Twenty-First Sunday In Ordinary Time, Year B: John 6:66: Satan’s Six Pack.

Marriott's Fairfield Inn's require guests at certain times of the year to sign No Party Agreements. The actual document reads as follows:

We understand that hotels are the ideal place to celebrate new adventures; however, problems occur when the celebration becomes a disturbance to our guests.

In order to help prevent any problems, we have a few simple requests. Parties will not be tolerated (or disturbances to our other guests). You should consider this your first notice and if we are required to contact you regarding a disturbance, you may be asked to leave.

Thank you for staying with us and enjoy your stay.1

In our Gospel today, which includes John 6:66, we hear of the only time in Scripture where people left Jesus for a doctrinal reason.

They created a disturbance to the faithful disciples particularly, because of their disagreement to the later verses of John, Chapter 6, where “Jesus switches from the general word for ‘eat’ (Greek, phago) to the word for ‘chew’ (Greek, trogo). It is literally, in verse 54, which we heard last Sunday, “Unless you chew my flesh and drink my blood.”2

These disciples refused to sign-on to Jesus’ Eucharistic teaching that Eucharist not a symbol. The actual teaching, from the Catholic Christian tradition, reads as follows:

The transformed bread and wine are truly the Body and Blood of Christ and are not merely symbols. When Christ said, “This is my body” and “This is my blood,” the bread and wine are transubstantiated. Though the bread and wine appear the same to our human faculties, they are actually the real body and blood of Jesus.”3

Some followers said, “This way of speaking is intolerable and since then, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life--That verse is John 6:66. I call it Satan’s Six Pack.

What the Eucharist is not—Cannibalism. Yet, “we can see that Jesus is not trying to win over the people by giving them easy words and attractive promises; he is testing their faith, seeing if they will trust him enough to accept a ‘hard saying.” (John 6:60). 4

Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?" It echoes a verse from our First Reading, Joshua 24:1 when “Joshua gathered together all the tribes of Israel at Shechem,” and “If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide today whom you will serve.”

Jesus explains that to believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, we need the Holy Spirit: “It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.”

This means the “the flesh” is of no avail, not “Jesus’ flesh is of no avail.”

“The flesh” means fallen human nature apart from the help of God.”5

Jesus’ flesh avails much.

Jesus says several times in John 6:51-58 that “the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."

“There is a huge difference between ‘my flesh’ and ‘the flesh’”! 6

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth” John 1:14

The response of Peter speaks for the remaining disciples, in John 6:68, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

“In other words: ‘You are the only game in town. There’s no hope in anyone else.’” “This has to be our response in the face of challenges to our faith.”7

“Those who believe don’t leave. Believe what?

Believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist.

Those who believe this single truth may feel like they are not being fed, they may disagree with the way their priest is doing things,….they may have different liturgical preferences,… they may feel unseen and unwelcome in their parish community. And yet, despite all these things that have led [others to leave], they stay.

Why?

They believe Jesus Christ is truly present in the Eucharist and they know that only the Catholic Church can offer this gift to them. They might be able to go down the road and experience better preaching and more dynamic music, but they are simply not willing to give up the Eucharist in exchange for that.

Why?

Because it’s a bad deal. But you have to know and believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist to understand how bad a deal it is to give that up for what is trivial by comparison.”

In the Eucharist, Jesus inaugurated a new mode of presence in “Lord’s supper” (1 Cor 11:20) or the “breaking of the bread” (Acts 2:42,46), which is the New Covenant. “People don’t really get it, but the Eucharist is the New Covenant, and therefore, if you are not participating in the Eucharist, you are not fully partaking of the New Covenant.”8

We cannot handle the direct vision of God in the body now, but that vision is our destiny. We will, actually, walk into the sun and not die. We will drink the ocean of infinity and not collapse. But for now we have to learn to put away our small toys and reach for something greater. The Eucharist isn’t merely Presence, but Person. In it we meet not something, but someone. We learn to love and be loved.9