Robert Barron - Do You Accept This Teaching?
Peace be with you. Friends, we come now to the close of this great discourse of Jesus in the sixth chapter of John. The Church has been drawing us through this pivotal text, and we come to the conclusion. I mentioned last week it was, sort of, the climax of the discourse when Jesus talks about what we call the Real Presence. But in a way, this is as interesting, because we see the aftereffects of it. We see, okay, having laid this out, what happens? Well, listen now as the passage for today commences. "Many of Jesus' disciples who were listening said, 'This saying is hard. Who can accept it?'"
Mind you, he's not talking to his enemies here. Jesus had plenty of enemies, people that were just really out to get him. These weren't his enemies. He's talking to his disciples. I don't mean the inner band of the Twelve, but I mean this wider band of people that they were with him, watching his miracles, listening to his teaching, basking in the glow of his presence. These are his friends. But they've heard this discourse now about the Real Presence. They've heard the objectors. Remember last week we said, "Well, wait a minute. How can this man give us his flesh to eat"? And they were hoping he would say, "Oh, look, I'm just speaking metaphorically here". They wanted symbol and metaphor maybe, but then he gave them a kind of in-your-face realism.
When he meets the objections, he says, "Unless you gnaw on the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood", which is repugnant, I mentioned last week, repugnant to Jews, "you have no life in you". Can you sense... I don't want to judge them; I want just to move into their position here. Of course they were kind of exasperated. Wait a minute, we love this guy. He's great and we love what he's saying. But this teaching, again, it's hard. Who can accept it? Well, here's something I want you to see too. Jews of Jesus' time, as Jews of today, as Christians of today, too, are very comfortable with metaphorical speech.
The Old Testament is filled with metaphors. Look in the Psalms and the prophets. The Lord's my shepherd and God is my rock. Like a consuming fire. It uses metaphorical language all the time. Jews were very poetic people. Again, the Psalms are prime examples. If Jesus were just trading therefore in symbol and metaphor, why would they have objected so strenuously? Why would even his friends have walked away? Why wouldn't they say, "Well, yeah, he's just talking symbolically. What are you guys getting so excited about"? I mean, let's say I brought out an American flag on the Fourth of July and I said, "This is America". You'd all know what I mean. I didn't mean that flag is the sum total of America. I mean it's a symbol of America.
I remember when I was a little kid, my father impressed upon us, when we were little, that you don't let the flag touch the ground because it symbolizes America. And for some reason, that got into our little hearts and minds. And so my brother and I, we wouldn't let the flag, we had these little flags, let them touch the ground because it's a powerful symbol. But no one thought that's really America. Or, you know, if your mom brings out the Thanksgiving meal she's working all day on it and she says, "I put my whole self into this meal". Well, we all know what she means. It doesn't mean that her entire self has become turkey and mashed potatoes. That meal is a symbolic evocation of her devotion to the family. Of course, can you imagine if a mother said that and someone at the table pushed the chair back?
"I am indignant. I am leaving this room. How could she possibly say that"? Well, no. You'd say, "Sit down. It's a metaphor". So, what explains the fact that the people who heard Jesus give this discourse, who were well acquainted with metaphor and symbol, it's deep in their own tradition, why would they have walked away? Well, I think part of it is because they tried to get him to say, "Oh no, I'm talking about a symbol". And he wouldn't. He wouldn't. He clarified for them so unambiguously what he meant. And I think too, everybody, we're reading this through two thousand years of history and of theology and spirituality and interpretation. Put yourself back in that moment. You're in the Capernaum synagogue and you love him, you're his disciple, and you're hearing him speak.
There must have been something in his tone, in the way he was saying it, where they knew, okay, okay, he's not talking about a symbol here. He's talking about something else. He's at another level of reality. In other words, my point is they got it. They got it. They understood how weird and radical this language was, which is why they got up to leave. All right, now, let's keep pressing it now in a positive way of uncovering what this means. Jesus says, "What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before"? See, does this shock you? Well, obviously it did. "So, what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before"? "Okay, I guess he's like Jeremiah or Isaiah or Ezekiel or Abraham or Moses". No, he's not. That's the point.
See, think of all the great heroes of Israel I've just mentioned, and all the other ones, patriarchs, prophets, seers, sages, poets, all the great heroes of Israel. We reverence them, yes. They taught us great things, yes. They were loved by the people, yes. But nobody thought, nobody thought, that they were divine. They were spokespersons for God; they were bearers of God's word. They were all flawed, right? Think of everyone I named. All the heroes of Israel. Isaiah, Jeremiah, read those books of prophecy and the flaws of the people themselves. Jeremiah: "Don't call me. I'm too young".
