# Do You Accept This Teaching_ - Bishop Barron's Daily Sermon

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 25 Jul 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73038741/do_you_accept_this_teaching_bishop_barron_s_sunday_sermon.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you friends. We come now to the
[0:03] Speaker 1: close of this great discourse of Jesus in the sixth
[0:07] Speaker 1: chapter of John. The Church has been drawing us through
[0:09] Speaker 1: this pivotal text, and we come to the conclusion I
[0:12] Speaker 1: mentioned last week was sort of the climax of the discourse,
[0:15] Speaker 1: when Jesus talks about what we call the real presence.
[0:18] Speaker 1: But in a way this is as interesting because we
[0:20] Speaker 1: see the after effects of it. We see, Okay, having
[0:24] Speaker 1: laid this out, what happens. Well, listen now as the
[0:29] Speaker 1: passage for today commences. Many of jesus disciples who were
[0:34] Speaker 1: listening said, this saying is hard. Who can accept it?
[0:40] Speaker 1: Mind you, he's not talking to his enemies here. Jesus
[0:44] Speaker 1: had plenty of enemies, people that were just really out
[0:46] Speaker 1: to get them. These weren't his enemies. He's talking to
[0:49] Speaker 1: his disciples. I don't mean the inner band of the twelve,
[0:52] Speaker 1: but I mean this wider band of people that they
[0:55] Speaker 1: were with him, watching his miracles, listening to his teaching,
[1:00] Speaker 1: you know, basking in the glow of his presence. These
[1:02] Speaker 1: are his friends. But they've they've heard this discourse now
[1:07] Speaker 1: about the real presence. They've heard the objectors. Remember last
[1:12] Speaker 1: week he said, well, wait a minute, how can this
[1:14] Speaker 1: man give us his flesh to eat? And they were
[1:16] Speaker 1: hoping he would say, oh, look, I'm just speaking metaphorically here.
[1:20] Speaker 1: They wanted symbol and metaphor maybe, But then he gave
[1:23] Speaker 1: them a kind of in your face realism when he
[1:27] Speaker 1: meets the objections, he says, unless you gnaw on the
[1:30] Speaker 1: flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
[1:32] Speaker 1: which is repugnant I mentioned last week, repugnant to Jews
[1:37] Speaker 1: that you have no wife in you. Can you see?
[1:40] Speaker 1: Can you sense? I don't want to judge them. I
[1:42] Speaker 1: want just to move into their their position here that.
[1:45] Speaker 1: Of course, they were kind of exasperated. Wait a minute.
[1:48] Speaker 1: We love this guy, he's great, and we love what
[1:50] Speaker 1: he's saying. But this teaching again, it's hard. Who can
[1:56] Speaker 1: accept it? Well, here's something I want to see too.
[2:01] Speaker 1: Jews of Jesus time, as Jews of today, as Christians
[2:05] Speaker 1: of today too, are very comfortable with metaphorical speech. You know,
[2:11] Speaker 1: the old Testaments fill with metaphors. Look in the psalms
[2:14] Speaker 1: and the prophets. You know, the Lord's my shepherd, and
[2:17] Speaker 1: God is a rock, and there's all sorts of like
[2:20] Speaker 1: a consuming fire. It uses metaphorical language all the time.
[2:24] Speaker 1: Jews were very poetic people. Again, the Psalms are prime examples.
[2:31] Speaker 1: If Jesus were just trading therefore in symbol and metaphor,
[2:36] Speaker 1: why would they have objected so strenuously. Why would even
[2:41] Speaker 1: his friends have walked away? Why wouldn't they say, like, well, yeah,
[2:45] Speaker 1: he's just talking symbolically. What are you guys getting so
[2:48] Speaker 1: excited about. I mean, let's say I brought out, you know,
[2:52] Speaker 1: an American flag on the fourth July, and I said,
[2:55] Speaker 1: this is America. Well you don't know what I mean.
[2:59] Speaker 1: I didn't mean that flag is the sum total of America.
