The heaven-earth dilemma and the scandal of God-become-dirt
In his talk on the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, which has now amassed almost three million views on YouTube, Bishop Robert Barron calls Christ’s “bread of life” teaching in John 6 a “standing and falling point,” a stumbling block—an “either you’re with me or against me moment.”
That perilous edge can be found in the recent comments by YouTuber and Christian convert George Janko about the Eucharist. On his podcast (clip here, and full episode here), which has almost three million subscribers, Janko says,
I don’t look at things that are dirt and put it to the holiness of God. I could never do that. Differently with the Bible: I get uncomfortable when the Bible’s on the ground just because it’s the Word of God, and God was the Word and became flesh. . . . But like when they take the Eucharist, when they take this, and they truly believe that it is actually his Body and his Blood, to me, that’s a big no-no. . . . I need somebody to come with biblical terms and show me in the Gospel, because as of right now, we’re just taking dirt and worshiping it as if it’s our presence of God, and I just—I can’t wrap my head around that. . . . They treat it like it is actually my God that’s in that bread. I can’t get behind that. Now, if any man has a Scripture and says ‘No, this is exactly why,’ I will bow my head and I will bite my tongue. I’m never trying to go against God. But I think little movements like this could . . . move a man away from God.
In reacting to this dismissal of the Eucharist—which, though certainly not new, was amplified far and wide to hundreds of thousands of listeners—it would be easy enough for Catholic and Orthodox believers to fall into a fit of blind rage: “How dare he call the Eucharist dirt?”
But Janko seemed to make these comments in a spirit of good faith and honest questioning. Why not respond in kind?