Abraham. Moses, who's a deeply compromised character. David, who's an adulterer and a murderer. I mean, all the heroes of Israel they know are not God. Then there's Jesus. "Does this shock you, what I said? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before"? He's the one who in this absolutely unique way has come down from heaven. Like the manna, but now, "I myself am the living bread come down from heaven". What if you saw him ascending to where he was before? In other words, if you saw who really is, you'd get this.
Remember, I mentioned last week, what God says, is. That's why. That's the difference. And see, the Christian life, we read everything through the lens of Immanuel Kant. That's a story for another time. Kant was the philosopher who tended to reduce religion to ethics. Religion's all about being a nice person, having a heart of gold. But that's not it. That's not biblical religion. Biblical Christianity is about conforming ourselves to the Son of God, what the Church Fathers called deification. See not to being a nice person. That's great. I'm all in favor of being a nice person. I'm not against it. But that's such a banal, flattened-out reading of the Christian spiritual life.
The Christian spiritual life is about, listen, being so conformed unto Christ that I begin to share in his own divinity. Thomas Aquinas called this "deificatio" in his Latin. Deification. Deification. Becoming conformed unto God. What's the Eucharist? Oh, a nice symbol of Jesus' teaching. No. Jesus' Real Presence, his real Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, meant to be consumed so that we become conformed unto him. We become lifted up, divinized, sanctified in the most radical sense possible. That's why "Ecclesia de Eucharistia," the church comes from the Eucharist. It's the means by which we are deified. See, if you saw the Son of Man returning to where he was before, you'd get this. That's the point.
"See, does it shock you? Are you quarreling? Are you leaving me? Well, it's because you don't really understand who I am and what the eating and drinking of my Body and Blood is all about". We're right, everybody, at the heart of the program here. So again, he says this, and what do we hear? It's lovely. It is a historical accident, but maybe in God's providence. It's John 6:66. John 6, verse 66. So read that any way you want. John 6:66. It says, "Many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him".
This is one of the most pivotal moments. I always find this passage, it doesn't just sadden me; it's almost frightening. Jesus, they love him. Boy, he's great. He's healing the sick and he's teaching these wonderful things and woman at the well and all this. But then he lays out this teaching and many of his disciples, not enemies, his disciples wouldn't walk with him. I'll state it bluntly, everybody. The Eucharist has always been a rising or falling point, standing or falling point, of Christianity. Are you with him? Are you against him? Do you accept this doctrine or don't you? And it makes all the difference. This is why, by the way, I won't be able to dwell on it, but why the Church couples this reading with a passage from Joshua chapter 24.
As a lover of Bob Dylan, I love this because it's behind his famous song, you've "Gotta Serve Somebody". When Joshua says, "Well, you people can serve the gods of this area, but for me and my family, we are going to serve the Lord". So Bob Dylan's take on that was, it might be the devil, might be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody. That's right, by the way. Well, the Church couples it, see, with this mysterious passage, because it is standing or falling. Do you buy who I am and what the Eucharist means or don't you? We got to decide. We got to decide.
Well, and then for me, one of the most dramatic moments in the New Testament follows. Jesus then turned to the Twelve, so a lot of his disciples have left, but now he turns to the inner circle, the Apostles, the Twelve: "Do you also want to leave? Can you handle this teaching or not"? What's going to happen? I don't think it was entirely clear. What if his inner circle had said, "Yeah, Lord, you're great, but I just can't handle this teaching". You know what would've happened? The Church would've ended. That would've been the end of it. But we have now, it's John's version of Peter's confession. In the synoptics, remember Peter says, "No, Lord, you're the son of the living God. You're the Messiah," and that's Peter's great confession. That's why Jesus says, "Boy, Peter, you're the rock and I'm going to give you the keys".
Well, this is John's version of it, because he turns to the Twelve. In the other Gospels, like, "Who do people say I am? And then who do you say I am"? Well, it's a similar question. "Do you want to leave me, too, over this teaching"? And then Peter, to his infinite credit and through the grace of God, says, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life". Peter, speaking for the Church, listen, up and down the ages, that says, "Lord, no, we're not going to go. We're not going to abandon you. You've got the words of everlasting life. And so even if we don't fully understand this, we're with you". So as we come to the end of this discourse, this reading of John 6, that's the question for every one of us. Are you going to leave me, too, over this? Do you reject this teaching or do you accept it? That's the question. And God bless you.