To a non-Christian, a line from John’s gospel today might sound really bizarre. The evangelist reports that Jesus said: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood.” Yikes! As a non-Catholic man once said to me: “You seem to have ritualized cannibalism in your ceremony.” That’s how this Sunday’s passage came across to him.
This person’s understanding might make us roll our eyes—just as much as some might be concerned about what many biblical exegetes tell us about this verse. Namely, they tell us that Jesus never said the words in this passage. Huh? How dare someone question what the Gospel says! Hold on. Let’s look at the “bigger picture” what the evangelists have written.
What we refer to as the “institution narrative” of the Eucharist—which you hear at each Mass—occurs when the priest says “Take this, all of you, and eat . . . this is the cup of my blood . . .” This important moment in Christian history—Jesus at table with his disciples breaking bread—ISN’T IN JOHN’S GOSPEL!!! Why did he not include it?
Did he not think it was important? Hardly. Then why didn’t he give us this “history?” Aha! Because neither he nor the other 3 evangelists are writing history. They are writing a theology based on the life of Jesus. Scholars tell us that John’s “Eucharistic meal” occurred when he fed the 5000 (and us) with just a few loaves of bread). He didn’t need a “last supper” scene.
Theologian John Pilch reminds us that: “Literal drinking of blood was prohibited in Judaism and perhaps also in early Christianity (sec Gen 9:4; Lev 17:10, 12, 14; cf. Acts 15:29). So keep in mind that the evangelists are all writing decades after Jesus died, and are presenting a THEOLOGY in their different books, e.g., Matthew has most references to the Old Testament because he seems to have aimed his Gospel at Jewish audiences while Luke aimed his at Gentiles.
By contrast, John’s Gospel explores other territory. And one reason for this is that he was writing at a later date than the others. In the closing years of the first century, By that time, “eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood” became a common way for Christians around the time of John’s Gospel to describe participation in the Eucharist. Ignatius of Antioch said, “I desire ‘the bread of God’ which is the flesh of Jesus Christ … and for drink I desire his blood.”
Forms of speech change over time in all areas of life—and so it was with our theological vocabulary and understanding. Today, you hear these variations among Catholics when referring to drinking/sipping the consecrated wine. One might refer to “the blood of Christ,” “the cup,” “wine,” “precious blood,” etc. Each term refers to the same thing.
Pilch further says: “In John’s view, the Eucharist is not so much a memorial of Jesus’ death nor a continuation of mealtimes with Jesus during his life . . . Rather, John views the Eucharist as a liturgical or cultic extension of Jesus’ incarnation”—and in the middle of his covering the public ministry of Jesus—where succeeding generations of Christians ARE the Eucharistic community.
John put the feeding of 5000 immediately after his lengthy “homily” on the nourishment he provides in revealing the Father.” It is a colloquialism for us to say: “I could take a bite out of you” when expressing affection for someone. What Jesus is quoted as saying is John using the language of intimacy to make his point.
Church guidelines for interpreting scripture tell us that “Evangelists relate the words and deeds of the Lord in a different order, and express his sayings not literally but differently.”
The feast of the Assumption occurred this week, and its teaching is worth our reflection. It was a dogma defined in 1950, and followed on the heels of an 1854 dogma announced by Rome. Why, you might wonder, did it take the Church 1800 years to declare 2 dogmas of the church (a hundred years apart from one another and both dealing with Mary)?
As for the Immaculate Conception, this is a MARIAN dogma. A basic concern at play was this. A widespread understanding of Genesis is that Adam and Eve’s “original” sin brought into human life such experiences as pain at childbirth, having to work for a living, and dying. We inherited the sinful condition much like we think of genes passing to us our ancestral traits. But there is a theological problem with this thinking. Namely, if “Jesus was like us in all things but sin, we’ve backed ourselves into a problem. Namely, since Mary was human, and since she gave birth to Jesus, he would have inherited “original sin” through her.
Well, it took 1800 years for the Church to clarify its theology. This was done by declaring that Mary was “immaculately conceived.” God spared Mary from inheriting the sinful condition. Voila—no sinfulness was passed to Jesus. The dogma was like a “deus ex machina” theological teaching that saved the Church from contradicting itself.
N.B., the Latin phrase means “God from a machine” and derives from Greek theater. Actors played the role of gods who were brought on stage using a machine. The machine could be a crane to lower actors from above or a riser that brought them up through a trapdoor.” These devices were used to solve a “seemingly unsolvable problem in a story. An issue is suddenly or abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence.” In this case, the Church simply declared that Mary’s sinlessness existed because God declared her sinless (in order for Jesus to have two parents untouched by “original sin”).
So a kind of ecclesiastical deus ex machina solved the dilemma of having a Jesus inheriting original sin. However, over the next hundred years, a problem arose with this “dogma.”
So Mary was declared sinless (“Immaculate”—like my 7th grade teacher, Sr. Mary Immaculate). Uh-oh. So then she didn’t die (what happened to people because of Adam & Eve’s sin)? In 1950, another deus ex-machina came to the rescue. The Church declared that: “Having completed the course of her earthly life, [Mary] was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”
While critics of Catholicism might say this is pulling another rabbit from the hat, it is instead saying that Mary’s eternal destiny points to where we should direct all of our thoughts and deeds (i.e., eternal life with God). It did NOT say she never died, but instead declared that she went straight to God upon her transition from this life to eternal life with God. She is a role model, and her behavior of giving birth to Jesus in our daily life is what the Assumption celebrates every August 15th. That reality cuts through the theological challenges addressed above.
This same week also gives us the role model of “Servant of God” Nicholas Black Elk, the “holy-man” of the Oglala Sioux (Lakota). He died the same year that the Assumption dogma was declared. As he was laid to rest, people were of one mind recalling how good a man he was—always seeing God in the natural world and in the life of individuals. If you are confronted with some illness that seems untreatable, pray to Nicholas Black Elk for help. His cause for canonization awaits such a miracle to be reported.
Some think his first miracle occurred when he died. That is, he told family members and friends that when he dies, he thinks God will give a sign in the sky that all is well—and that he is in what the Lakota call “the lad of many lodges” (heaven). When he passed away on August 17th, 1950, the sky was unlike what anyone had ever seen. At 11 p.m. it was like daytime—so bright was the sky with falling stars and the Northern Lights. His friend, John Lone Goose, said that people were a bit frightened at the immensity of the celestial display. Even the next day, when the rain made the cemetery grass slippery and the people all wet, the sun broke through the clouds and shone on his grave as he was lowered into the ground.
As a young man and adult, Black Elk prayed to the “Thunder Beings” who his people said controlled lightning and thunder and rain—and he was able to make storms go away (so people claimed). There was no doubt about the man’s saintliness on this occasion. His lifestyle, like Mary’s, made it seem that heaven was a destination we all might one day claim as our own—if we but imitate the example they set.