We are in the fourth of five weeks in the lectionary winding our way slowly through the feeding of the 5,000 in John 6 and the following discourse, in which Jesus declares he is the bread of life, and that he will feed all who come to him. The reading for Trinity 12 in this Year B is John 6.51–58 (which was the reading for Trinity 11 three years ago), and Jesus’ teaching, mixed with brief interrogations from ‘the Jews’, continues to circle around, both repeating previous ideas and adding in new ones, whilst intensifying the claims.
I would really love to know what the lectionary compilers thought they were doing by offering us this series of quite short readings, with much repetition, dragging out this episode over five weeks! Did they assume that most people would be on holiday so that you could, in effect, preach the same sermon every week and no-one would notice? I am in the odd position of covering for different churches, so am preaching in four different places in August. I might well find myself making use of some insights in more than one place!
But the real problem we have in reading these verses, extracted from their context, is that we end up removing them from the things that come before and after, which seems to me to be essential in making sense of them. In terms of what we have already read:
- The wider context is the feeding of the 5,000. People have actually just eaten bread and fish, so, as is characteristic of this gospel, a ‘spiritual’, metaphorical meaning is attached to a real and physical event.
- In the light of this, Jesus then makes the core distinction between food which ‘perishes’, and food which ‘abides to eternal life’. We noted that the destiny of the food is linked to the destiny of people in their response to Jesus, and the division between those who ‘perish’ and those who, ‘abiding’ in Jesus, inherit ‘eternal life’, so that ‘you are what you eat’
- There is a repeated and emphatic parallel between ‘believing in the one who the Father has sent’ and ‘eating the bread of life’. So ‘eating Jesus’ appears rather strongly to be a metaphor for ‘believing in’ and ‘abiding in’ him. Indeed, the later discussion about ‘abiding’ includes language of mutual indwelling; those who abide in Jesus, Jesus will abide in them.
In terms of what follows in next week’s reading:
- ‘Jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum’. In other words, Jesus is offering this teaching about himself in the place that would normally be used for the reading and exposition of the Torah. If ‘people do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’ (Deut 8.3), then Jesus is now claiming to be this word which we should eat.
- When some of his followers take offence in John 6.61, Jesus responds with a prediction of his ascension to the throne of God. In other words, their grumbling appears to be at the exalted claim that Jesus is making, rather than at the offence of the (if taken literally, rather revolting) nature of the metaphor of ‘eating Jesus’.
- Jesus goes on to comment that his words are ‘[S]pirit and life’, and that ‘the flesh has no value’; in other words, we should not take his words literally! He is not talking about actual eating and drinking, but about his death that gives life.
- Peter’s response in contrast to those who are leaving is not ‘I don’t mind eating your flesh!’ but ‘We have come to believe and know…’
With these elements framing our reading, let’s turn to the text itself.
Having described himself several times as ‘the bread of life’, Jesus now reframes the expression to describe himself as ‘living bread’. At one level this is not much of a change, but it makes the claim more relational. ‘Bread of life’ has the sense of ‘bread that gives [eternal] life’, but now it is clear that the life that this ‘bread’ brings is the life that the ‘bread’ itself, Jesus himself, has. So the metaphor of ‘eating Jesus’ means taking in the life of Jesus for ourselves, which is the same kind of idea that Paul deploys when he talks of being ‘baptised into Christ’ (Gal 3.27, Rom 6.3).
The phrase also draws our attention to the parallel discussion in John 4.13–14 with the Samaritan woman at the well. Whoever eats physical bread will be hungry again and will eventually die, but whoever eats the ‘living bread’ will never hunger and will live. Whoever drinks the water from the well will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the ‘living water’ that Jesus gives will have within them a ‘spring welling up to eternal life’.
