Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost; 22 August 2021; Proper 16B (RCL); 1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43; Psalm 84; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69.
Last week, we heard Jesus say, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” This week, we hear him say, “It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless.” So, which is it?
The idea of drinking blood would have been been taboo to John’s Jewish readers. All of the sacrificial and alimentary regulations in what we call the Old Testament absolutely forbid blood to human use. The life of the animal was in the blood, and the life (blood) belonged to God. John’s Jewish readers would have perceived that the eucharistic community now replaced the altar of the Temple as the place where life was returned to God.
And they would have perceived that the life of the Son of Man now remained in them. But like so many of the prophets of the Old Testament, John wanted to guard against any idea of sacrificial ritual being efficacious on its own. The eucharist in itself is not salvific, but only as it is incorporated into the community.
The opening line of the gospel reading today repeats the closing line of last week’s gospel: Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. And, of course, the Father gets mixed into the mutual abiding. And lest we think that simply eating the bread and drinking the wine of the eucharist will do it, Jesus now says, “It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless.” After a group of disciples turn back, Peter replies to Jesus, “To who would we go? You have the words of life.”
It is the community discourse where we find the spirit that gives life. Ephesians says much the same thing. We are to take up the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. The collect for Proper 28 thanks God for the gift of holy scripture, and then asks that God grant us to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.” It is this assimilation that grants the mutual indwelling of community, Jesus, Spirit, and the Father. If we treat the eucharist as magical, nothing happens. If we let it change us, we approach it aright.
Our Old Testament lesson gives us snippets of Solomon’s prayer of dedication for the Temple. Clearly, the authors of the Old Testament understood the Temple as the touch-point between divine and created orders, the place where God could be encountered. For John’s community, it is the eucharist, but not just as bread and wine, but as community action.
The reading from Ephesians, instead of assimilating Jesus, has us putting Jesus on. It’s a similar metaphor. A soldier would have to train to use the equipment, so the image is not just passive, but requires a change in us. We are being called to a way of life that will require ongoing change and growth and discipline. Our baptismal covenant asks us to renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God, and the evil powers of this world that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. Not all that different from Ephesians cosmic powers of this present darkness.
We’ll need sustenance and training to do it.