August 27
Psalm 84, John 6:56-69
This week we are back to John and the "I am the bread of life" passages. The context of this particular set of verses (cut out by the lectionary designers from a larger passage and that drives me crazy when they chop up a passage that is a unit like this) is a dispute with a group of Jewish leaders about Jesus' saying that he would give them his flesh to eat. In Judaism there has always been a strong prohibition of cannibalism, and what Jesus said smacked of just that. So here Jesus is trying to (pardon the pun) flesh out what he is trying to get across to them.
John's gospel in many places seems to contain messages to refute the Gnostic movement of his time. Though this is a vast generalization of a complex movement, one tenet of gnosticism is to deny the human nature of Jesus and lift up only the spiritual, divine part. John wanted it to be absolutely clear that Jesus was flesh, and that we are called as fleshy beings to unite with Jesus. Though John does not include a story of the Last Supper, here he clearly is talking about the sacrament of Holy Communion and a physical ritual to bring us into one being with Jesus. The language Jesus uses here seems to be intentionally offensive and crude, even. But if Jesus is indeed flesh, then we can be one with Jesus in our flesh. In addition, it seems to me, this is a strong case that Jesus (therefore God) does not ignore or denigrate issues that fleshy people get involved in in favor of only the pure, spiritual matters. To be "in the world but not of the world" as the old saying puts it, means truly that Jesus and we as believers are God's disciples in the world.
So I read this and see that religion is not to be divorced from flesh and the things of the world in which we as flesh are enmeshed. Religion is not to be an escape from the hard things, but something we carry with us as we plunge fully into our world. This is a hard saying. Many want to run away from it and say the church should not be involved in worldly things. Jesus was. More later, and from you?
This week we are back to John and the "I am the bread of life" passages. The context of this particular set of verses (cut out by the lectionary designers from a larger passage and that drives me crazy when they chop up a passage that is a unit like this) is a dispute with a group of Jewish leaders about Jesus' saying that he would give them his flesh to eat. In Judaism there has always been a strong prohibition of cannibalism, and what Jesus said smacked of just that. So here Jesus is trying to (pardon the pun) flesh out what he is trying to get across to them.
John's gospel in many places seems to contain messages to refute the Gnostic movement of his time. Though this is a vast generalization of a complex movement, one tenet of gnosticism is to deny the human nature of Jesus and lift up only the spiritual, divine part. John wanted it to be absolutely clear that Jesus was flesh, and that we are called as fleshy beings to unite with Jesus. Though John does not include a story of the Last Supper, here he clearly is talking about the sacrament of Holy Communion and a physical ritual to bring us into one being with Jesus. The language Jesus uses here seems to be intentionally offensive and crude, even. But if Jesus is indeed flesh, then we can be one with Jesus in our flesh. In addition, it seems to me, this is a strong case that Jesus (therefore God) does not ignore or denigrate issues that fleshy people get involved in in favor of only the pure, spiritual matters. To be "in the world but not of the world" as the old saying puts it, means truly that Jesus and we as believers are God's disciples in the world.
So I read this and see that religion is not to be divorced from flesh and the things of the world in which we as flesh are enmeshed. Religion is not to be an escape from the hard things, but something we carry with us as we plunge fully into our world. This is a hard saying. Many want to run away from it and say the church should not be involved in worldly things. Jesus was. More later, and from you?
posted by shelly @ 10:44 AM
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