![\"bread\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1222\/2021\/08\/SJ2130.png\")
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Our reading this week comes from the gospel of John,<\/p>\n
Then Jesus declared, \u201c<\/span>I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty . . . At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, \u201c<\/span>I am the bread that came down from heaven.\u201d They said, \u201c<\/span>Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, \u2018<\/span>I came down from heaven\u2019<\/span>?\u201d \u201cStop grumbling among yourselves,\u201d Jesus answered. \u201c<\/span>No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: \u2018<\/span>They will all be taught by God.\u2019<\/span> Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.\u201d (John 6:35, 41-51)<\/p>\n Our passage this week starts a chain of \u201cI am\u201d statements that are unique to the gospel of John. There are six more in this version of the Jesus story, seven in total. In John 8:12, Jesus states, \u201cI am the light of the world.\u201d In John 8:58, he says, \u201cI existed before there was an Abraham.\u201d In John 10:11, he says, \u201cI am the good shepherd,\u201d and in John 11:25, he says \u201cI am the resurrection and the life.\u201d In John 14:6, he says, \u201cI am the way, and I am the truth, and I am life,\u201d and lastly, in John 15:1, he says, \u201cI am the authentic vine.\u201d<\/p>\n Robert Funk explains that John\u2019s Greco-Roman audience would have recognized this series as an \u201cestablished formula in speech attributed to one of the gods\u201d (p. 419, The Five Gospels<\/i>). <\/i>For John\u2019s Jewish audience, these sayings could have echoed Yahweh\u2019s words to Moses: \u201c I am who I am\u201d (Exodus 3:14). Both associations would have highly honored the Jewish Jesus by whom many who encountered him had their lives changed forever.<\/p>\n But also note two things. John\u2019s language about \u201cthe Jews\u201d has proven deeply harmful to our Jewish siblings. We must be careful in how we read, understand, and use this passage, and we must not use it to harm Jewish people.<\/p>\n Another problematic phrase is, \u201cNo one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.\u201d This seems to contradict the synoptic Jesus who accused those in control of the status quo of having established a monopoly on knowing<\/i> God: \u201cDamn you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have blocked those who were entering.\u201d (Luke 11:52) There is much to ponder here.<\/p>\n Can we reclaim this passage in our lectionary reading for this week?<\/p>\n We\u2019ll begin unpacking this passage in Part 2.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Can we reclaim this passage in our lectionary reading for this week?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2229,732,729,305,2596],"tags":[2829,528,2611,1056,2832,73,1842,2824,2720,2049,284,323,777,188,58,2835,70],"class_list":["post-3727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-justice","category-economic-justice","category-liberation-theology","category-nonviolence","category-social-justice","tag-bread-of-life","tag-community","tag-ecological-justice","tag-economic-justice","tag-eternal","tag-feminism","tag-immigration-justice","tag-john-62-35","tag-lectionary-reading","tag-lgbtq-justice","tag-liberation-theology","tag-mutual-aid","tag-racial-justice","tag-sharing","tag-social-justice","tag-temporary","tag-womanism"],"yoast_head":"\n