August 22, 2021
XXI Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B
At the end of Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel, we see a double reaction from the disciples: Jesus’ words are for some a cause of scandal and defection, and for others, quite the reverse, a reason for a new allegiance to the Lord, an occasion for a renewed choice in following the Master.
Both are disciples: they are not people who are there by chance, they are not the crowd, they are not the people who occasionally listen to Him. They are the very disciples, those who followed Him, attracted by His words and actions.
So, we have two opposing pictures, each marked by some key words.
The first picture (John 6:59-66) ends with a bitter expression by the evangelist on the abandonment of the disciples: “ From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him” (Jn 6:66).
From this phrase, we gather three elements, all three completely opposed to the experience of discipleship.
The first is in the expression, “from that time”, “from this, because of it”, and it says that, in the life of these disciples, that moment is a turning point and they must make a decision. There is a new and important revelation, which they however were unable to integrate and accept. This revelation that Jesus has made of Himself as a food that nourishes for eternal life, instead of consolidating the path of discipleship, blocked it.
They considered it too “hard” (Jn 6:60), and halted before accepting it. And this tells us that the path of the disciple is never guaranteed once and for all, rather: the initial decision to follow the master must correspond to the capacity to accept the self-revelation of God in history, a self-revelation that can never be taken for granted and that calls for the heart to let itself be transformed. Only on this basis are His words not a scandal.
The second is that the disciples “went back”: an expression that tells of all the discouragement, delusion, failure. We will find this very expression later in the Gospel of John, Chapter 20, when Peter and John, after seeing the empty tomb, turn back because they did not understand the Scripture (Jn 20:9-10). And it is the same experience of the Emmaus disciples, or the rich young man: all individuals called to make a transition, to accept a revelation, to take a direction.
The expression “behind” used by John is the same expression that the evangelists use to speak of discipleship, to speak of following “behind”Jesus. But here this same expression ceases to be following Jesus to simply indicate the going back, chasing after previous things, things that made up the life of the disciples prior to “that time”.
The disciples lost an occasion, and not any occasion: if that bread, which Jesus offers, is for life, then their going back leads to death.
The third element is still more dramatic, because it says that “they no longer went with him”. If all Jesus’ words were aimed at bringing the disciples to the experience of intimacy with him, just as He is in intimacy with the Father (Jn 6:56-57), these words are about a life that ceases to be what it was called to be, a life that loses all its meaning, its beauty, its unheard-of potential.
In contrast to this dramatic picture, there is that which relates to the Twelve (Jn 6:67-69), they themselves are called to a choice, like the other disciples.
In the name of all, it is Peter who speaks their direction. The expression used by Peter (“to whom shall we go?), is identical to that used before to indicate the defection of the disciples: also to say that for them the words were hard, and there is also a scandal for them to face and an obstacle to overcome. But if the first ones choose to face it by turning their backs to the Lord, they, on the contrary, face it going towards Him. This is the big difference, and it is there that faith grows and matures: only this way do the words of Jesus become words for life.
To this understanding, the Twelve have come through the path indicated by two verbs: we believed and came to know. That is, we let ourselves be drawn (Jn 6:43,65), we trusted and experienced that this trusting brings life.
Jesus reveals Himself here as One who is equally at home in heaven and on earth (And what if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? – 62). He is a citizen of both. He is the Word made flesh and this flesh and this blood are vehicles of the interior life of the Word. Flesh alone profits nothing, as it says in verse 63. But when flesh is clothed with the life of God, with the Word that is God, it makes sense to speak of it in the way that Jesus has just done. Jesus invites His disciples to go beyond the material understanding of what He has revealed, and to accept His revelation according to the Spirit.
At the beginning of the chapter, immediately after the account of the multiplication of the loaves and before the long dialogue on the bread of life, there is an event that the Sunday Liturgy omits, but which is perhaps the key to reading the entire passage. It’s the episode of crossing the lake of Tiberias in the storm (Jn 6:16-21).
The way to arrive at believing and knowing actually resembles a stormy crossing, an experience where one closely touches death, and where one must admit one’s inability to reach, by oneself, the other shore.
There, the Lord reaches us, in a way that we do not expect and that speaks of His sovereignty over evil and death; and if we do not let fear and discouragement conquer us, then our life rediscovers its meaning and fullness.
We could say that the disciples who abandoned following the Lord have not reached the other shore, have not completed their crossing.
The Twelves yes! Not by their merits, but by having continued to listen to this word that He spoke: “It is I, do not be afraid” (Jn 6:20).
+ Pierbattista
