  

Because of these words more then one person has accused the church of advocating cannibalism.  And nothing could be further from the truth!

What ever we do with these words, we dare not take them literal - for then we will miss the point of what Jesus is saying - as is often the case when the Bible is take literally.  We end up with a distorted, disconnected message which leads to distorted and disconnected living.

Perhaps this is why Karl Barth said, ”I love the Bible too much to take it literal.”

These words have to be taken in context and they have to be understood in  a deeper way - a way which goes beyond our rational capacity to understand and grasps mystery.

So what is it Jesus is trying to say to us today?

Robert Kyser, a Biblical scholar of today makes a good point as to what Jesus might be getting at here. in his book, “Preaching John”.  He suggests that Jesus is telling the hearers that they literally need to take Jesus into themselves, make him “part of their essence”

“No arm’s-length relationship here, no safe distance between us.  As (those) who long for the abundant life, we have no other way to such a life except by taking Jesus in, having him become so intermingled with our own being that we cannot separate one from the other. “  Adele Resmer, Proc. B,’06,p.179

Then, in the words of the great preacher of the past, P.T. Forsythe, faith will become “a power and passion in authority among the powers and passions of life” - our lives.

We will no longer be able to live indifferent to callings of the spirit to place faith, hope, and love at the center of our living and let nothing take its place.