Gospel for Sunday, Aug. 18: John 6:51-58
XX Sunday Year B
“I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Then the Jews argued among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood true drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. Just as the Father, who has life, sent me and I live for the Father, so also he who eats of me will live for me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your fathers ate and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
Jh 6:51-58
Dear sisters and brothers of Misericordia, I am Carlo Miglietta, a doctor, biblical scholar, layman, husband, father and grandfather (www.buonabibbiaatutti.it). Also today I share with you a short thought meditation on the Gospel, with special reference to the theme of mercy.
From: C. MIGLIETTA, L’EUCARESTIA SECOND LA BIBBIA. Biblical-spiritual itinerary, Gribaudi, Milan, 2005, with an introduction by H. E. Msgr. Giacomo Lanzetti
In order to understand the New Testament texts of institution of the Eucharist, one must keep in mind that literary genre, so frequently used in the prophetic books, which is the “mime.” Indeed, in the language of the prophets, a very special place is occupied by symbolic actions: there are more than thirty of them, and they precede or accompany the oral expositions. Precisely in order to signify that the Word of God is not pure “afflatus vocis,” but fact that is fulfilled, concrete history, the prophet, by divine order, embodies it in symbolic – revelatory gestures. Sometimes they are real pantomimes, little “skits,” short “commercials” that must serve to impress well, in the minds of onlookers, a particular concept or revelation.
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The Eucharist prophetic “mime”
Getting eaten by men
When Jesus institutes the Eucharist, he first and foremost operates a prophetic mime. What he accomplishes at the Last Supper is “the last parable of Jesus” (J. Jeremias, quoted in X. Léon-Dufour). Offering the bread, he says, “This is my body given for you”; offering the cup, “This is my blood, poured out for you” (Lk 22:19-20): the first meaning of this action is that he gave himself totally to men, that his life was full oblation for the lives of his brothers and sisters, that he was entirely consumed for them, and that he became, by offering himself for them as the bread and wine, their support and survival. “By distributing the bread, Jesus manifests in words that <<he gives himself for>>. By circulating the cup, he declares that <<he pours out his blood>>. Jesus’ two gestures receive symbolic value from this: the gift of his own person for the benefit of the disciples, which goes as far as the shedding of blood” (X. Léon-Dufour). “Before his disciples Jesus makes a mime of his death, representing it before them; it is the attitude of a prophet and a martyr who carries the mission to its fulfillment, giving his own death a meaning of love and service” (A. Marchadour).
The voluntariness of the gift
There are two emphases that Jesus wants to give to his act. The first is the absolute voluntariness of his self-giving: his becoming a man to the point of death is not given by the inevitability of chance, but is his free choice of love: “My life, no one takes it away from me, but I offer it of myself, because I have the power to offer it” (Jn 10:18); “Now my soul is troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this I have come to this hour!” (Jn. 12:27). The evangelists knew that “the Father had given everything into his hands” (Jn 13:3), and on purpose they point out that Jesus foresees Judas’ betrayal. All Eucharistic institution narratives are under the sign of this awareness of Jesus: “Truly I tell you, one of you, the one who eats with me, will betray me” (Mk. 14:18); “The hand of the one who betrays me is with me, on the table” (Lk. 22:21); “The one who dipped his hand in the dish with me, that one will betray me” (Mt. 26:23; cf. Jn. 13:26). Jesus thus voluntarily accepts to the end his sharing with man: he does not back down, he does not flee. Deliberately he offers himself. “That is why at the Last Supper <<se dat suis manibus>>: his Passion will be the Body given and the Blood shed by him” (A. Bozzolo).
The totality of the gift
The second aspect of the prophetic mime is the absolute totality of his self-giving: Christ, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (Jn. 13:1), to the supreme fulfillment of love, which is to give one’s life for those whom one loves (cf. Jn. 15:13): the bread eaten and the wine drunk are the sign of this “consuming himself” for his own, making himself all for them.
The command to imitate Jesus
Two commands accompany the prophetic action: the first is: “Take, eat…; drink” (Mk 14:22; Mt 26:26, 28): the disciples are not just passive objects of this self-giving of Christ, but are invited to take an active part in it, to participate in his love, to accept his life as a gift, to fill themselves consciously and responsibly with him. From this comes the second command: “Do this in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24): Jesus commands that his disciples also make themselves bread and drink for others, become food for all, allow themselves to be “eaten” by their brothers and sisters.
The importance of the eucharistic mime
In the biblical reading of the mime, the first meaning is thus the invitation to total gift to others, following the example of the Master. The other meanings (the real presence of Christ, the sacrifice of the New Covenant, an eschatological sign…), are certainly there, but they are secondary to this and draw light and understanding from it.
It should be noted that, in the Eucharistic mime, “the central moment is given not by the two significant elements of body and blood, but by God’s gift of Jesus, which is fulfilled in his violent death (<<my blood shed>>)… It means that the disciples become sharers in Jesus’ self-giving at the very moment they receive the bread… The Lord’s Supper is thus an action-sign, prophetic, that is, true, and not merely symbolic: in the offering of the broken bread and red wine, the reality indicated by the action – sign, the disciples’ participation in the act of life-giving that Jesus performs by giving his own for the many, is verified and communicated” (B. Klappert).
“The bread that I will give is my flesh.”