We saw last week how the circling argument built cumulatively: first, Jesus is the bread of life; then Jesus has ‘come down from heaven’; then, in the words of ‘the Jews’, Jesus is the ‘bread that has come down from heaven’; and finally (v 51) Jesus is ‘the living bread that came down from heaven’. Now Jesus adds a further layer by explaining that this bread ‘is my flesh that I will give for the life of the world’.
The term ‘flesh’ (σάρξ) is not common in the Synoptics, occurring only incidentally in three or four sayings (Matt 16.17, 19.5, 24.22, 26.41 and parallels, plus Luke 24.39). It occurs in 12 verses in the Fourth Gospel, and does much more theological work here, though in quite a different sense from Paul’s use of it as ‘sinful humanity’ in contrast to the work of the Spirit (see Gal 5.16).
- In John 1.13, 3.6, 6.63, 8.15 and 17.2 is means ‘humanity’ or ‘the (merely) human’. Where there is a contrast with the Spirit, it is not in the Pauline sense, but distinctively Johannine, meaning ‘mundane’ as opposed to ‘spiritual’.
- In John 1.14, it signifies humanity, but now making the theological claim that the divine Word has become fully human.
- The remaining occurrences are all in this passage.
The language of ‘giving’ of his ‘flesh’ is an unmistakable reference to Jesus offering himself in his death on the cross. It runs parallel with the idea of God ‘giving his only Son’ (John 3.16) and giving the true bread (6.32), and is developed in the ‘shepherd’ discourse in John 10.11, 15, 18, where Jesus is clear that his death comes about because he chooses to lay down his own life, rather than it being taken from him against his will. Elsewhere in the New Testament, there is a connection made between the breaking of bread in the Lord’s supper and the body of Jesus—but the term ‘flesh’ is never used.
The giving of ‘life for the world’ repeats the phrase from John 6.33, parallels the language of John 3.16, and draws on the complex of life, light and world from the prologue. Once more, salvation is from the Jews, but it is for the world.
The reaction here is notable. Instead of, as previously, ‘grumbling’ as a group, with the echo of the grumbling to Moses in the desert, now the ‘Jews’ sharply dispute amongst themselves. We need to note this because it points to the much more complex portrayal of ‘the Jews’ in this gospel, where some clearly follow Jesus whilst others reject him. It also shows that the metaphor ‘giving us his flesh to eat’ was not simply dismissed as unavoidably offensive.
What then follows is a series of 9, 10 or 11 successive sayings of Jesus (depending on how you count the combination in v 57), which again circle around, repeat and develop, mostly using language already deployed, but incorporating one or two new ideas that will be picked up later in the gospel. The group is introduced once more by the Johannine version of Jesus’ ‘weighty saying’ introduction, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you…’
Unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, you will have no life
If you do eat and drink, you will have life—
and I will raise you up on the last day
My flesh and blood are true food and drink
Whoever feeds on my flesh and blood abides in me, and I abide in them
The living Father sent me,
I live because of him,
and whoever feeds on me will live
This bread came down from heaven
not like the manna which the fathers ate and died
Whoever feeds on this will live forever
We begin and end with the connection between eating/drinking and living, and this life is ‘eternal’ in the sense that it belongs to the (imperishable) age to come, so is both realised now and (as in the previous verses) has a distinctive hope for the future, of being ‘raised up’ on the last day.
There is a repeated and distinctive emphasis on both flesh and blood. Elsewhere (Matt 16.17, 1 Cor 15.50, Eph 6.12) the pairing has a proverbial sense, as it has today, meaning ‘humanity’. But given the earlier reference to flesh alone, as representing Jesus’ body as bread, there is surely a more distinct sense here. Jesus has talked about ‘giving his flesh’ to refer to his dying on the cross; the problem of ‘drinking blood’ is that it is clearly prohibited in the OT (Gen 9.4, Lev 17.10–14, Deut 12.23) because ‘the life is in the blood’. In other words, you are not to take the life of an animal to contribute to your own life, though you may live from its death by eating it. With Jesus, we both live because of his death, but also live because he gives us his life poured out by the Spirit as a result of his (death and) resurrection. We might even be tempted, with Paul, to talk of being baptised into his death and into his new resurrection life (Romans 6.3–4).
