(The following questions have been developed in conjunction with my brief guide to Law and Gospel preaching, Afflicting the Comfortable, Comforting the Afflicted. These questions are not meant to be exhaustive, but they work well with a host of other exegetical questions which seek to unearth the meaning of a text.)
1. How does the Word function in the text? This text is almost pure promise and as so it functions primarily as Gospel. Look at all the promises: "whoever eats me will live forever; those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them; whoever eats me will live because of me; the one who eats this bread will live forever." There is one word of Law as well: "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." We need food to live!
2. How is the Word not functioning in the text? There is no call to obedience in this text. The call to obedience is the Word functioning to invite us to live in response to God's work in Christ. There is no such word here.
3. With whom are you identifying in the text? We are the hearers of this Word. We are the ones given these promises and assured that we have no life without the nourishing presence of Christ in our life. We might even try identifying with those who dispute the meaning of Jesus' words. Warning: trying to enter into a dispute about meaning might lead to an unhelpful tangent.
4. What Law/Gospel couplet is suggested by this text? There are a number of words in this text that naturally fall into couplets: dead/alive; not eating/eating; no life/life eternal; dying/living forever.
5. Exegetical work: Raymond Brown, in his classic commentary, brings to mind an interesting patristic interpretation of this text: "The Church Fathers recognized this contrast between the bread of life and the forbidden fruit in Genesis; for example, Gregory of Nyssa presented the eucharistic bread as an antidote to the forbidden fruit. And if the bread of life in vss. 35-50 primarily represents the revelation and knowledge that Jesus brings from above, then it is not unlike the knowledge of good and evil that the first man hungered after." (The Gospel According to John I-XII, p. 279) Gerard Sloyan offers some wisdom regarding how much we buy into a single interpretation of this text, noting that even Augustine "was found on all sides of the question [of interpretation]: urging eating as belief; assuming a sacramental eating; seeing the food and drink as symbolic members of a church predestined to glory - amongst other interpretations." Sloyan summarizes his thoughts with this statement: "Consequently, anyone who maintains publicly that any segment of this chapter bears but a single interpretation blunders through a misplaced certitude." (Interpretation Series, John, p.74) Craig Koester, in the appendix to his helpful book on Johannine symbolism argues convincingly that "to eat is to believe." (Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel, p. 103) Particularly helpful is his point that "taking eating as a synonym for faith also makes the passage consistent with the rest of John's gospel, and the NT generally..." (Ibid., p. 304-305)
6. How does the Crossings Community model work with this text? In the most recent post on this text, Bruce Modahl does a very fine analysis showing how our penchant to be "picky eaters" ends in our starvation. See crossings.org/text-study for the entire analysis.
7. Consider the insights of the pioneers of the New Homiletic? David Buttrick always cautioned preachers to count the number of 'moves' they made in the sermon. Our listeners can only absorb so many. This is always sound advice.
Blessings on your proclamation!
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