Huw, another blogger, comments on the Gospel of John, chapter 6. St. John 6 is the chapter that has Jesus’ teaching on eating his Body and drinking his Blood.
The Gospel is offensive. It was so to some early Jewish followers and also to some Gentiles who heard it. So it is to many of us. But if you’ve heard it wrong, I suggest the problem is with what you heard: not with the Bible, not with the faith as it is.
[Of liberals, Huw says:] The Jesus they are left with says some things rather akin to the American (non-traditional) version of Buddhism that is marketed at the local Borders Books. This Left Wing Jesus bears a remarkable resemblance to themselves, conveniently teaching their politics and theology. He makes a lot of challenging statements but, usually, only challenging to others.
In other words, this Spayed Jesus looks surprisingly like the Jesus preached in the Four Spiritual Laws who also mirrors his preachers’ likes and dislikes.
So when Jesus says, “Eat my body. Drink my blood,” using perfectly decent and clear words that clearly mean exactly what they sound like the Fundie Folks usually assume that here the scripture clearly can’t be 100% literal. The Liberal folks just excise the entire passage. It’s certainly the addition of later followers of Jesus (in fact, they treat most of the Gospel like that). Ditching the clear meaning of the text (like the Fundies do with the Body and Blood passages), they assume Jesus never claimed he was Divine, never did anything like instituting a ritual meal and, when they hear that some believe otherwise, they scof and call us benighted pre-moderns.
Both the fundamentalist and the liberal refuse to believe Scripture as written and re-interpret it as necessary in order to support their beliefs. The irony is that the fundamentalist is the one who insists that he/she takes Scripture fully seriously and literally. The liberal at least has the honesty to admit that he/she does not believe that certain Scriptures are fully accurate as written. In case you think we are overstating our case, see which verses in the Book of Revelation are seen as “literal” by fundamentalists and which are seen as purely symbolic. You will find that a most interesting study.
I like what Flannery O’Connor said when her friend said that “the bread and the wine were the best symbols of Jesus Christ that she knew of.”
Flannery then replied, “well if they are only symbols, then to hell with them.”
Fr. Ernesto,
I admit to being one who has vacillated fairly wildly on this issue and it is frustrating to me. I would like to think that I allow the Scriptures to speak for themselves, however scandalous it may be. On the other hand there is obvious cases where allegory and symbolism is employed. I think we would agree that just because something in the Scriptures is symbolic that doesn’t make it’s meaning worthless (Flannery’s comment??). Symbols can indeed be vested with great meaning.
I would like to see you address this issue more thoroughly in your blog posts.
Grace and Peace!
I will be glad to address it in future blog posts. I wanted to point out that on both sides of the spectrum people tend to twist Scriptures to their beliefs. But, we must remember that every one of us has some tendency to twist Scripture for two reasons. Reason 1 – none of us is God and able to understand everything perfectly. Reason 2 – we are sinners and we tend to reject that which calls us to costly change.
The purpose of this blog post was to point out how at the extremes the tendency to twist increases. But, we should not forget that each and every one of us has that same tendency within us.
To me it’s strange how folks will take exception to the Eucharist being the Real Presence, the literal body and blood of Christ, but yet they have no problems with glorifying vampirism.
Even to the point of getting body mods to make them look more like vampires. Yep, incredible!