If the ‘eating and drinking’ were discrete actions which then had consequences, we might think that John 6.56 suggests that eating and drinking lead to the result of ‘abiding’ in Jesus. But the grammar suggests that they are equivalents; eating and drinking is another way of talking about abiding. We remain in his love as long as we receive the benefits of his death for us and live out his resurrection life by the power of the Spirit.
The cascading relationship of life from Father, to Son, to those who believe in him draws two sets of connections from earlier in the gospel. Those who believe in the true light bringing life into the world are born of God (John 1.13); and the Father who has life in himself has granted that the Son has life in himself (John 5.26) so that whoever believes in him will themselves have eternal life.
Additional Note: someone commenting in online discussion, Merrill Nanigian, noted:
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” (John 4:34) Eating his flesh and drinking his blood = *doing* the will of God in our lives.
The term Jesus uses in his first statement is βρῶσις, and in his response to the disciples’ muttering he uses the synonym βρῶμα—a typical variation of words in this gospel. The only other place where the term βρῶσις occurs is near the beginning and end of the ‘bread of life’ discourse, forming a frame to it:
Do not work for the food (βρῶσις) that perishes, but for the food (βρῶσις) that endures to eternal life… (John 6.27)
For my flesh is true food (βρῶσις), and my blood is true drink. (John 6.55)
I don’t think we can separate these two ideas—so ‘eating Jesus’ or feeding on him is inseparable from doing his will and being obedient to him. Again, we find this integration in the ‘farewell discourse’, where abiding in him means knowing his love and doing his will in obedience to his commandments.
The final cluster of sayings connects back the beginning of this section, but also draws to a close the contrast with the manna in the desert from John 6.32. Jesus, the living bread, does not just contrast with the physical bread [and fish] from the feeding of the 5,000—a sign which pointed to him when received aright—but also with the feeding with the ‘bread’ (manna) in the desert. Where the bread and fish point to the meaning of Jesus, and the manna and quails pointed to the faithfulness of God, both point to Jesus the living bread, who gives the life of the Father to all who receive him by faith.
The saying [‘whoever eats my flesh…drinks my blood…] must be understood as a graphic metaphor meaning to believe in him. When it is unpacked it means that Jesus is the source of eternal life, and belief in him is the only way humans can satisfy the hunger and thirst for God. These sayings may remind modern readers of Jesus’ words of institution of the Lord’s supper, but in their Johannine context they are to be understood as a striking, even a confronting, way of speaking about faith in him (Colin Kruse, TNTC p 204).
The paradox that Jesus will bring life through his death becomes the polemical edge of the discourse (Jo-Ann Brant, Paideia p 129).
There is no video accompanying this week’s commentary, as we are on our summer break. But you can watch the video of Jesus as the bread of life here:
Buy me a Coffee
While I’ve certainly no objections to staying in John, with a deep dive, it seems that this repeated theme, through an iterative process, sends out a subliminal message, asking ‘do you get it yet?’ We’ll not move on till you do. Got it yet?
Another point about the lectionary discussions. Are the compilers neo- Marcionists? Surely there are OT texts that are lectionary readings.
Certainly, 20 or so years ago OT texts were read and preached in conjunction with the NT, as part of the lectionary both in the CoE and Methodists.
Hi Geoff
The subliminal process. The slow build up. When was the last time I heard a preach that did the same? Thanks.
Roman Catholics of course believe that the Eucharist via transubstantiation the bread literally transforms into the body of Christ to be eaten and the wine to the blood of Christ to be drunk. Anglicans and Lutherans believe that the spirit of Christ is present at communion but that the body of Christ and blood of Christ are not literally eaten or drunk like RCs do.