[3:02] Speaker 1: I mean, it's a symbol of America. I remember when
[3:05] Speaker 1: I was a little kid, my father impressed upon us
[3:08] Speaker 1: when we were little that you don't let the flag
[3:10] Speaker 1: touch the ground because it symbolizes America. And it's for
[3:14] Speaker 1: some reason that got into our little hearts and minds,
[3:17] Speaker 1: and so my brother and I like, we wouldn't let
[3:19] Speaker 1: the flag, we had these little flags, let them touch
[3:21] Speaker 1: the ground because it's a powerful symbol. But I mean,
[3:24] Speaker 1: no one thought that's really America. Or you know, if
[3:28] Speaker 1: your mom brings out the Thanksgiving meals. She's working all
[3:32] Speaker 1: day on it, and she says, you know, I put
[3:34] Speaker 1: my whole self into this meal. Well, we don't know
[3:38] Speaker 1: what she means. It doesn't mean that that her entire
[3:40] Speaker 1: self has become the turkey and mashed potatoes. That meal
[3:45] Speaker 1: is the symbolic evocation of her devotion to the family.
[3:48] Speaker 1: I mean, of course, can you imagine if my mother
[3:50] Speaker 1: said that and some of the table, you know, pushed
[3:53] Speaker 1: the chair back, and I am indignant, I am leaving
[3:56] Speaker 1: this room. How could she possibly say that? Well, you say, said,
[4:00] Speaker 1: it's a metaphor. So what explains the fact that the
[4:07] Speaker 1: people who heard Jesus give this discourse, who are well
[4:11] Speaker 1: acquainted with metaphor and symbol deep in their own tradition,
[4:18] Speaker 1: why would they have walked away? Well? I think part
[4:21] Speaker 1: of it is because they tried to get him to say, oh, no,
[4:25] Speaker 1: I'm talking about a symbol, and he wouldn't. He wouldn't
[4:30] Speaker 1: He clarified for them so unambiguously what he meant. And
[4:36] Speaker 1: I think to everybody, you know, we're reading this through
[4:38] Speaker 1: two thousand years of history and of theology and spirituality
[4:42] Speaker 1: and interpretation. Put yourself back in that moment. You're in
[4:46] Speaker 1: the Capartum synagogue, and you love him, yours disciple, and
[4:49] Speaker 1: you're hearing him speak. There must have been something in
[4:54] Speaker 1: his tone, in the way he was saying it were
[5:00] Speaker 1: they knew. Okay, okay, he's not talking about a symbol here,
[5:06] Speaker 1: He's talking about something else. He's at another level of reality.
[5:13] Speaker 1: In other words, my point is, they got it. They
[5:16] Speaker 1: got it. They understood how weird and radical this language was,
[5:20] Speaker 1: which is why they got up to leave. All right. Now,
[5:26] Speaker 1: let's keep pressing it now in a positive way of
[5:29] Speaker 1: uncovering what this means. Jesus says, what if you were
[5:36] Speaker 1: to see the son of Man ascending to where he
[5:40] Speaker 1: was before? See? Does this shock you? Well? Obviously it did.
[5:45] Speaker 1: So what if you were to see the son of
[5:47] Speaker 1: Man ascending to where he was before? Okay, I guess
[5:51] Speaker 1: he's like Jeremiah or Isaiah or Ezekiel or Abraham or Moses.
[5:56] Speaker 1: No he's not. That's the point. See, I think of
[6:00] Speaker 1: all the great heroes of Israel I've just mentioned in
[6:03] Speaker 1: all the other ones, patriarch's prophets, seers, sages, poets, all
[6:06] Speaker 1: the great his heroes of Israel. We reverenced them. Yes,
[6:11] Speaker 1: they taught us great things. Yes, they were loved by
[6:14] Speaker 1: the people, Yes, but nobody thought nobody thought that they
[6:21] Speaker 1: were divine. They were spokespersons for God, they were bearers
[6:25] Speaker 1: of God's word. They were all flawed, right, Think of
[6:29] Speaker 1: everyone I named, all the heroes of Israel, Isaiah, Jeremiah,
[6:33] Speaker 1: read those books of Prophecy, and the flaws of the
[6:36] Speaker 1: people themselves. Jeremiah, don't call me, I'm too young. You know, Abraham, Moses,
[6:45] Speaker 1: who's a deeply compromised character, David, who's an adulter and
[6:48] Speaker 1: a murderer. I mean, all the heroes of Israel they
[6:52] Speaker 1: know are not God. Then there's Jesus. Does this shock
[6:58] Speaker 1: you what I said? What if you were to see
[7:01] Speaker 1: the Son of Man ascending to where he was before.
