The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity
“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day;”
Summary
Over the last few weeks Jesus has been describing himself as bread from heaven, like the mana with which God fed his people in the wilderness. Today, in John 6:51-58, he describes himself as flesh just as God gave flesh in the form of quails, as well as bread, in the desert. His listeners were aware that Jesus was not speaking literally: they were familiar with the many scriptures which used eating as a metaphor for spiritual sustenance like the one in Proverbs 9:1-6. Here, the food offered is wisdom, nourishing the simple and the senseless so that they have the strength to live wisely and well. They may have been upset by his graphic language: the word he uses is not the usual word for eating but something more like munching, crunching, chewing, a word used to describe animals feeding. More likely, they, like us, find it hard to comprehend the idea of God who is fully known in the physical reality of our lives. God, who is not ethereal and distant, but present in the sweat and tears and pain and struggle of our ordinary lives. A God whose presence is experienced incarnationally. A God who desires to be completely incorporated into our lives. This God knows that we are hungry for more than bread and meat; knows that we hunger for God’s very self, without which we will still be empty and unsatisfied, without which we will not know the true meaning and purpose of our lives, without which we cannot become who we were made to be.
First Reading
Proverbs 9:1-6
Wisdom has built her house,
she has hewn her seven pillars.
She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine,
she has also set her table.
She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls
from the highest places in the town,
‘You that are simple, turn in here!’
To those without sense she says,
‘Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.
Lay aside immaturity, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.’
GOSPEL
John 6.51-58
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ So 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. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 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 for ever.’