Protestant evangelicals like the Pentecostals and Baptists when they have Communion just see the bread and wine as representations of Christ’s body and blood
Variations in the understanding of the nature of the elements in the Lord’s Supper (to use that good Prayer Book phrase) goes back right to the Reformation. There is a range of views from Luther, through Calvin to Zwingli. I knew one Baptist minister who was not at the Zwinglian end of the spectrum. The Lutheran church is ‘Evangelical’, and should not the Church of England also be ‘Protestant Evangelical’ – or have sections of it given up on the idea that the Church has good news for the world?
Hi David,
Thomas Cranmer’s mature position is stated in his ‘An answer to a crafty and sophistical cavillation devised by Stephen Gardiner’:
“And although Christ be not corporeally in the bread and wine, yet Christ used not so many words, in the mystery of his holy supper, without effectual signification. For he is effectually present, and effectually worketh not in the bread and wine, but in the godly receivers of them, to whom each giveth his own flesh spiritually to feed upon, and his own blood to quench their great inward thirst.”
So Cranmer appears to be saying the emblems effectively signify the body and blood, but any change effected by them is a spiritual one in the believer who takes part in the service?
Cranmer’s position has a name in the debates over the subject: Receptionism.
The Thirty-Nine Articles say Christ’s body and blood are “received after an heavenly manner”.
Anglican liturgies have been influenced by liberal catholic sacramentalism and use the arguably ambiguous words ‘may be’, avoiding the scholastic ‘become’ but leaving open the idea that the bread and wine have been ontologically changed into something else: “grant that by the power of your Holy Spirit,
and according to your holy will,
these gifts of bread and wine
MAY BE to us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ”.
The BCP carefully avoids saying the bread and wine are changed physically in any way but rather that faithful receivers of ‘thy creatures of bread and wine .., in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood’.
Receptionism by faith with thanksgiving is the Anglican doctrine.
My question is: what kind of thoughts should be going on in our minds when we receive communion? What prayers do we formulate?
James: We shouldn’t be thinking about whather transubstantiation has or hasn’t just happened! (Incidentally, that Catholics hold transubstantiation happened at the Last Supper provides a knockdown argument against it: this was before the Crucifixion, so the written Laws of Moses were in uncontested force, and Leviticus 3:17 absolutely forbids the drinking of blood.) It’s clear from what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11 that we should be thinking about Jesus giving his life for us, and being grateful.
It would help if we did Communion as part of a meal; the New Testament suggests nothing else. That that is impossible in the Anglican (and Roman) system is a defect of the system. Communion should be held in meals in homegroups. And it should have RED wine or grapejuice (oinos can mean either), to remind us of Jesus’ shed blood. This golden stuff that you often encounter is ridiculous.
(To James’ question below)
Our thoughts must first be to discern the body and blood of the Lord, since doing otherwise means that we “eat and drink damnation” to ourselves. (1 Cor 11:29).
Beyond this, the Lord’s command is to remember Him. I imagine that for the early church communion consisted of an extended conversation, particularly involving those who had known the Lord, recalling all they had seen and passing on their memories.
Hi Shaun. Note that Paul says ‘anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself’, not ‘discern the body and blood’ as you say.
The fact that he has one term, and not two, shows that he is not referring to the elements. The word ‘discern’ can mean ‘consider’; in the context, what Paul is saying is that we should eat and drink in a way that considers those around us as members of the body of Christ. See the discussion in Thiselton’s long commentary.
Chef of Saints?
Some elements of the C of E are Protestant Evengelical, some liberal Catholic. There are also plenty of Lutherans who are effectively liberal Catholics especially in Sweden and Denmark and Norway
Lutherans are anti-catholic.
Protestant evangelicals are well aware that Communion has supernatural facets (a sacrament), because of the warnings Paul gave about taking it irreverently (1 Corinthians 11), but unlike Catholics we don’t believe the supernatural facets are in the elements.
