Pentecost 13 B – Lectionary 21

Sunday, August 23 – 2015

Saint John 6:56-69 - NRSV

Commentary:  What I don’t like about Jesus is that he calls us out.  Christ dares to offend us.  He pushes our buttons.  He leaves things open-ended.  He teaches a radical way of life.  He says we should be so into him that we consume him!  I don’t know about you, but I am tempted to walk away from his challenges. But then in desperation we exclaim:  “Lord, to whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life.”

⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

⁶⁰When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” ⁶¹But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? ⁶²Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? ⁶³It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ⁶⁴But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him.⁶⁵And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” ⁶⁶Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. ⁶⁷So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” ⁶⁸Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

‘A Poem a Sunday’

Pentecost 13 B - August 23, 2015

“Does this offend you?”  St. John 6:61

That when we draw a line

Jesus will be on the other side?

That we are the privileged people

of the world who Jesus calls out?

Not just to pray for ‘the poor,’

or provide for ‘the poor’

but to see him in them?

- to bend all systems of justice

toward grace and mercy

- to move our political wills

from $400 billion dollars spent

on the latest F-35 Jet fleet

- when a $16.7 billion dollar

request from the U. N. Office of

Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs

could save countless lives

from preventable causes around the world?*

Does this offend you:

- that Jesus is indeed political,

siding with the least of these,

calling the powerful to account?

Does living bread offend us?

- that the Church is called

to be bread

broken for the world?

Up from our pews,

sent to revolutionize society,

participate in God’s gathering

of the scattered children of God.

All people, for all

are God’s children.

Does this offend you?

‘A Poem a Sunday’ written August 17, 2015 – Kenn Storck

[*Source – Huffington Post – 07/11/2014]