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Lectionary Reflections

Taking Offense from the Lord

The theme of today's Gospel (John 6:60-69) is really a question: “How much am I willing to be offended and still stay in the Church?”

The entire reading circles around this question. It begins with some of Jesus' disciples—not just those whom John identifies as “the Jews,”, that is, Jesus' opponents, who were arguing among themselves as to how Jesus could possibly give them his flesh to eat—but Jesus' own followers who were scandalized by his teaching. He had just identified himself as “the Living Bread which comes down from heaven,” then made the claim that this Bread—Himself—is of much higher value value than even the miraculous Manna of the Old Covenant—the bread that sustained and kept the People of Israel alive in the desert after their Exodus from Egypt. And then to make matters worse, he told them that in order to have eternal life, they needed to eat his ‘flesh’—his sarx—and drink his blood, both of which, if taken literally, are contrary to Old Testament laws concerning cannibalism and even consuming blood in meat, and were undoubtedly calculated to offend the Jewish sensibilities of Jesus' own disciples!

Here we fine the Lord in his most scandalous and most offensive mode—well, almost, but not quite. He alludes, in fact, to something which his disciples will find even more offensive. He hears them murmuring among themselves, and asks them, “Do you take offense at this, at these words of mine? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending, being lifted up, to where he was before?” The response is a bit cryptic, but as we'll see in a moment, very important.

The striking feature of this “Bread of Life” discouse is the purposefulness of his language and images intended to jar the sensibilities of his listeners. In doing this, he is raising the stakes for his disciples. He is asking his own followers, “OK, how far will you follow me?” He seems intent on moving them pretty far out of their comfort zones.

Verse 60 says that many of Jesus' disciples found what he was saying “hard to take.” In a sense, Jesus was drawing a line in the sand and asking them—and us—“Do you really regard me as the authoritative Teacher in your lives? Am I your center? Am I really your food and drink, what nourishes and sustains you? Or do you try to fit me into your own ways of thinking about things? And what if I don't fit? What will you do with me then?”

And some of the disciples walked away from him.

Jesus was no longer “working for them.” And here we get to the crucial problems of religion in general, and of our generation in particular: the tendency to use God as a means to our own ends. Behind what professes to be love of God and love of neighbor, we regularly find love of self, sometimes disguised beyond recognition. That's why Marx and Freud should serve as our spiritual guides. How often doesn't our piety, our religion, reduce God to a means or an instrument for achieving our own purposes, which we then cover over with divine power and sanction.

It was this tendency that Jesus repeatedly exposed and exploded, even with his own disciples.

In the Bread of Life discourse, he challenged their center, and he challenged them as to why they were really following him. Probably not a very good approach if your goal is to increase numbers and keep the contributions flowing. But he asks the question nonetheless.

”I live because of the Father, and you will live because of me. I am not just a means to something you may want, to your ends and purpose. I am your real end, your real purpose, your real goal, your real food and drink. Eat my flesh, drink my blood. Do you accept that? Or do you find that too much to stomach? Because if you think that's hard to accept, just wait until you see me ‘ascend’—lifted up. And do you know how I am going to be lifted up? On the Cross! If you are offended by my words about ‘eating my flesh’ and ‘drinking my blood,’ how much more offensive will you find my crucifixion?”

A Messiah on the Cross! The very idea is outrageous. It borders on blasphemous obscenity, “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.”

In his scandalous words about eating flesh and drinking blood, Jesus was pointing to the supreme scandal—the moment of his greatest degradation and shame which would also be the moment of his glorification, the heart of the divine self-disclosure. The time when the Servant of the Lord is despised and crushed for our iniquities is also the time when God comes closest to his creation and when the doors of the Kingdom are opened the widest.

Today's Gospel should force us to ask ourselves one question: “Can I walk away from Christ for any reason—It's an option many have taken—or do I stand with Peter, spokesman for the Christian community, and finally say: ‘Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. You are the Holy One of God.’”

What will the answer I give, that we give, to this question mean for how we live, tomorrow and the rest of this week?

—Fr. Chrysostom Frank

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