[7:06] Speaker 1: He's the one who, in this absolutely unique way, has
[7:12] Speaker 1: come down from heaven like the manna, you know, But
[7:18] Speaker 1: now I myself am the living bread, come down from heaven.
[7:23] Speaker 1: What if you saw him ascending to where he was before.
[7:26] Speaker 1: In other words, if you saw who he really is,
[7:32] Speaker 1: you'd get this. Remember I mentioned last week, you know
[7:35] Speaker 1: what God says is That's why that's the difference. I
[7:40] Speaker 1: see the Christian life. We read everything through the lens
[7:44] Speaker 1: of Emmanuel Kant. That story for another time. Kant was
[7:47] Speaker 1: the philosopher who tended to reduce religion to ethics. Religion's
[7:52] Speaker 1: all about being a nice person, having a heart of gold.
[7:56] Speaker 1: But that's not it. That's not biblical religion. Biblical Christianity
[8:02] Speaker 1: is about conforming ourselves to the Son of God, what
[8:08] Speaker 1: the Church Father is called deification. See, that's it being
[8:12] Speaker 1: a nice person. I mean, that's great. I'm all in
[8:14] Speaker 1: favor of being a nice person. I'm not against it.
[8:17] Speaker 1: But that's such a banal, flattened out reading of the
[8:22] Speaker 1: Christian spiritual life. The Christian spiritual life is about listen,
[8:26] Speaker 1: being so conformed unto Christ that I begin to share
[8:31] Speaker 1: in his own divinity. Thomas Aquinas called this deaficacio in
[8:38] Speaker 1: his Latin deification deification becoming conformed unto God. What's the Eucharist, Oh,
[8:48] Speaker 1: a nice symbol of Jesus teaching. No, Jesus' real presence,
[8:55] Speaker 1: his real body, blood, soul, and divinity meant to be
[9:01] Speaker 1: consumed so that we become conformed unto Him. We become
[9:08] Speaker 1: lifted up, divinized, sanctified in the most radical sense possible.
[9:17] Speaker 1: That's why ecclesia, Deucharistia, the church comes from the Eucharist.
[9:22] Speaker 1: It's the means by which we are deified. See if
[9:26] Speaker 1: you saw this on a man returning to where he
[9:29] Speaker 1: was before, you get this, that's the point. See does
[9:32] Speaker 1: it shock you? Are you quarreling? Are you leaving me?
[9:35] Speaker 1: It's because you don't really understand who I am and
[9:42] Speaker 1: what the eating and drinking of my body and blood
[9:45] Speaker 1: is all about. See that we're right, everybody at the
[9:49] Speaker 1: heart of the program here. So again he says this,
[9:56] Speaker 1: and what do we hear? And it's lovely. This is
[9:58] Speaker 1: a historical accident, but maybe in God's providence. It's John
[10:02] Speaker 1: six six six, John six, verse sixty six. So read
[10:08] Speaker 1: that any why you want to. John sixty sixty six.
[10:11] Speaker 1: It says many of his disciples return to their former
[10:14] Speaker 1: way of life and no longer accompanied him. This is
[10:18] Speaker 1: one of the most pivotal moments. I always find this
[10:22] Speaker 1: passage like, not just this, it doesn't just stand me.
