conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

"Sometimes a banana is just a banana, Anna"
Saturday Night Live - Dan Aykroyd as Sigmund Freud to Laraine Newmann

I think it is a straightforward metaphor with a touch of foreshadowing thrown in. Call me a simpleton, but to me it says that Jesus nourishes us in ways that ordinary food cannot. Food for the soul. I would be interested in knowing whether the last part of the tract was inserted by the theologians in the early church to justify a substitutionary approach to the purpose of Christ or whether these were truly Christ's words and an overfocus on this aspect of Christ's life manifested itself in substitution theology. Either way, the sacrifice of Christ as human for the redemption of man is central to this reading.

Taking the metaphor to actual day-to-day living only provides a general guideline to believe in the teachings of Jesus. It implies that following these teachings will lead to eternal life, but relies on other text to help to define the reasons this would be a desirable outcome.

Paul's letter is open to a number of points of view, and one can choose to call it transformative, although that seems to imply that people aren't striving to do many of these things. It's a pretty simple distillation of the teachings of Christ. Live life with the welfare of others in mind - don't hurt them, build them up and sacrifice parts of yourself for them. Imitate God (interestingly, the text uses "God" and not "Jesus" as the focus)and love others as strongly as did Christ. The text preceding the lectionary selection contrasts the new life to that of the Gentiles, whose callous and hardened hearts would not allow this generosity of spirit to overtake them.

So, in summary, I think this says what it means and it means what it says. God wants us to treat other people well and in doing so, we will benefit because it is in doing this that we are in a right relationship with God.

Is it really more complicated than this?

Well, the stuff that always throws me is the immortality thing. I know that it is part of our belief system. My imagination goes there quite readily. But the language used here always throws me a bit. Exclusivity and immortality are there in spades.

There is more than benefit.
There is more than a suggested lifestyle change.

It is all much more comprehensive than that.

I see. I guess I've heard it so much that I never evaluate the context of immortality. I have always thought of our souls as immortal and that the only issue was whether we would be welcome in the Kingdom. In the move from Catholicism to Baptist(ism), I have interpreted the "saved by grace and faith" to supercede works to a degree that I have no way to view anyone as not being accepted into God's presence.

To the lifestyle change, I can't see that anyone who truly has faith wouldn't try to live their life in the way that Paul discusses. But God welcomes failures as well as successful people. If a person can't get the lifestyle right, but he or she believes and makes an effort, it should be enough. Faith should be lived, but there are degrees. I perceive the transformation to be specific for those not raised in the faith. Those of us brought up to know no other way need to think of transformation in contrast to conformity. What is the verse ... "Be ye not conformed unto the world, but be ye transformed". I'm not sure that's right, but I think it hits the mark.

Finally, to the point of benefit - I don't grasp your point. Everything is about benefit. If you believe because Jesus promises eternal life, that's a benefit. If you believe because you recognize that the unselfish life makes you feel rewarded in some psychological way, that's a benefit. And if you believe because you are afraid of the unknown, then assuming this knowledge provides you a benefit in the form of reduced fear. I'm not sure that we can understand anything outside of that context.

I also do not see the exclusivity. Jesus says that those who eat his bread will live forever. It doesn't say there is no alternative. Paul leads us to believe that there is an exclusive arrangement, but I find it difficult to accept Paul as the ultimate authority on 21st century life. I cannot accept that the Bible is the only valid communication tool used by God to offer mankind a path to reunification.

I'll miss these discussions when work gets busier.

Well, the John text comes out of a long sermon that has eucharistic overtones...and exclusivist claims. So, that is where I tend to gravitate. Ya cannot get to God except through Jesus. Ya cannot get to Jesus unless the Father calls. I do actually understand the Christian logic here. But the language always sets my teeth on edge. If only John had said it another way.

