An Exegetical Reflection on the Gospel of the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, John 6:60-69, August 26, 2012
TIME
WAS WHEN people recognized only two giant empires in the world: the United
States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Today, only the former survives; the union of
soviets crumbled, or, to use a neutral word, broke up. But what is of concern to us is not whether
it really collapsed or not, but rather what its breaking apart meant to the
Russians powers-that-be. If we go back
to history and try to interpret what happened in the USSR on August 18, 1992 when a coup d’etat was
attempted against the Soviet Prime Minister, a disinterested inquiry would tell
us that the root of it all was perestroika: the restructuring of politics,
economy and other aspects of soviet life.
The coup attempt happened a day before the signing of the treaty on
power sharing, the relationship between the central government and the soviets. The treaty was part of the implementation of
the perestroika to bring about a better life to the people. Thus, the major issue was between those who
rejected it and those who accepted it.
Said Mikhail Gorbachev: “For some, this [treaty] is maintaining the
empire, for others this is the collapse of the empire.”
In today’s Gospel (John 6:60-69), a
parallel issue is being presented to us.
It may be recalled from the previous Sundays that according to John
Jesus proclaimed his own goal for man to achieve in order to make him happy:
eternal life, a life in which people are one and love one another, and
experience freedom and integrity. And
just as Gorbachev had his perestroika, Jesus had a program to attain that form
of life: the bread of life. As we saw in
the preceding Sundays, Jesus, as Eucharist, presented himself first as
Wisdom—the Word of God, and the Christians, as an implication of Jesus’ claim,
are a community of the Word, hearing it, living it, and embodying it. This is what it means to eat the bread of
life. Next, he offered himself as
Sacrament—the sign of God love for his people, manifested in his dying for
them, and for this reason the community lives the spirit of Jesus, he dwells in
the community, and the community lives in him.
The members of the community share with others all they have and are,
and are filled with the Spirit, manifested in their faces, and in their
songs. This, too, is what eating the
bread of life means.
But the Gospel challenges us: do we
accept him as the bread of life? Do we
accept him as the principle, guide, standard and supreme norm of our
lives? Do we accept him as our redeemer,
saving us by giving himself to us as bread of life? Such a challenge was also offered to the
people in the Old Testament. As the
First Reading (Jos 24:1-2.15-17.18) points out, Joshua at a renewal of the
covenant in Shechem after the Israelites entered into the promised land
gathered all the tribes and gave them a challenge: “Decide today whom you will
serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the
Amorites in whose country you are dwelling” (Jos 24:15bc). The people answered: “We will serve the Lord
for he is our God” (Jos 24:18).
Similarly, in the New Testament, we who have seen the power of God
manifested in the life and death of Jesus are given the challenge: “Do you want
to leave me, too?” (John 6:67). Shall we
refuse to believe that in eating the Wisdom and the Sacrament of God we will
attain everlasting life? John, of
course, presents Peter as the model of our response to the challenge: “Lord, to
whom shall we go? You have the words of
eternal life. We are have come to
believe, we are convinced that you are God’s holy one” (John 6:69).
But the implication of this yes of
Peter to Jesus words is quite enormous. For to accept Jesus as the supreme norm
of our life means that we decide to empty ours and fill it with the life of
Jesus, which is more than simply saying that we imitate him in
discipleship. Moreover, if we link this
to the Second Reading (Eph 5:21-32), accepting Jesus as the bread of life implies
that we cannot manifest in ourselves and in our lives the life and death of
Jesus without having to form a new family of God, in much the same way that
those who affirmed the Lord as their God at the time of Joshua eventually
recognized themselves as the people of God.
By eating the bread of life, we form in the final result God’s family
headed by Christ himself who loves the community. And his relationship with the community
becomes itself the pattern of the relationship that exists among the members—loving
one another, giving up one’s life for the sake of the other (Eph 5:23). We cast aside our past life and unite
ourselves with the members of the community in an unbreakable bond of unity (cf
Eph 5:31).
At the beginning of our reflection,
we adverted to the program of perestroika which Gorbachev initiated. But the program was not accepted. Russian leaders like Yanayev, Yozov
(Defense), Pavlov and others mounted a coup, obviously because the perestroika
meant for them the loss of their power, status and privilege. In the light of the Gospel, one wonders
whether anyone of us would stage his own coup by not allowing Jesus to become
the supreme norm of his life. Of course,
in our liturgy, we are reminded in the response to the Eucharistic Prayer that
the right attitude to the challenge of Jesus is to say “Amen” to him. That way, we follow Peter who said, “Lord, to
whom shall we go? You have the words of
eternal life” (John 6:68).
No comments:
Post a Comment