[10:25] Speaker 1: It's almost frightening. Jesus, they love him, you know, boy,
[10:30] Speaker 1: he's great, right, you know he's he's healing the sick,
[10:31] Speaker 1: and he's teaching these wonderful things, and you know, moment
[10:34] Speaker 1: at the well and all this, But then he lays
[10:37] Speaker 1: out this teaching and many of his disciples, not enemies,
[10:43] Speaker 1: his disciples wouldn't walk with them. I'll state it bluntly, everybody,
[10:50] Speaker 1: the EU Christ has always been a rising or falling point,
[10:53] Speaker 1: standing or falling point of Christianity. Are you with him?
[10:58] Speaker 1: Are you against him? Do you accept this doctrine or
[11:03] Speaker 1: don't you? And it makes all the difference. This is why,
[11:07] Speaker 1: by the way, I won't be able to dwell on it.
[11:09] Speaker 1: But why the church couples this reading with this passage
[11:13] Speaker 1: from Joshua chapter twenty four. As a lover Bob Dylan,
[11:17] Speaker 1: I love this because it's behind his famous song You've
[11:19] Speaker 1: got to serve somebody, you know what Joshua says, Well,
[11:23] Speaker 1: you know you you can. People can serve the gods
[11:25] Speaker 1: of this area. But for me and my family, we
[11:28] Speaker 1: are going to serve the Lord. So Bob Dylan's take
[11:31] Speaker 1: on that was you might be the devil, might be
[11:33] Speaker 1: the Lord, but you got to serve somebody. That's right.
[11:36] Speaker 1: By the way, Well, the church couples see what this
[11:39] Speaker 1: mysterious passage, because it is standing or fallowing? Do you
[11:44] Speaker 1: do you buy who I am, and what the Eucharist means?
[11:49] Speaker 1: Or don't you We got to decide, we got to decide. Well,
[11:55] Speaker 1: and then for me, one of the most dramatic moments
[11:59] Speaker 1: in the New t follows Jesus then turned to the twelve.
[12:05] Speaker 1: So a lot of his disciples have left. But now
[12:08] Speaker 1: he turns to the inner circle, the apostles the twelve.
[12:13] Speaker 1: Do you also want to leave? Can you handle this
[12:17] Speaker 1: teaching or not? And what's going to happen. I don't
[12:22] Speaker 1: think it was entirely clear. What if his inner circle
[12:26] Speaker 1: has said, yeah, Lord, you're great, but I just can't
[12:31] Speaker 1: handle this teaching. You know, what had happened, the church
[12:34] Speaker 1: would have ended. That would have been the end of it.
[12:38] Speaker 1: But we have now. It's John's version of Peter's confession
[12:43] Speaker 1: in the Synoptics. Remember, Peter says, no, Lord, you're the
[12:47] Speaker 1: son of the Living God. You're the Messiah. And that's
[12:49] Speaker 1: Peter's great confession. That's why Jesus says, you boy, Peter,
[12:52] Speaker 1: You're the rock and I'm gonna give you the keys. Well,
[12:55] Speaker 1: this is John's version of it because he turns to
[12:57] Speaker 1: the twelve. In the other gospels like who do people say?
[13:01] Speaker 1: I am? And then who do you say, I am, Well,
[13:03] Speaker 1: it's a similar question. Do you want to leave me too?
[13:07] Speaker 1: Over this teaching? And then Peter, to his infinite credit
[13:12] Speaker 1: and through the grace of God, says, Lord, to whom
[13:15] Speaker 1: shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.
[13:19] Speaker 1: Peter speaking for the church. Listen up and down the
[13:24] Speaker 1: ages that says Lord, No, we're not gonna go. We're
[13:29] Speaker 1: not gonna abandon you. You've got the words of everlasting life.
[13:32] Speaker 1: And so even if we don't fully understand this, we're
[13:36] Speaker 1: with you. So as we come to the end of
[13:39] Speaker 1: this discourse, this reading of John Six's, that's the question
[13:43] Speaker 1: for every one of us. Are you gonna leave me
[13:47] Speaker 1: too over this? Do you reject this teaching or do
[13:51] Speaker 1: you accept it? That's the question, And God bless you.

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