20th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

 20^th Sunday in Ordinary Time B – August 18, 2024

Proverbs 9:1-6; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58

 

Theme: “For my Flesh is True Food, and my Blood is True Drink”

Today is the fourth Sunday of our five-Sunday meditation on the “Bread of Life” discourse in chapter 6 of the Gospel of John, which we started on Sunday, July 28^th. Today, we continue where we left off last Sunday. Jesus declares openly, not in metaphor, that the living food he talks about is his flesh and blood. He then invites his audience to eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have everlasting life. In our first reading, God, who is personified as Wisdom, invites people to eat of his food and drink of the wine he mixed. Both invitations (of the first and Gospel readings) require faith and conversion first. In the second reading, Saint Paul calls his audience to this conversion when he exhorts them to live as wise persons but not as foolish.

Our Gospel passage continues the Bread of Life Discourse. Recalling its context helps us understand it better. Everything started with the sign of the multiplication of loaves and feeding over five thousand people (6:1-15). Over five thousand people followed Jesus because they had seen how Jesus healed the royal official’s son (see John 4:46-540) and the man at the pool on the Sabbath (see John 5:1-9). Jesus fed all of them with just five barley loaves and two fish that he multiplied miraculously (6:1-15). In the evening of that day, Jesus’ disciples left on a boat, going across the sea to Capernaum without Jesus. It was dark, and the sea was stirred up because of the strong wind when they saw Jesus walking on the water toward them. They were afraid. Jesus told them, “It is I. Do not be afraid.” (6:14-23). The following day, the crowd who ate the miraculous food followed Jesus again. Jesus revealed to them that their discipleship was based on a wrong motivation, “You are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.” He then invited them not to work for the food that perishes but for that gives eternal life. Jesus means that the crowd should work on their faith in him, who is the living bread. The crowd requested of him a sign greater than the manna that, according to them, Moses gave to their ancestors in the desert during their journey from Egypt to the promised land, which would convince them to believe in him. In his answer,  Jesus first clarified that his Father God, not Moses, gave the manna to their ancestors as they mistakenly thought, and second, the greater sign they requested was the true bread God “gives” them. When they asked Jesus to give them this “true bread,” Jesus declared that he was that “true bread,” the Bread of Life that upon consumed with faith, one would never hunger and thirst. Jesus assured them that his will, which is also his Father’s will, is to raise everyone who believes in him on the last day for eternal life (vv. 24-40). In hearing that, the crowd, who were identified then as the Jews, murmured because they knew very well Jesus and his family as they lived together in Galilee. For them, Jesus was not someone of high status, but how he referred to himself as the living bread. In his response, Jesus taught them about his relationship with his Father and his being the bread of life (vv. 41-51). Our Gospel passage picks up from here. Like the previous sections, our text is a conversation with images. First, Jesus states that his flesh and blood give eternal life (v. 51). Second, the Jews disagree with what Jesus just said. And third, as a response, Jesus again teaches them how his flesh and blood are true food and drink and how they give eternal life.

Jesus makes three statements. (1) He is the living bread from heaven, (2) believers who eat this bread will live forever, (3) and this bread he talks about is his flesh (v. 51). Previously, we already saw how the Jews disagreed with Jesus on the first two statements. First, Jesus cannot be from heaven because they know him and his family well. He is an ordinary person, just like them. Second, according to them, the bread Jesus talks about is not greater than the heavenly bread (manna) their ancestors ate in the desert. If their ancestors still died even though they ate the manna, the bread Jesus refers to cannot give eternal life. In our text, they refute Jesus's third statement in which he says, not metaphorically but clearly, that the living bread he talks about is his flesh. “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?” (v. 52). As a response to the Jews’ disagreement, Jesus once more teaches them. He first asserts that eating his flesh and drinking his blood is the only way to have eternal life. On the last day, he will raise believers who eat his flesh and drink his blood. Second, Jesus invites the Jews to have an intimate relationship with him to have life in the same way he has life because of his intimate relationship with God his Father. Then, feeding on him bounds this intimate relationship as they will remain in him and he in them. Third, Jesus compares the manna with the true food, his flesh and blood. The manna did not give eternal life as Jesus’ flesh and blood do because the Jewish ancestors who ate the manna died, but believers who eat and drink Jesus’ flesh and blood will live forever (vv. 53-58).

Through this Gospel passage, our Holy Mother Church wants to teach us that the Eucharist is not “like" but the real Body and Blood of Christ. When we receive Holy Communion, we become one with our Lord in an intimate relationship, just as he is in an intimate relationship with his Father, God. The Eucharistic food is different from other blessed foods, including manna, since all the blessed foods sustain only our temporary needs but do not give eternal life as the Body and Blood of Christ do.

Our Holy Mother Church encourages us to attend Masses regularly, especially on Sundays, and strengthen our intimate relationship with our Lord by receiving his Body and Blood in the Holy Communion. Feeding on Jesus demands conversion and faith first. In our first reading, we heard how God, personified as Wisdom, invited people to come and eat his food and drink the wine he had mixed to live. This invitation requires conversion first: “Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.” (Prov. 9:6). In our second reading, Saint Paul also stresses conversion when he calls the Ephesian believers to watch carefully how they live. They must live not as foolish but as wise. To live as wise means to always try to understand what is the will of the Lord (Eph 5:17b). The will of the Lord is exactly what Jesus, in the Gospel story, wants us to do: to come to him and eat his flesh and drink his blood with faith to have eternal life.

Let us ask God’s grace in this Eucharistic liturgy so that we, our family members, relatives, and all people come to understand and believe that the Eucharistic bread and wine the priest consecrate at each Mass become the real Body and Blood of Christ and give us eternal life. May we always respond to Jesus’ invitations by attending his Eucharistic celebrations (especially on Sundays) and receiving him at the Holy Communion with faith and conversion of heart. When we do all these, he will raise us up on the last day and grant us everlasting life. Amen.  

Rev. Leon Ngandu, SVD