Mass readings for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
1 Kings 19.4-8 Psalm 34.1-8 Ephesians 4.30-5.2 John 6.41-51
Jesus offends. In every generation, in every era, he offends in his generous gift of himself for the life of the world. And why does he offend? Because, he forces upon people the truth of their absolute and indispensable need of God, and that offends pride, and it violates the perverse sense so many have that there may yet be a God, but that he doesn’t concern himself with us. He doesn’t and that allows us to do as we please. He offends by making that truth a physical reality through the incarnation, by coming and telling us to our face!
In today’s gospel Jesus offends the crowd by interpreting his own feeding miracles in a way they can’t accept. They can handle a miracle that feeds them materially, even account it as being from God, but they can’t accept that it has an immeasurably profound significance with respect to the person of Jesus – they can’t handle the obvious truth of what he then claims: that he, Jesus, is the true source of life, and from that, it’s a short step to recognizing he is God.
As Christians we know this in our confessing him as the Word of God, the Logos, through whom all things are made. This includes the bread of heaven, true food that God provides, and that nurtures us toward the kingdom of God and eternal life.
Their taking offense is immediately rooted in their sense that they know who Jesus is (or rather, believe they know): “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” That is, he’s just a man like us. And as I’ve said in other homilies with reference to people who knew Jesus prior to his public ministry. They likely thought well enough of him through all the years they had known him. I wryly mused that some, regarding him as a healthy 30-year-old with a trade as a carpenter, a family business, a good head on his shoulders, he was a good marriage prospect for the families of Nazareth with unwed daughters! But then he begins his ministry, and while there’s no surprise at his being well-spoken, a little more surprise at how learned he proves to be, what throws them is the not very subtle suggestions as to who he is in terms of the Messianic expectations of Israel.
How would any of us respond to a local man here in Dundas claiming to be a prophet, someone on a mission from God, having known him as a child and teenager, even if we had always thought him a good person – that sort of thing doesn’t happen here, this is a nice place to live, but this isn’t the epicentre of Divine activity.
But here is Jesus, of Nazareth, of the Galilee, and he’s saying to them, yes, you are indeed standing at the focal point of God’s work in the world; but moreso, you are standing in the presence of God, God the Son, the Christ.
In a recent interview, Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris spoke up in defense of the scandalous opening ceremonies of the Olympics which featured the mocking of the Last Supper. However, unlike the more even tone taken by the IOC representatives who offered the non-apology apology claiming there was no intention to reference the Last Supper, let alone show it disrespect; the mayor of Paris lashed out at critics in obvious anger. She was offended; offended on behalf of the artists who put on that mock Last Supper tableau; but one also got the sense that she was personally offended. And I’d say that was the case because of her use of profanity – yes, she dropped “F-bombs” something that I find disturbing in a public figure, a political leader, a person with real power. It showed a lack of emotional self-control, and gave evidence that she felt attacked and that does not bode well for those who she must think her enemies. Indeed, she labelled those who were critical of the opening ceremonies as reactionaries and being of the “far-right.”
Now, you might say that reflects her politics, but again, it was her tone, her profanity that tells us this isn’t merely a difference of opinion, a matter of debate for which our liberal democratic system is equipped to handle. No, she was hurt, and so, angered by the fact that Christians were hurt and angered. I’ve experienced that anger from less eminent individuals, more politely mind you; they are offended by the claims of the Church, but ultimately those of Jesus Christ, because they impinge on their own lives, create unwanted obligation, raise uncomfortable questions as to just what they are about in their lives.
Christians, you see, stepped out of line by actually daring to say that the Last Supper was something more than a story, or an historical event. We are tolerated because, well, we do charitable work, we encourage philanthropy, and that is valued by the establishment of which the mayor is a part; and we’re just another religious community that they hope will eventually disappear from a humanity they hope to remake in their image.
But Christians went too far, stepped out of line, by being offended and saying so, because that was to forcefully assert that what was mocked was sacred, the holy, but more importantly, Christians believe, but even a fair number of non-Christians, that our civilization is built upon a Christian foundation, and that foundation was laid at the Last Supper.
Mayor Hidalgo, like a great many others who are trying to remake the world, won’t have that, because that is the very thing to which she is opposed. These are foundations that must be taken up and replaced.
Now at the time Jesus was speaking to the crowd, they were offended because their religious understanding could not admit the idea of the incarnation, the idea that God would sully himself by taking human flesh and dwelling among, even if the scriptures pointed to Christ’s coming. For many, invested for whatever reasons, political or psychological, God’s coming in the flesh threatened them because it upended their understanding of the world and their place in it.
Today, Anne Hidalgo, those who organized the opening ceremonies, many of the people in power in western countries today, are making common cause to overthrow our civilization because, in their eyes, it is essentially Christian; and so, cannot admit the moral relativism that is necessary to make their new world work. Their paradise has no absolute truths, just competing priorities. So, the Last Supper is to be seen as just an historical event among others, Jesus a religious figure among others, Christianity a religion and philosophy among others. To regard the Last Supper as the pivotal moment in all history, the person of Jesus as absolutely the key personality in humanity’s story, and the Eucharist as the means by which we both remember that moment, but also have made physically present to us Christ, this cannot be admitted in any way. To do so would be to admit that the bread and circuses the establishment provides us is not the true source of our life as a community. No, the bread of heaven, the food of life, it’s Jesus Christ, and so, rather than take a pickaxe to this foundation, we need to repair and rebuild it constantly.
Jesus tells those complaining about him to stop it. He says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw them…” And that sounds disturbing, fatalistic, that there will simply be those who will never understand, will always complain, and so, eventually oppose Christ and work to destroy His Church, and so, this civilization it has built.
Our own St. Augustine counsels patience in this (Tr. xxvi. 2. et sq.); recalling that this is Jesus speaking of grace; grace which is indispensable to our salvation. And so, as our patron saint explains, this does not mean that some people are shut out by God, that he does not choose them; and so, they are lost. Rather, they need to encounter Christ and receive that grace, and to have the opportunity of choosing; they cannot be drawn to what they do not know. St. Augustine tells us that in this life we are drawn to sensual pleasures, of sight, touch, taste, and so on. Would we ever love ice cream if we’d never been to an ice cream parlour? Had a scoop of vanilla with our peach pie? Someone has taken us, and prompted us to try; to taste and see.
So too with Christ, for as Augustine asks, who isn’t delighted with truth, happiness, justice, eternal life, all which is Christ? But we need as a Church need to make that known to the world; and remind people like Anne Hidalgo, that this is what we are talking about, that whatever fantasy of an ideal world without God that she aspires to, it is in Christ that peace and joy, truth and justice, are actually found; that while she is eager to dispense bread to the hungry masses, to be their benefactor, the bread she gives cannot sustain us; we will be hungry the next day; and world’s bread quickly grows stale and mouldy. But not the bread of life, to eat of it is to live forever; and Jesus from himself gives us this bread, his flesh, for the life of the world.
Amen.
Links:
Paris mayor unleashes series of F-bombs on Olympic opening ceremony critics