Today we continue our reading of John chapter 6, one of the central treatments of the mystery of the Incarnation, the mystery of the Eucharist. Today we also have some of St Paul’s commentary on this mystery from his letter to the Ephesians. St Paul comments on the Incarnation and so the Eucharist through a reflection on Genesis, and in particular the creation of humanity, male and female, and so the sacrament of marriage. A few weeks ago, I spoke about considering the Eucharist in terms of intimacy, but these readings take this type of reflection to a whole new level.
The first thing to say about these readings is that they proclaim that creation as God’s work is good. Jesus is talking about his body, his flesh. St Paul is talking about the body, the flesh. Jesus leaves no room for doubt. Last week, he talked about people gnawing on his flesh. To Jewish people for whom blood made one ritually impure, he talks about drinking his blood. When people express shock at his choice of words, he doubles down. Jesus is not talking about some sign, some abstract symbol. He is really talking about his body and blood. This is how we become one with him: through his very humanity; and his humanity, like ours, is a bodily reality. And this is fundamentally good. It is of God.
St Paul reflects on this, and sees this unity reflected in the one flesh unity of husband and wife. The first part of our reading today is St Paul reflecting on the order of creation, a order that is reflected in the order of the sexes, a complementary order that is bound up in the vocation of humanity as a whole.
However, towards the end of today’s reading, he quotes a specific section of Genesis: “For this reason, a man must leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one body.” This specific line came to my mind this week as I was listening to a podcast about a new book by one of my favourite scripture scholars, a guy called Brant Pitre. He has just brought out a book on the Jesus’s claims to his own divinity.
Pitre says that one of the times that Jesus says he is God is when he says to his disciples, “Anyone who prefers father or mother to me is not fit to be my disciple.” Pitre says this would have been a startling claim to his disciples. Given the Ten Commandments, the only relationship that could be higher was that with God. Therefore, Jesus is claiming he is God.
But as soon as I heard him say that, I thought about this reading, the line in Genesis, Jesus’s use of it, and St Paul’s use of it here. St Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians recounts what he has been told of the Last Supper, how the Lord consecrated the bread and said this is my body. Somehow the Lord’s gift of himself is like marriage. For all time, he says that the Church is his body. He and the Church are one.
We saw this a while back during Easter and Pentecost, when Christ’s offering of himself revealed the truth behind Aaron’s sacrifice in Leviticus. Aaron’s offering is accepted by God when fire breaks forth from the Tabernacle consuming the sacrifice. At Easter, Christ offers his body to the Father, and at Pentecost fire breaks forth over our Lady and the Apostles, accepting the sacrifice of Christ’s Body, the Church. So, we see in the Eucharist, we are being made into Christ’s body, through his gift of himself to us.
One last thing. A friend of mine pointed out something strange in that saying from Genesis that St Paul quotes, “That is why a man will leave father and mother and be joined to his wife.” My friend said that in the ancient world, this never happened. It was always the woman who left her house to join the household of her husband. It was never the husband.
My friend said, this therefore was a theological point. Yes, Jesus says, You must leave father and mother and follow me. However, before he asks us to do that, he has left the Father and entered into sin to be with us. We can only go to him, because he has first come to us. As St John says, God loves us first. It is his love that purifies us. It is his love that calls us. It is his love that joins us to himself. And so his love that lifts us to communion with God, the life of the Trinity, the divine life.
All of this is happening at Mass. This is what the Eucharist is about. This is why the universe exists. Why there is something rather than nothing. And there is no substitute for it. This is how God chooses to unite us to God. This is God loving every part of us. This is why our bodies are sacred, why we are called to become the Body of Christ and the Temple of Holy Spirit. This is why God commands us to do this, to celebrate Mass each Sunday.
Let us never miss a moment to give thanks to God for this wonder. Let us never miss a moment to wonder on this glory now revealed to us. Let us never miss a moment to share this glory with the world. Glory to God.
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