Jesus is God-with-us, which means he is Love-with-us. He is, in person, the ideals that we have about love.

Jesus says that the bread he will give for the life of the world is his flesh. As they hear this, the Jews who are against him say: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” And his answer seems to say that his teaching is not about ideas or ideals, but about facts or reality. For he doubles down and says, “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”

And we see similar lack of belief in Jesus’ relatives and in the scribes. For his relatives do no grasp why he lets the crowd press upon him so that he cannot eat. And the scribes do not grasp how he can drive out demons.

That is to say, both the relatives and the scribes cannot match the wonders he does with his being a man. For they do not know that what we cannot do, we may just be able to do by God’s grace. Hence, his relatives just take it that he has gone mad. And the scribes, theologians that they are, try to show, though lacking logic, that he drives out demons by the prince of demons.

But, yes, by the grace of God, utopia is reality and ideals are facts. And, indeed, by the love of God made flesh, our ideals about love come true. For the one who is Love-with-us is all about doing good. About making the world and life a search for service and fellowship that does not stop.

And, of course, he does not settle for “equivalence”; he goes past do ut des, past “I give to you so you may give to me.” And generous in an outrageous way, he loves to the end, to giving up his body and shedding his blood.

Lord Jesus, help us to see that what seems foolish and means little in our eyes is wisdom in the sight of God (SV.EN XI:118). Make true in our lives the ideals that come to us as we listen to you. We will thus know where we are and believe, and so, speak.

9 June 2024
10th Sunday in O.T. (B)
Gen 3, 9-15; 2 Cor 4, 13 – 5, 1; Mk 3, 20-35