‘A Poem a Sunday’

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

August 9, 2015

John 6:35-51

Commentary:  So continues the argument between the Johannine community and its Jewish tradition.  According to John, Jesus continues and completes the revelation of God.  God certainly provided bread in the wilderness, but the ancestors ate and died.  Jesus is the new manna which when consumed gives eternal life.

The emerging Christian community is beginning to shape its Christology and Eucharistic theology.  John takes us in new directions. This Sunday’s ‘A Poem a Sunday’ is intended to reflect the new directions in which John is taking the early faith community.

³⁵Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. ³⁷Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; ³⁸for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. ⁴⁰This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.” ⁴¹Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴²They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” ⁴³Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves.⁴⁴No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. ⁴⁵It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. ⁴⁶Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.⁵⁰This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

A Poem a Sunday

Pentecost 11 B

August 9, 2015

Johannine Directions

“…and I will raise them up on the last day.”  St. John 6:40

Down, up, around, through:

Down

        the bread of life came down,

        down, down to earth.

        The birth of the Word made flesh.

Up

        lifted up, like the wilderness serpent,

        lifted up so that all who gaze

        will be amazed and healed.

Around

        The Word got around, God’s feet

        on the ground, real, alive.

        Touch the scars, like ours.

Through

        Christ breathed into and

        the Spirit came through

        to the motley crew.

“…and I will raise them up on the last day.”  St. John 6:40