Last week for the table top baseball league I’m in I was playing over a friend’s house. They are very religious and have cards of many biblical quotes on the side of their walls. They are however both ex-Catholics and tend to tease about Holy Communion being a magic trick. So as you might guess John 6:53 doesn’t make the cut:
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
It’s a real peeve with me when people duck bits of the Gospel or the bible. Ironically today the ducking took place at many Masses and considering todays reading it’s quite ironic:
The first reading was from Joshua 24 the key verse being 15:
If it does not please you to serve the LORD, 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. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”
Basically a “choose sides” reading, you’ve seen what things are make up your mind.
John Chapter 6 has been the focus of the gospel reading for the last month and we concluded this week with verses 60-69: For the purpose of this post we are only interested up to verse 62.
Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? ”
Another choose sides, yeah it’s a tough saying can you handle it?
The theme of the sermon today was the Eucharist and it was a good one, but we never discussed today’s 2nd reading. It was Ephesins 5:21-33. We read the short form that omitted verses 22-24 they say:
Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, he himself the savior of the body. As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.
Now three or four years ago we did the long form and our priest gave a great sermon on its meaning in context, but I couldn’t get over the irony that we skipped that verse when the theme of the Gospel today was getting over a “hard saying”. From what Fr. Tom Washburn had to say we were likely not alone in skipping it:
This is perhaps the most dangerous passage in all of Scripture to preach on, in fact, most preachers usually try and avoid it. But, I feel a little dangerous today, so let’s give it a try
He does almost as good a job as Father Bob when he tackled it the whole thing is here the key bit:
The problem with this phrase from Colossians, “Wives be subordinate to your husbands,” is that we tend to isolate that passage out and not look at the rest of the reading. Alone, this passage is troubling and seems to support a subjugation of women, but it is out of context. When we look at the bigger picture, we find not a chauvinistic household, but one that is balanced; not one where husbands lord authority over wives, but one where everyone is subordinate, or the servant, to the other. There are two keys to this reading – the first is the initial words we heard today, “Brothers and sisters, be subordinate to one another.” We are all called to be in that position of subordination to each other, deferring to each other, serving each other. So, if “wives be subordinate to your husbands” is true; then it is also true to say, “husbands be subordinate to your wives,” “children be subordinate to your parents,” “parents be subordinate to your children.” This reading doesn’t want to perpetuate a power dynamic, it wants to eliminate it; leaving in its wake a community of servants.
Context is everything, people tend to hear what they want so when for example the rules on Meatless Fridays are relaxed they hear the eating meat part but not the “substitute sacrifice“. Our protestant friends take John 6:53-56 metaphorically while ignoring the context that Jesus actually challenges them on it and loses disciples over it. People either attack or overemphasize Ephesians 22:24 and ignore the context to suit their agendas.
The Church and scripture can stand on it own two feet. If we try to gimmick it as the ECLA did to fill the seats our seats won’t be worth filling. No pulling a Yale and ducking.