There is always more than benefit. Think about the rich young man who was asked to give up everything to follow God but could not. Perfection takes us beyond the benefits. And, yes, we are called to be perfect. It's a bitch. But there it is. The benefit then is for others. Certainly there is some "eternal reward" but this motivation, if one believes the writings of the saints, is expunged. The loss of self overcomes such desire for the self.

Resident Jew here-
"I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh"
So the living bread that came down from heaven. Like manah, in the dessert.
Manah, like Christ, can be seen as an active means to salvation.
Not only was manah FOOD, and sent from GOD, DIRECTLY (from above), but it had somewhat magical properties. it was evidently super-filling, and heck, twice the amount fell on Friday before sunset so no work on sabbath! Its the stuff that lets/encourages you to practive your faith actively as well as see it around you every day, and have it nourish your basic life of..well, eating. To eat manah was to acknowledge the greatness and vastness of god, the human dependency on god for the very stuff of life, and the community, as harvest is a communal effort. its probably debateable which was the greater gift in the desert- the guiding pillars, the torah, or the manah. you can wander around lost as long as you want with a never ending magicla food supply which quenches thirst and satisfies hunger (and a class 5 ranger with 3 spell casting points! teehee)
There's a saying in judaism that "every one of us was there at the foot of mount sinai"
meaning that in every jew (or peoples related to jews) there is a part of you, your soul/spirit, etc, that witnessed the giving of the torah at sinai (very platonic, almost).
So those who ate the manah have been given everlasting life. but its here on earth because we carry it with us every day. and to have the manah, ie: be encouraged to live faithful, active, faithful, communal lives, means that those people, and I, am, alive forever.

You could probably stretch the metaphor of the giving of the flesh to the mentality of most israeli military people- for their people to live FOREVER (as Jews often tend to think in eternity terms), they will give their lives because that is whats expected of them. ITs a give in that for an eternity of existence, a sacrifice must be made. for the memory of god giving the torah to us at sinai, some must die so that others can remember.

its a wee bit twisted like that. but you get the point.
Siyamti. I'm done. :-)

But I disagree. We are not called to be perfect. If anything, we are called to become perfect. When and how we get to perfection is open. Too much language in the gospels is about abolishing the differences between classes and blurring the differences between saints and sinners.

Benefits are measured in many ways. Jesus asks the rich man to abandon everything. He chose not to do so. One can argue that he simply could not comprehend the benefit being offered to him. The benefit one gets from service can only be seen in the doing, sometimes not even then.

Why does it matter so much to you that John said it the way he did? This is one of those places where the Bible is limited by its place in human history. Exclusivity was (and may still be) a way to defend one's specialness independent of God. It certainly would have been the way to guard against dissipation of the faithful after the death of Christ. But most religions say that only they wll be saved.

I'm going to bed. I'll reread this when I can focus and see if I embarassed myself.

Well, the exclusivity thing is exactly where John sits. He goes so far as to put the Word, who is Jesus, at the dawn of creation. The words of Christ are pretty clear in this as well...not in just this passage but elsewhere in John. Now, we can poopoo it and suggest that it is simply a manifestation of some cultural insecurity or we can take it seriously and see what grace there is in it.

Not that I think you are taking it this far, but there is a tendancy to make the early Christians "primatives" in a sense. They do not have the benefit of our sophistication, don't you know. They don't realize just how exclusivist they sound. I think that we may be prideful when we do this...actually, we become exclusivist when we do this. But that is another post.

It matters to me that Jhon said it the way he did because I take John seriously. He was/They were trying to convey in writing something very specific about God. There is an intended reader, if you will. Literary Criticism has several different schools of thought on this, but I tend to let the author critique me and not the other way around. Thus, what John says and what people have wrangled with for 2000 years matters greatly to me. I cannot come to the scriptures alone. There are already people within it and reading along with me.

Okay, I am off to eat breakfast and maybe even play golf with Doug H. Lovely.

Sarah S. This scripture is part of Jesus' midrash on manna. It is as you say, no different!

Whee!