I must say I agree with Gavin Ashenden, who quit the Church of England for the Church of Rome, that Canterbury’s attitude to Communion is ‘schizophrenic’ in requiring an ordained person to preside while denying that transubstantiation – held to happen when an ordained person invokes it – takes place. In both church systems the real point, deriving from the mediaeval era, is to keep the so-called laity (who are just as much priests of God as the ordained priesthood in 1 Peter 2:9 and Revelation 1:6) in their place.
Yes. The necessity for an ordained person to take communion – complete with vestments – is the default position in the C of E?
Another glorious Anglican muddle.
A basic rule I’ve observed over 30 years: the more liberal a person’s theology, the more fundamentalist-legalist his or her liturgy.
1662 liturgy is strongly preferred mainly by the Anglo-Catholic wing, who are no friends of the liberals.
Plenty of older evangelicals stuck by 1662, not liking the innovations of Series 3, as was.
My mother (CIM missionary) once told me about a converted Chinese tribe who had not had communion for many years because the (ordained Anglican) missionary ministering to them died in situ. My parents were ‘low church’ Anglicans. Had no truck with the scenario described above. I don’t believe Jesus would either! My most memorable communion was sitting in the shade of a beaten up Fiat in the hot Italian countryside. Hadn’t been able to get to a church so celebrated with the friend I was driving back to the UK with, with delicious Italian red wine and bread. The Lord was definitely there and I have no memory of theological discomfort. It is a wonderful memory. Sorry if this makes anyone’s toes curl
Quite right.
More like clap in delight, praise and worship, thankfulness.
Hi James,
“Anglican liturgies have been influenced by liberal catholic sacramentalism” —yes but I think many are unaware of this and are more comfortable with a compromised 17th century Anglicanism rather than the evangelicalism of the 16th century Cranmer as he matured and gained confidence in his own understanding of Scripture (btw, his favourite bishops hated the vestments).
But I do not want to distract from your question—which is a good one:
“What kind of thoughts should be going on in our minds when we receive communion? What prayers do we formulate?”
I try to remember words drawn from the BCP: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, once again I feed on you in my heart by faith with thanksgiving. Once again, I receive the benefits of your life surrendered on the Cross to deliver me from sin. Amen.’
A very clear article. But many do struggle with metaphors and metaphoric concepts more generally — including the disciples? (John 16:29).
It is interesting that here: “which is the same kind of idea that Paul deploys when he talks of being ‘baptised into Christ’ (Gal 3.27, Rom 6.3)” —you seem to argue against water baptism —and I would agree —but some have read into these sort of statements (water) baptismal regeneration?
And … I do not want to stray off piste — but “Once more, salvation is from the Jews, but it is for the world” is an interesting concept taken to an extreme I suggest by N. T. Wright and perhaps worth a blog post at some stage.
Why is Wright’s position ‘extreme’?
PC1
N.T. Wright’s “salvation is from Israel” is that God’s plan of salvation for the world is intrinsically linked to his covenantal relationship with Israel. Thus, Jesus fulfils the vocation of Israel and extends God’s salvation to all humanity VIA Israel to Jew and Gentile alike.
His view on this has been critiqued by scholars more familiar with his stuff than me, but many would suggest that the Saviour came from Israel, not that salvation came from Israel —or via the Mosaic Covenant— but via the Abrahamic covenant as Paul seems to explain in Galatians 3.
And Romans 11.
I suppose it’s all debateable, but I wouldnt particularly be critical of Wright’s understanding. Jesus made it clear his primary mission whilst here in person was to the Jewish people. That seems a rather strange mindset to have if the only real important part was that Jesus himself was Jewish.
But no doubt scholars will continue to debate…
On eat/drink as abiding, and remaining in his love as long as we receive the benefits of his death, compare John Owen on the wondrous exchange. We yield to God our sins and receive from him his Son … and Owen adds, ‘This is every day’s work; I know not how any peace with God can be maintained without it.’
O don’t the Puritans have an undeserved bad press today! But they were wonderful.
