Bread of Life IV — Covenant: The Whole Armor of God.
Proper 16, Year B

1 Kings 8: 1, 6, 10-11, 22-30. 41-43; Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18; Psalm 84;
Psalm 34:15-22; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69

Periodically, throughout the past three years of commentary, we reach a point where we need to touch base; review our theological rationale; remind ourselves what the purpose is.  The theological basis for these Liberal Christian Commentaries on the Revised Common Lectionary is as follows:

Four Questions For the Apocalypse

These questions address what might be seen as apocalyptic times for humanity on Planet Earth.  The 21st Century – much like the First Century – finds human social structures embroiled in political, social, spiritual, and theological issues that demand serious consideration of the answers to those questions.  Unlike the First Century, 21st Century humanity is also confronted with the distinct possibility of a holocaust that is not confined to individuals, tribes, or nations, but threatens the existence of planetary life as humanity has known it for 100,000 years.

1) What is the nature of God?  Violent or non-violent?
2) What is the nature of Jesus’ message?  Inclusive or exclusive?
3) What is faith?  Literal belief, or trust and commitment to the great work of distributive justice-compassion?
4) What is deliverance?  Salvation from hell, or liberation from injustice?

Two choices arise from the answers to these four questions.  If the answers are Violent, Exclusive, Literal belief, and Salvation from Hell, then the context for personal, social, and political life is Empire, and the theology of Empire, as defined by John Dominc Crossan in his work on the historical Jesus and the Apostle Paul:  Piety, War, Victory, Peace.

If the answers are Non-violent, Inclusive, Trust, and Liberation, then the context for personal, social, and political life is participation in the ongoing work (struggle) for distributive justice-compassion (Covenant).  The Covenant is with a non-theistic, kenotic god, a force which – in Crossan's words – is “the beating heart of the Universe, whose presence is justice and life, and whose absence is injustice and death” (In Search of Paul, pp. 288-291).

The detour the Elves have taken from the Gospel of Mark for the last five weeks seems to be designed to emphasize the orthodox belief system of the institutionalized Christian Church.  John’s Jesus could not be more clear: “I am the Bread of Life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).  “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51); “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.  Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died.  But the one who eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:56-59).  Each of these passages has been repeated twice in the lectionary readings for the last four Sundays.  These passages are the heart of Christian belief.  They are the pillars of the foundation for the institution of the sacrament of Eucharist.  They do not appear anywhere else in the New Testament, nor (surprisingly) are they repeated at any other time in the three-year sequence of readings.  (John 6:25-35 is used for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday in Year C, which is not a Sunday).

The traditional answers to the above-posed Four Questions for the Apocalypse Now have been that God is Violent; Jesus’s teachings are Exclusive; Faith is Literal belief; and Deliverance means Salvation from Hell in the next life.  This is the interpretation that has been applied to these passages from the Gospel attributed to John for nearly two millennia.  The consequences for world history have been immense, some good, some bad, depending upon which side any particular human civilization happened to be on.  Consequences for the natural world generally have fallen into the category of “collateral damage”: regrettable, but justifiable, when the number of human souls “saved” for “eternal life” is taken into account.

We cannot know what the writer of John’s Gospel really meant with the impassioned argument he put on Jesus’s lips in Chapter 6.  Nor can we know for certain whether verses 51-58 were added by a later leader of an early Christian community, which perhaps was in the process of institutionalizing Christian ritual – specifically, Eucharist.  We do not know whether the writer had Paul’s letters to the Corinthians on his writing desk. We might be able to assume that the writer knew the basic stories found in the synoptic gospels, but what he did with them is clearly his own (or others’) interpretation.

What we can do, however, is reclaim these arguments in the light of post-modern experience of the nature of God and the Universe.  Last week’s essay suggested one way to reclaim Eucharist. There have been others   (see* also).   These commentaries have interpreted the Readings for every Sunday in the light of the liberal answers to the four questions: God is Non-violent; Jesus’s message is radically Inclusive; Faith means Trust in God’s kenotic realm of distributive justice-compassion; and Deliverance means Liberation from injustice in this life.  The context for personal, social, and political life is participation in the ongoing work (struggle) for distributive justice-compassion (Covenant).