Everyone agrees that the first part of John chapter 6 can be read in a spiritualist key, with some allusion to the Eucharist: but instead are verses 51-58 to be understood only in a sacramental sense?
The first revelatory meaning even of these verses is certainly adherence to Christ. If in the first part of the chapter the words -key words were “come to me” and “believe” (Jn. 6:35), now they are “give” and “eat – drink”: there faith was asked for in God who enters history in Jesus (incarnation), here in God who gives himself up to the sacrifice of himself (redemption).
The words “flesh – blood” do not simply indicate the person of Jesus, but that he is about to be delivered to death. The Gnostic and Docetic heresy, against whose influences John already writes, held it impossible that a God could suffer and die-Jesus of Nazareth would only house divinity from Baptism to the beginning of the Passion. Instead, John insists on the reality of the incarnation, on the complete identification of the divine Christ with the man Jesus of Nazareth, on the fact that Jesus is the Christ who came “not in water only, but in water and blood” (1 John 5:6): the baptismal theophany is inseparable from the death on the cross, which for John is the ultimate site of God’s manifestation. This is why he reiterates the need to unite not to Christ’s “body” but to his “sarx,” a term that means “flesh” in a plastic, anatomical, muscular sense: and he scandalizes by using the very concrete verb “troghein” (hence the word “trough”…) which does not so much mean “eating” as “chewing,” “devouring,” “grazing.” We must not sugarcoat this realism: it is the realism of the incarnation.
The celebration of the Eucharist, with its sacramental concreteness, is a sign of Christ’s true humanity: by participating in it, we “proclaim his death, proclaim his resurrection, in anticipation of his coming.” “The realistic understanding of the sacramental meal (eating the flesh, drinking the blood) has nothing magical about it. Through the meal Jesus himself joins those who receive him (Jn 6:56); they live through him and he will raise them up… (Jn 6:54). Sacramental nourishment is only a means of attaining personal communion with him” (R. Schnackenburg), true God and true man.
The text returns several times to the concept of “the last day” (Jn 6:39,40,44,54). “On the last day, the great day of the Feast,” Jesus invites people to drink from the living water that will flow from his bosom, that is, from the Spirit that he will pour out at his glorification (Jn 7:37-39): this will be fulfilled in his death, when he will be glorified, he will pour out his Spirit, and from his side will come forth water (Jn 19:33-34). John is the herald of an eschatology that is already fulfilled in the mystery of Christ: “He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe in him has already been condemned” (Jn 3:18); “he who believes has eternal life” (Jn 3:36; 6:47, 54); in his death Satan, suffering, and death have been conquered once and for all.
By eating his flesh and blood, that is, by participating in the mystery of his death, we already now have eternal life. Actually, this “already” is such in faith, because we are still prisoners of our creaturely finitude: the Eucharist immerses us in the optimism of a victory already achieved, and at the same time is a pledge of our future resurrection (Jn. 6:54), opening us to a “not yet” that will be realized at our death, when we contemplate face to face the glory of God (1 Cor. 13:12). The Eucharist, by inserting us into the past of the Lord’s death, hinges us in the present of a life in him that indwells us (Jn 6:56), projecting us into the total communion with God of the future messianic banquet.
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Word and Sign
The relationship between Word and Eucharist is biblically very close. In the Synoptics, the stories of institution of the Eucharist occur in a verbal interpretive context by Jesus: his every gesture is accompanied by the Word that illuminates and explains it.
In John, as usual, the miracle of the multiplication of bread in chapter 6 is followed by the great explanatory discourse on the Eucharist, a discourse in which even exegetes struggle to understand what Jesus refers to his Word and what he refers to his Body. For some, “a Eucharistic discourse (6:51-58: Jesus true nourishment through his body and blood) would have been included in the following account – discourse: to the Jews who claim a <<sign >> analogous to that of the manna (vv. 30-31; cf. 1:21+) Jesus replies, <<By the teaching of the Father which I transmit to men (cf. 3:11+) I am the true bread, assimilable by faith (vv. 32f)>>” (Jerusalem Bible). John makes many references to the Old Testament, where the Word was often juxtaposed or compared to food: “He fed you with manna…, to make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by what comes out of the mouth of God” (Deut. 8:3); “Wisdom…killed the animals, prepared the wine and set the table…To those who are bereft of sense she says: <<Come, eat my bread, drink the wine I have prepared>>” (Pr 8:22-24 and 9:1-6); ”Wisdom praises herself…: <<Like a vine I have produced gracious shoots and my flowers, fruits of glory and riches. Draw near to me…, and satiate yourselves with my produce… As many as feed on me will still hunger, and as many as drink of me will still thirst>>” (Sir 24:1, 17-21). Thus John operates, in chapter six of his Gospel, a continuous identification between the Word and the Body of Christ: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (John 6:51).
Again John, who does not recount the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, does, however, place in the context of the Lord’s last meal his longest discourse, which occupies no less than four chapters of the Gospel (Jn 13-17), the so-called “farewell discourse,” in the literary genre, we have seen, of testamentary talks.
Word and Sign thus refer back to each other. The whole Mass is liturgy of the Word, Word that at some point becomes sacrament. And Scripture itself is already a sacrament because it is a sign of the very Word of God. Without the Word, the sacrament appears mute. It is the mystery of “the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:4).
Happy Mercy to all!
Anyone who would like to read a more complete exegesis of the text, or some insights, please ask me at migliettacarlo@gmail.com.