Splendid. Thanks PW.
Thanks Ian you seem to have more than you need for 4 sermons.
As mentioned previously, many eminent commentators
do not see this passage as Eucharistic, although mirrored in it.
Yesterdays’ Song of Praise focused on an “Inclusive Evangelical” Anglican Church.
It was led by a priest who seemed to have had an epiphany that embraces all comers with love regardless of gender or orientation etc.
“Love, love, love; Love! is all you need [ to be Christian.”]
As my mum said “You cannot live on Love”if you try you will starve.
On another tack
In their book Chalke and Mann challenged the traditional evangelical doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement by criticizing what it branded as the ‘crude and distorted imagery of a vengeful father wreaking punishment on an innocent son’.
Their mantra seems to be “Faith, faith, faith; Faith is all you need.
I don’t know what they make of this passage [perhaps torn this page out of their already thin Bibles.]
Here Jesus says, “Life, life, life; Life is all you need “.
Maybe the questions to ponder, as perhaps the people did are
“What is this Life that He speaks of”?
What manner of “bread [and water] is this?
What is This “manna”? It doesn’t sound Kosher.
‘It was led by a priest who seemed to have had an epiphany that embraces all comers with love regardless of gender or orientation etc.’
Shouldnt churches be like that? There’s a difference between behaviour and orientation, for example.
But to be fair, his change seems to have happened following the suicide of one of his parishioners, a young woman who was gay. While I dont agree with their change towards accepting all relationships as ‘good’, I can understand why it has happened.
One distinction to bear in mind is between the real presence of Christ at Holy Communion in or through the consecrated elements, which many Anglicans believe (though Cranmer didn’t). And transubstantiation which is a specific Aristotelian based understanding of what that real presence involves based on a distinction between essence and accidents. Someone can believe in the former as many in the wider Anglican Communion do without subscribing to the latter. Not defending any specific view here just suggesting we need to distinguish between the two.
Yes it is quite understandable, a very emotional response to an incident shrouded in mystery. Yes all are welcome not just as you are but what you can be, richer, fuller , complete, sharing God’s
Holiness,the best of Life.
In the context of this passage of teaching; Jesus sets Himself forth
as both Priest of Life and The Sacrifice of Death.
Of the afore said “priests” I feel that they do not understand the meaning or role of what it means to be a priest [of Life]
That being said I feel that many Christians do not seem to appreciate what it means to “be a priest” apart from the ecclesiastical variety.
“And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen” (Rev. 1:5-6).
We are not only loved but we have been washed in order to be kings and priests
God was the first priest. In the case of Adam and his wife, there was quite clearly the slaying of some beast to provide them with a covering. And, if the symbolism means anything (and surely it does), then God was the first priest to do the slaying to make provision for the covering. From that time onward, it is taken for granted, and this whole matter grows and grows and grows until we have a very elaborate and fully developed priestly ministry. [Tom Austine – Sparks]
What does it mean to be a priest of Life?
Tom Austine – Sparks gives a quite comprehensive understanding in his book Priesthood and Life
@ http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/priesthood_and_life.html
Another aspect of these verses is an invitation that the Psalmist gives [Psalm 34 V 8 AMPV.]
O taste and see that the LORD [our God] is good;
How blessed [fortunate, prosperous, and favored by God] is the man who takes refuge in Him.
We are invited to taste even before we see or understand much of doctrine or theology. I.E.Taste and See.
This testimony however is expanded by a description of what the goodness of God is in many aspects of life and how we may experience the goodness of God.
Psalms 63:5
My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips:
Psalms 119:103
How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Song of Solomon 2:3
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
Thanks. Now this is a very interesting list of examples of the use of the ‘eating’ metaphor applied to our relationship with God.
Interesting that the Big Fish/Chaos/Leviathan sicked up Jonah. This shows that the opposite is true. Don’t expect your well crafted , logical, wise words to be recieved well.