“This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

  “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”

The disciples are still reeling from the Bread of Life discourse that Jesus has just given them in John’s Gospel (JN 6: 60-69). …

“The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?’ ”

I can only imagine how scandalous this kind of talk must have been for anyone to hear at the time of Jesus, as we hear in John’s gospel story today (JN 6: 52-59).…

“Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up and struck the water: it divided, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground. When they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, “Request whatever I might do for you, before I am taken from you.”…

We’ve moved now into the Third week of Easter.  It is easy sometimes to forget that the Easter season is actually longer than Lent.  In the Scripture stories, we transition from the Easter events at the empty tomb, the Upper room and on the seashore, to the Gospel of John’s accounts of Jesus as the Bread of Life that will nourish and sustain us in our lives. …

No one likes to be told about their failings, faults, bad behavior, and inability to see the shortcomings at all – especially when the threat is not simply seen as a personal attack but experienced as an extreme criticism of the whole system that justifies the behavior in the first place.…