At home I have a big collection of books about the New Testament. One of them called The Difficult Sayings of Jesus, has 34 such sayings. In another one, published 8 years later, called The Hard Sayings of Jesus, the number of hard sayings has jumped to 70.

Anyone who comes to church, or reads the Gospels, is well aware of these hard sayings, though perhaps you didn't realize how many there are! Among the most difficult are "sell all you have and give to the poor" (Mark 10:21), "turn the other cheek" (Matt 5:39), "If your eye offends you, pluck it out" (Matt 5:29), and "he who does not hate his father and mother is not worthy of me" (Luke 14:26). Today, our Gospel reading gives us the original hard saying of Jesus, the one to which Jesus' disciples themselves said, "This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?"

The first step in understanding why Jesus said we must eat his flesh, is to ask ourselves WHY St. John has arranged his Gospel so differently from St. Matthew, St. Mark and St. Luke. By the time St. John wrote, there was an established pattern for a Gospel, but he ignored that pattern at many crucial points. Most scholars believe St. John wrote 20 to 30 years after the earliest Gospel, of St. Mark: a whole generation later. I think St. John saw some particular danger in the Christian community, which he was addressing in a subtle way. Because what he did was to focus the story of the Last Supper around the footwashing, and he did not describe how Jesus broke the bread and said "this is my body, given for you". But earlier in the Gospel, here in Chapter 6 where the miracle of the loaves and fishes happens, St. John has chosen to show the way sacrifice can be misunderstood.

Take a look with me at how these 4 evangelists tell the story of the Last Supper. St. Mark and St. Matthew begin with Jesus' prediction that he will be betrayed, and then tell how Jesus broke the bread and gave it as the new covenant. St. Luke adds to this, the dispute among the disciples about who would greatest in the Kingdom of God. Jesus responded to them, "let the leader be as one who serves". Then St. John enlarges St. Luke's emphasis on serving, by putting Jesus' action of washing the disciples feet, in the place of the sharing of bread and wine. So by the time St. John was writing, the most important action at the Last Supper was the demonstration of servanthood. I propose this shift occurred precisely because the church was facing persecution, and some Christians were actively seeking greatness through martyrdom, in imitation of Jesus. By shifting the emphasis in his Gospel to the footwashing, St. John is saying that the true way to imitate Jesus, is to be a servant.

With this in mind, let us come back now to the original hard saying of Jesus in Chapter 6, where he talks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. I think it is quite likely that this is an ironic critique of sacrifice, as it was practiced at the Temple in Jerusalem. In other words, Jesus was being deliberately offensive in order to open the eyes of his followers. Throughout Chapter 6, the people who came to listen to the teaching of Jesus, and who ate the meal of leaves and fishes, seemed to misunderstand everything Jesus said. They were like Nicodemus, who didn't grasp the idea of being born anew, and like the Samaritan woman at the well, who wondered how Jesus could provide living water without a bucket! Those people took everything Jesus said literally.

It is equally clear that Jesus was using the word bread as an image or metaphor for the spiritual reality of God's presence, which he wants them to take in, to consume if you will. He is speaking about God's indwelling presence, which is available to them through him. They are focussed on his literal words, eating his flesh, and this is not completely surprising, for every day in the Temple, priests offered animal sacrifices, and ate the meat of those sacrifices. This was the way the ancient Jew drew near to God: by bringing an animal for the priest to sacrifice on his behalf.

The irony comes when Jesus said that the bread he would give, is his flesh (6:51). Everyone listening to him, supposed that Jesus was speaking about cannibalism. They said, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" In order to wake them up to the absurdity of their question, Jesus pushed them farther. Instead of saying, "those who eat my flesh have eternal life" Jesus used a more graphic verb, which is not translated into English because it is so offensive. The correct translation of the Greek is, "those who chew my flesh have eternal life". If this were a serious statement, it would be very offensive, but it is an ironic or sarcastic statement, intended to sound ridiculous.

Jesus was trying to give people a new understanding of who God is, and to show them a different way to draw near to God. The offering of an animal sacrifice does not bring a person closer to God. The physical process of eating does not bring a person closer to God. Taking into one's heart the good news of God's love, and accepting God's forgiveness, brings a person closer to God. Living bread is a vehicle for speaking about the spiritual reality that God can dwell within us. So the way of Jesus, the truth that Jesus brings, is to accept God's forgiveness and love, and then as a servant to share God's love with others.

St. John may be using this critique of sacrifice to say to his readers, Jesus does NOT want you to volunteer to be killed by the Romans. The whole point of following Jesus is NOT self-sacrifice; the point is the good news that God;s love is more powerful than death, and you are called to share in that love. Sacrificing yourself by seeking martrydom is a mistake. The death of Jesus was the necessary prelude to the resurrection of Jesus: the whole story is about life, eternal life.

You might possibly be thinking right now, that my analysis is interesting, but irrelevant to your life. I believe it is highly relevant, because of the knowledge Jesus had of human psychology. He saw clearly how our lives and actions are affected by what is in our hearts. If a person has taken the desire to compete and win, into his heart, that will govern his behavior. Competition is the reason some disciples were arguing at the Last Supper, about who would be greatest in the Kingdom. They had not eaten living bread, they had eaten the bread of competition, and so they had no comprehension of the new way Jesus has offered them. Likewise, if your heart is dominated by anger, or by fear, or by wanting to be liked, or by the desire to be rich, that feeling will govern your behavior. Ask yourself, what attitudes, what values, what desires, have you absorbed, consumed, "swallowed whole" from what you see every day on the news, and what you hear at work, or among your neighbors? We are so easily influenced to adopt what other people want, as what we want, without being aware of the harm those wants may lead us into. When Jesus offers us living bread, he is inviting us to take his Spirit into our hearts. In other words, let you heart be filled with the indwelling presence of God, with the abundance of God's love and forgiveness.

What is happening in St. John's Gospel, is that St. John is arranging the story of Jesus to exclude the possibility of seeking martyrdom, and to lift up the calling of servanthood. And St. John may well have read St. Paul's letter to the Romans, in which St. Paul says, "present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (12:2). Both the living sacrifice, and the living bread, point toward our communion with God's Spirit in our hearts.

So Jesus, by his offering to dwell within us, and St. John by his showing us the negative meaning of sacrifice, and by his emphasis on the servanthood of Jesus, are giving us pictures of the way that leads to eternal life. In accepting that indwelling presence, we may have to give up some attitudes, priorities and actions which are not compatible with love and service. There will be times when we choose not to participate in something which is incompatible with love and service. So there is a cost to discipleship, but it is not the giving-up of one's life, or well-being. It is a choice we make every day, to take in the living bread, and then to discover ways in which we can imitate the servanthood of Jesus.

It also happens from time to time that Jesus calls us to do something very specific: to help an individual, to perform a task, to write a letter, visit someone who is sick, to build up the church by teaching or committee work, or simply by bringing a dish to a potluck. Jesus does not limit his calling to things we are comfortable doing. We are often called to do things which we are not sure we can do, and for which we feel unqualified. Part of what it means to have faith, is exactly this trusting Jesus when he calls us to a particular task, even if it is a very big task. By these acts of love and service, some small and some great, we do become ChristÕs presence in the world. By our participation in his reconciling work, his servanthood, we grow into the measure of his stature, and are made holy.