Lectionary reading
First reading: Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 33(34):2-3, 16-23
Second reading: Ephesians 5:21-32
Gospel: John 6:60-69.
Link to readings
COMMENTARY
Today’s Gospel features the last of the readings from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. At this stage the “Bread of Life” discourse has ended and what we have is the reaction to it from Jesus’ audience. In a divided response, many of the hearers, including even a number of disciples, describe it as “intolerable” and choose at this point to leave him and go elsewhere.
As a background for this crisis in discipleship, the Lectionary offers as First Reading an extract from the Book of Joshua, 24:1-2, 15-18. Sensing that he is soon to die, Joshua summons a plenary assembly of Israel for a solemn act of recommitment to the covenant. From now on the people will be dwelling alongside other peoples with other gods and will be tempted to give their allegiance to them. Hence the necessity to recommit themselves solemnly to serve alone the God who has brought them through so many dangers to the present good situation in which they now stand. Confronted with the choice of going over to the gods of other nations or serving the Lord, the people renew their allegiance, “We too will serve the Lord.”
TODAY'S IDOLS
Believers today are hardly confronted with temptations to idolatry in the literal sense. However, there are so many forces at work in society – wealth, social status, ambition, addictions of various kinds – that can become, sometimes very subtly, real idols in the sense of creating in people a dehumanising dependency that amounts to enslavement.
Joshua’s challenge and the Israelites’ unqualified commitment, “We also will serve the Lord,” makes its claim upon God’s people today, just as it did of old.
In regard to the Gospel itself (6:60-69) it is not immediately clear just what is the “hard teaching, impossible to accept” (v. 60) that is being referred to. If the final part of the preceding discourse is interpreted in a Eucharistic sense, then it is natural to relate the “hard teaching” to Jesus’ claim that his flesh is real food and his blood real drink. However, Jesus’ comment in response, “What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? (v. 62), suggests that the negative response relates to the central claim of the entire discourse rather than just to the eucharistic allusions in the final section.
Jesus has consistently claimed to be the Bread of Life that has come down from heaven, a new “Manna” sent down by God, superior in life-giving power to the Law of Moses.
ACCEPTANCE IN FAITH
What gives 'eternal life' is acceptance in faith of the revelation of God communicated through the human 'flesh' of Jesus. Some of the disciples, it seems, would feel more comfortable if they had been given a set of precepts to live by, such as the Law brought down from Sinai by Moses. God would remain in heaven and they would keep the laws and all would be well; they could be comfortable with this notion of God.
Instead, Jesus reveals a God who doesn’t just remain in heaven or summon an intermediary for a meeting upon a mountain, but who, in the person of the Son, descends to 'pitch a tent among us' (1:14). In response (v. 62) and alluding apparently to the cross,
Jesus seems to be saying, 'If you have difficulty with this idea of One descended from heaven to reveal God, how will you cope with the still more radical revelation when the same Son of Man returns to where he has come from via a cross!' Here we meet the Johannine idea that Jesus’ being lifted up upon the cross is the first stage of his return (ascension) to the Father and reveals his absolute union with the Father as the God, who is love.
THE HOLY ONE OF GOD
The division of the disciples reflects, then, an incapacity to accept the image of God that Jesus is revealing – something for which, as Jesus says, the gift of the Spirit is necessary (vv. 63). When Jesus turns to the inner circle of the Twelve (vv. 67-69), Peter’s response reflects full belief: there is nowhere else to turn to gain life; Jesus is 'the holy one of God,' that is, the One who was 'with God in the beginning' (1:1-2) and who has come down from God.
The Second Reading, from Ephes 5:21-32, has played its part in the determining the view of marriage as a sacrament in the Catholic tradition. But its primary focus on the husband and sense of subordination of the wife jars not only with modern sensibility but also the mutuality and balance of Paul’s statements elsewhere: e. g., 1 Cor 7:7:1-7; Gal 3:28. Interpretation may need to point out the limitations as well as the riches of the passage and evolve an understanding reflecting that mutuality and balance.
Brendan Byrne, SJ, FAHA, taught New Testament at Jesuit Theological College, Parkville, Vic., for almost forty years. He is now Emeritus Professor at the University of Divinity (Melbourne). His commentaries on the Gospels can be found at Pauline Books and Media