Pentecost 12 B: Meeting the Carnal God

John 6:51-58 Dear Partner, I’ll confess that there are times as I read the upcoming texts and prepare this letter to you that I am temtped to think – as, I imagine, many people (and perhaps some in our pews) think – that the Bible has precious little to do with real life. This week was one of those weeks. I mean, here we are, stuck in the middle of this argument between Jesus and the crowd who was following him about bread from heaven and Jesus’ nearly unintelligible and rather grotesque assertions about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Biblical scholars, I realize, can show that behind these verses a controversy rages...