More of Jesus’ discourse on the ‘bread of life’, expanding and clarifying what we heard last week, and beginning the Eucharistic interpretation that will be spelled out in the next set of verses.
The readings are available online here.
1 Kings 19:4-8
This is one of my favourite stories for the prefiguring that I – like the liturgy designers – see as relating to the Eucharist. As the physical food Elijah miraculously received strengthened him for a 40-day walk, the bread and body of Jesus will sustain us for as long as we go till the next communion. This was an especially comforting thought during the pandemic with restrictions on getting to a mass.
This biblical background would have been well known to Jesus’ listeners. Elijah was the ‘former prophet’ whose stories are told in the history books of the Older Testament. With Moses he was considered to be one of the two most important founders of the Jewish religion. These are the two who appeared with Jesus in the accounts of the Transfiguration.
Before today’s section, Elijah had fled from threats of death. King Ahab of Israel had married a foreigner, Jezebel, who worshipped the pagan god Baal, and brought this worship and its priests with her. She had influenced her husband and others to serve Baal. Elijah challenges them, and when he had out-performed her priests in a contest, and had them slain, Jezebel retaliated by swearing to kill him the next day. In flight for his life, Elijah is so discouraged – believing his prophetic work was in vain – that he wishes to die. He has next to learn that the Lord still has work for him. Horeb (another name for Sinai) is where Moses had received the Law. There Elijah will first have an experience of God’s presence, gentler than ‘the sound of silence’. He then receives new commission. (The full story is found in1 Kings 18:16 and into chapter 19.)
Psalm 33/34, verses 2-9
This is classed as a ‘Wisdom’ psalm – one which reflects on God’s dealing with people, and human responses to God. We shall be praying selections from it for the next few weeks. In Hebrew it is an alphabetic poem: that is, each verse starts with a letter from the alphabet in order. (In Hebrew the first two letters are Aleph and Beth, which are related to our own ‘alphabet’.) This feature cannot be followed in translation. Finding opening words for each letter means the order is sometimes artificial. The psalm is full of positive images of trust and the verses chosen today are appropriate for Elijah and his rescue.
Ephesians 4:30-5:2
Paul J. Kobelski, in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, explains the first verse ‘do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God’ by pointing out that the moral commands in this letter are based on community, the union of believers stressed in our previous readings from this book. ‘Any offence against a fellow member is an offence against the Holy Spirit, for all Christians together form a living temple in which the Spirit dwells. The vices listed here those that are disruptive of communal life. One of the characteristics defining Christians as members of God’s household is love of neighbour’.
John 6:41-51
The liturgy has left out some verses between last week and this reading (6:36-40). In these Jesus develops the claim of his relationship with the Father, and adds the words of ‘raising up in the last day’ all those who are his. We pick up with the next intervention of the people, who are objecting to Jesus being ‘the one sent from heaven’, since they know who his earthly parents are. Our translation reads, ‘complaining to each other’, but a more accurate word might be ‘muttering’ or ‘grumbling’ perhaps expecting that Jesus will overhear them. The word recalls the complaints against Moses and God of the people in Sinai (Exodus 15:24, 16:2). Jesus answers obliquely, first summarizing verses we did not hear saying that the Father draws people to Jesus. He then claims to be the only one who has ‘seen’ the father, and to be himself the source of eternal life. It is not hard for believers in our time to see this as showing Jesus in the ‘Trinity’ but the fullness of that theology would be more than the listeners could have easily taken in at that time.
Again with the ‘amen, amen’ formula Jesus uses it to introduce an important point, he restates the bread of life theme with additions. Here is the first hint of the Eucharist in the discourse: ‘anyone who eats this bread’. He then predicts his death, using the word often translated as ‘flesh’ which is not the usual word for ‘body’ in other texts on the Eucharist, but a favourite term in the Bible for human life. (Compare the prologue to the Gospel: ‘the Word became flesh.’) ‘Flesh’ designates the fullness of ordinary human life, embodied, but also including consciousness. It would be in contrast with another favourite phrase in this Gospel, ‘life everlasting’. That is the promise of the last words we hear today.
Joan Griffith
Suggestions for prayer or reflection
We can continue experimenting with the practice of Lectio Divina this week. This week’s reading is a dialogue between Jesus and his sceptical listeners. You might like to read this passage first in silence. Then you could read aloud, bringing it to life and even imagining something of the scene and the conflict or abrasiveness of the conversation.
Then you could read it a third time in silence, letting it truly sink in.
Then a particular verse might leap out at you for you to meditate upon.
If not, you could try these:
(Jesus says:) “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ “ … how might this resonate in your life?
Or
“The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Gwen Griffith-Dickson