Jesus is telling the crowds, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” Those listening quarrel at the thought. Who would not put up a red flag after that? A red flag is used to warn of danger. When Jesus speaks of eating flesh and drinking blood he seems to warrant a red flag of danger. However, it is not Jesus who is a danger and needs to be red flagged. Rather, it is the soldiers who kill Jesus.
The soldier Pilate and his soldier underlings are the danger and they deserve the red flag. Their flag is truly red for theirs is a flag soaked in blood. They are practitioners of blood sacrifice. They practice it in their executions, such as that of Jesus. They practice it in their never-ending wars. After their warrior killing sprees it was the practice of soldiers to hold banquets in which they ate the flesh of those they conquered and drank their blood. In the Gospel, it is this gruesome practice Jesus is referring to and replacing. Jesus’ banquets, specifically his final meal or Last Supper, replaces the soldiers’ banquets. Jesus is replacing soldiers eating the flesh of dead people with disciples eating living grain from the field. Jesus is also replacing soldiers drinking the blood of dead people with disciples drinking wine. All in all, Jesus is replacing warmaking with peacemaking. Across the ages a vital practice from a vital earth nourishes us. Fighting against against communion, fighting against the earth and all vitality, are soldiers. Soldiers train under ranked command and fight against equality, shared communion. Soldiers are indoctrinated with the right to kill, trained in methods how to kill, and thus fight against vital pro-life practices. Soldiers, whatever their national flag or their troop: Army, National Guard, State Police, City Police, 2nd Amendment proponents, or gangs are steeped in supremacy and deadliness. The supremacy and deadliness of all soldiering can be nonviolently, peacefully brought to an end. Soldiering can be delegitimized politically, defunded financially, and desanctified theologically. It is soldiers with their many killing practices who are in danger and who are the danger, the red flag. They are a danger on battlefields abroad and at home. How many more of our brothers and sisters will we let kill and be killed? How many more will have their flesh rot on killing fields and their blood spilt in war zones?
“I was just turned twenty-one, And Henry Phipps, the Sunday-school superintendent, Made a speech in Bindle’s Opera House. “The honor of the flag must be upheld,” he said,… “And we cheered and cheered the speech and the flag… And I went to the war… But there were flies and poisonous things; And there was the deadly water, And the cruel heat, And the sickening, putrid food; And the smell of the trench just back of the tents Where the soldiers went to empty themselves; And there were the whores who followed us, full of syphilis; And beastly acts between ourselves or alone, With bullying, hatred, degradation among us, And days of loathing and nights of fear To the hour of the charge through the steaming swamp, Following the flag, Till I fell with a scream, shot through the guts. Now there’s a flag over me in Spoon River! A flag! A flag!” (Harry Wilmans – Edgar Lee Masters)
Prayer: Spirit, nourish us with life.
Question: With whom do I share the truth of the military and soldiering being a blood-soaked red flag?
June 14, 2020 Gospel John 6:51-58 Corpus Christi