“Many of Jesus’ disciples who were listening said, ‘This saying is hard; who can accept it?’”

          After hearing St. Paul’s teaching on marriage – perhaps the most difficult reading of the entire three-year lectionary cycle, at least to our post-modern ears – we jump back to the Bread of Life Discourse and our Lord’s disciples’ reactions: “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Of course, the saying they are talking about is when our Lord tells them that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have life within them. A hard saying indeed: one that contradicts Jewish dietary laws and common sense, making Christ’s disciples into cannibals. The language He uses is graphic and descriptive, the Greek word for “eat” being the word used for a dog gnawing on a bone. But they could just as easily be responding to St. Paul’s teaching on marriage: A hard saying, difficult for many to accept.

          We saw two weeks ago that these themes of Christ’s gift of His body to us – the gift of Himself, a living person, and never a thing – and the proper use of our bodies, are closely connected. Christ’s gift of His body demands a conformity to that mystery in how we use our bodies. We saw that those words – “This is my body” – are sacrificial words and nuptial words.

          The reaction of the crowds to Christ’s words on the mystery of His Body and Blood helps us to understand how many will react to St. Paul’s words, and to the Church’s perennial teaching on the human body as normative for personal identity. The ones who walked away from our Lord because they could not accept that eating His flesh and drinking His blood are necessary for salvation were not just the crowds, though. St. John describes them as His disciples, as ones who have begun to put His teachings into practice in their lives, who have been following Him through the rough Judean countryside, and listening to Him teach and preach without food and drink. They, “returned to their former way of life.”

          Christians who do not believe in Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist will interpret this admonition to eat His flesh and drink His blood as a metaphor for relying completely on Him and on nothing else. But would this be that different from what He has already taught them? Already, He has kicked the money changers out of the Temple, establishing Himself as a higher authority than the Temple sacrifices (which is to say, as more important than that which the Jews held most sacred in the world). He has told Nicodemus that people who do not believe in Him are “condemned.” He has consorted with the terrible Samaritans – that should have made them walk away! The Jews are already trying to put Him to death for claiming God as His Father and thus having the authority to break the Sabbath. And now people are walking away because He used an odd metaphor to tell them that they need to rely more completely on Him? I’m not buying it.

          This is one of only two places where we clearly see people walking away from the Lord: in His teaching on His body and blood, and at His arrest at Gethsemane, the beginning of His Passion, the beginning of that second “this is my body” on the Cross.

          So, it should not surprise us at all those who have previously followed Him and His Church have chosen to walk away not only over the mystery of His Body, but over the mystery of the human body, and especially the human body as normative for personal identity and for the nature of marriage – since, as we’ve seen these past few weeks, those two mysteries are so closely interrelated. In our own day, so many who previously followed Him have decided that receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord in Holy Communion is not worth it, if that gift comes through a Church they see as bigoted and “on the wrong side of history.”

          The political landscape around the human body and marriage has changed rapidly in our country. In 2008, only 16 years ago, the state of California voted to amend its constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. By 2022, seven years after its national legalization, same-sex marriage enjoyed the support of 71 percent of Americans. Unsurprisingly, this support is strongest among young people. In 2021, 80 percent of Gen-Z young adults favored same-sex marriage, compared to 72 percent of 30s and 40s Millennials, 64 percent of late forties to early sixties Gen-Xers, and 59 percent of Baby Boomers. By last year, those numbers were stable, except for the youngest group, Gen-Z, where it decreased to 69 percent – likely reflecting a widening ideological gender gap in American young adults.

          While celebrations certainly are premature, some political scientists are noting that the rapid increase in support for same-sex marriage has stalled out. Those who are going to be convinced have been, and some of those who are suffering the worst consequences of the sexual revolution are starting to question whether it was really such a great idea.

          The dire predictions that everyone except an infinitesimal minority is going to accept same-sex marriage resemble the similarly dire predictions that no one attends church. Both are wrong. While those identifying as having a religious affiliation have declined significantly, a significant portion of the US population still attends religious services weekly. There is even evidence that Millennials’ church participation is increasing as they marry and have children, contrary to expectations. There is also evidence that the rapid rise in religious non-affiliation (the “nones” – N O N E) has also tapered off. Which is to say, the ones who, in March of 2020, already had one foot out the door have largely decided to walk the rest of the way out of it. But that big wave may be passed.

          It is in this context that the Lord turns to you just as He turned to Peter: “Do you also want to leave?” Even for those of us who believe, who believe that the Eucharist really is the Lord’s Body and Blood, who really believe that this is the Church founded by Jesus Christ, who really believe that the human person is made in God’s image and likeness and the ordering of her body and soul ought to be respected – we can be tempted to say yes, that from time to time, we might want to leave too. You might want to leave because of lazy clergy, dull preaching, shepherds who do not protect their flock; or because of the ongoing spat with the person across the aisle who used to be your friend; or because you are trying to wrap your head around a Church that claims to open Her arms to everyone but still feels so exclusive.

          There might be times when you too want to walk away, but here, Simon Peter shifts the reply, and focuses not just on what he wants to do, but what he will do: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Peter and the other Apostles probably do not understand any better than the disciples who are walking away how it could really be the case that Christ will give them His flesh to eat and His blood to drink, and how doing so could be necessary for eternal life. But they have been convinced by an encounter with this incredible man, they have seen just how different He is, something deep inside and unexplainable has caught fire, and they are willing to trust.

          This is the Lord’s invitation to you today: though you still don’t totally understand, though you still have doubts, hesitations, and fears – are you willing to trust Him, to recognize that all that He has done in your life is real, and to boldly profess that only He has the words of eternal life?

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

XXI Sunday through the Year, A.D. MMXXIV