In their (probable) zeal to imply that Jesus offers “a new Covenant in my blood shed for you,” the Elves have cherry-picked an entire liturgy of readings that celebrate Covenant to accompany the one from John’s Gospel.  Joshua 24 relates the Covenant renewed at Shechem after the death of Moses: “[A]s for me and my household, we will serve the Lord . . .”  1 Kings 8 details the dedication of Solomon’s Temple, and the installation of God’s Ark into a permanent home at last.  Solomon’s prayer of dedication is all about keeping the Covenant.  Even the “foreigner, who is not of your people Israel” is included.  Psalm 34 continues on from Proper 15, assuring us that the Covenant is kept on God’s side as well:  “The Lord redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.”  Psalm 84 celebrates the residence of God – whether in the tents of a nomadic people, a cathedral on a hill, or the Earth itself.  Musicians can hear the choir singing the setting from the Brahms Requiem:  “How lovely is thy dwelling place O Lord of Hosts!”  Finally, pseudo-Paul – who may well have sold out to conventional piety with his letter to the Ephesians – nevertheless urges believers to sign on to the Covenant against the powers and principalities of the seen and the unseen imperial world.  Put on “the whole armor of God” to stand “against the wiles of the devil”  Onward Christian Soldiers!  Fight the Cosmic battle against “evil in the heavenly places.”

21st Century exiles from Christian orthodoxy may well find ourselves in the position of the followers of John’s Jesus, who responded to Jesus’s declaration with “This teaching is offensive.  Who can take it seriously?”  John’s Jesus throws up his hands in exasperation.  In a clear reference to the apocalyptic theology made popular in the synagogues of the 1st Century, Jesus retorts (Five Gospels translation, emphasis mine):  “Does this shock you then?  What if you should see the son of Adam going back up to where he was to begin with?”  He goes on: “The spirit is life-giving; mortal flesh is good for nothing.  The words I have used are ‘spirit’ and ‘life.’  Yet some of you still don’t [get it].”  We can only “get it,” Jesus says, if “the Father has granted it.”  In other words, if you don’t get it, you don’t get it.  If you can’t hear the call to Covenant, you cannot participate with Jesus in restoring that Covenant – establishing God’s Kingdom – on earth.

As a result of this declaration, John reports, many of the followers pulled out.  Perhaps he is referring to members of John’s Synagogue who could not get their minds around the idea that this Jesus was the longed-for Messiah, who could save the Jewish people from injustice and death.  Jesus then asks the remaining 12 if they want to leave as well?  Peter responds that Jesus indeed has the words that contain real life.  He speaks for them all when he says, “We are certain that you are God’s holy one.”  

The historical Jesus, however, was probably wise enough to realize that even among his most dedicated followers there would be at least one who was likely to sell out to the normalcy of every civilization’s systems of injustice (Empire).  The writer of John’s Gospel knew the story:  "The perhaps willfully blind 12 paid Jesus lip service, then deserted him at the first opportunity.  At least Mark’s Judas was honest.  He couldn’t believe Jesus’ way could possibly work, so he abandoned the company and turned Jesus in to the authorities."

For 21st Century exiles from the Christian faith, “getting it” is not about suspending disbelief in the resuscitation of a corpse.  “Getting it” is not about that suspension of disbelief being a ticket to the glory train that takes us into heaven instead of hell after we die.  “Getting it” is about realizing just exactly what the cost of discipleship is.

The cost to 21st Century exiles – whether from the Christian religion, or from conventional, social systems – is the radical abandonment of self-interest.  Just so that phrase does not start rolling off our tongues and keyboards with the same glib certainty as “Jesus died for our sins,” consider the following three major issues confronting humanity today.  1) Global Warming.  In only one aspect of this global problem – the continued mining of coal – What coal company wants to go out of business?  Who wants to pay money to sustainably dispose of the waste?  Who wants to give up the only source of income they have?  2) Health care.  Who in the U.S. health insurance industry – from executives to medical personnel to support staff – wants to lose their job?  Who wants to pay taxes to fund a universal, single-payer system?  Who wants to place the collective well-being above individual self-interest?  3) Criminal Justice/Death Penalty.  Who is willing to let go of the opportunity for judgment and revenge?  Who is willing to rehabilitate, re-educate, and forgive?

The writer of the letter to the Ephesians saw the struggle in cosmic terms – as a universal battle royal between the powers of light and the powers of darkness.  So did the writer of the Gospel of John.  It is not a bad metaphor for the human condition throughout the ages.  The danger is in surrendering to the metaphor, and doing nothing about the condition.  But that is not what the letter writer intends at all.  “Therefore take up the whole armor of God,” he wrote.  We have the power to transform our human destiny from death to life.  

First, we have “the belt of truth.”  In the 21st Century, we have access to an order of magnitude of verifiable truth that 1st or 2nd century folk had to rely on magic to know.  Next we have “the breastplate of righteousness” as “justice-compassion.”  The real protection for those who would speak truth to power is not retribution and revenge.  Next we must put on whatever it takes to make us ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.   “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,” sings Isaiah.  But it is not the uneasy peace that is the result of the Empire’s piety-war-victory theology.  

With all of these, the writer says, take the shield of faith:  not belief, but trust in the Covenant.  Take the helmet of salvation – a mind committed to liberation from injustice – and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word that promises non-violent justice-compassion and peace.

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