August 8, 2021

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

This is the third week now that we are reading from the Bread of Life Discourse in the Gospel of John (Jn. 6) and associating it with a figure from the Old Testament. In the first week (Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time), it was a comparison between Elisha the prophet (2Kgs. 4:42-44) and Jesus (Jn. 6:1-15), who both perform a miracle, multiplying a scant amount of bread to feed a multitude of people.

Last week (Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time), it was the miraculous bread from heaven given by God to the Israelites in the desert as they grumbled against Moses (Exod. 16:2-4, 12-15), and Jesus comparing himself to this miraculous bread as the new manna of the Messiah (Jn. 6:24-35). This week again begins with more miraculous bread from heaven, but this time it is associated with the forerunner of Elisha, the prophet Elijah.

In the First Reading we encounter Elijah the prophet hiding in the wilderness (1Kgs. 19:4-8) in fear of his life. His main mission had been to preach against the idolatry of King Ahab of the Northern Kingdom, and his wife, Queen Jezebel, who brought the pagan god, Baal with her and introduced the Israelites to him as the god of weather and fertility. Ahab even had a statue of Baal erected for the people to worship.

For this apostasy against God, Elijah had declared a drought over the entire land for several years and the nation suffered from famine. Finally, in a contest between the prophets of Baal and Elijah to determine whose god was the stronger, Elijah defeats Jezebel’s prophets and murders every single one of them as he ends the drought. Because of the queen’s raging threats, Elijah flees to the wilderness to escape her sentence of death.

Alone, afraid, and hungry, Elijah sits beneath a broom tree and begs the Lord to take his life. When he wakes up, he encounters a messenger from God who insists that he get up and eat and drink the hearth cake and jug of water that has been provided so that he can continue his journey. Elijah does as he is commanded, but then lays down and falls asleep again.

Once more the messenger wakes him and commands him to get up and eat. So, Elijah once again gets up and eats and drinks. The miraculous food that the Lord has given him sustains Elijah for forty days and forty nights as he walks to the mountain of God, Horeb. This just happens to be the same mountain otherwise called Sinai, from which the Israelites had been able to survive journeying forty years to the Promised Land eating the bread known as manna.

Last week Jesus had made a very bold statement likening himself to the manna, the miraculous bread provided by God which brings salvation. He claimed, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst” (Jn. 6:35). In so doing, Jesus implies that he is not just a human person, but a divine being, likened to the divine substance given by God.

This leads to where the Gospel passage picks up today (Jn. 6:41-51), those who are present are again murmuring and mumbling. Because of his last statement, they are questioning the identity of Jesus just as they had done in his hometown of Nazareth (Mt. 13:54–57; Mk. 6:1–4; Lk. 4:22). They announce, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” (Jn. 6:42).

Jesus scolds those who are confronting him, “Stop murmuring among yourselves” (Jn. 6:43). Then he continues to say things that are shocking to them about his relationship to God. Almost as if to taunt them, he brazenly says, “Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father” (Jn. 6:46). In the mind of a first century Jew this would have been as close to blasphemy as someone might come, for Jesus is claiming to have seen God, “the Father.” Thus far only Moses has been able to do that.

Then Jesus makes what would be the most absurd statement yet to those listening: “I am the bread of life.  Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” (Jn. 6:48-49, 51).

Jesus has not only equated himself with the miraculous bread from heaven, he has also claimed to be “better” than the bread provided by the Lord himself. For those who ate the manna eventually died, but the bread that Jesus promises will guarantee eternal life to those who consume it.

Now, the crowd has already objected to what they believe are delusions of Jesus and they are growing more hostile. A third component has been added which will lead to utter dissension. This is the idea that Jesus will promote which establishes what we believe to be the true presence when we receive the Eucharist – his actual body and blood. Given the Jewish rules which forbid the consumption of flesh containing blood, a ruckus is sure to follow….

Once again. Stay tuned….