⁵¹ I da real bread. I da one dat can make peopo come alive fo real kine. I wen come down from da sky. Anybody take dis bread, dey goin live to da max foeva. Dis da bread I goin give wen I mahke, my body. An dis goin make you live to da max foeva.”

⁵² Den da Jewish guys wen start fo argue mo hard wit each odda. Dey say, “Eh, wat dis guy talking bout? How he can give us his body fo eat?”

⁵³ Jesus tell dem, “Eh, you guys get um! An I like tell you guys dis too: I da Guy Dass Fo Real. If you guys no take wat I telling you guys bout why I goin mahke, no way you guys goin come alive fo real kine. If you guys take um, dass jalike you guys eat my body an drink my blood. ⁵⁴ Jalike I wen say: Whoeva eat my body an drink my blood, dey goin live to da max foeva, an I goin bring um back alive wen da world goin pau. ⁵⁵ Cuz my body, dass food fo real kine. An my blood, dass drink fo real kine. ⁵⁶ Whoeva eat my body an drink my blood lidat, dey stay tight wit me, an I stay tight wit dem. ⁵⁷ Da Fadda stay live fo real kine, an he wen send me hea. I stay live too, cuz he make me live fo real kine. Whoeva take me, same ting, dey goin live, cuz I goin make dem live fo real kine. ⁵⁸ Dis not jalike da manna kine bread dat yoa ancesta guys wen eat, an bumbye dey wen mahke. Dis da kine bread dat wen come from God in da sky. Whoeva eat dis kine bread goin live fo real kine.”

John 6:51-58 (HWP)

Dear God, this translation is so good for me as I try to look at scripture that I’ve read over and over again in a fresh way. This is definitely a fresh way.

So where my traditional English translations say, “…live forever,” this translation says, “…live fo real kine.” Interesting.

I attend Catholic church with my wife, but I am not Catholic. It’s the doctrine of transubstantiation that is the hurdle I cannot clear. I won’t go into why I can’t get to where I believe it here. Perhaps I don’t have enough faith that you would do something like that multiple times a day all over the world. Maybe it’s a flaw in me, and I have built my arguments around that. Or perhaps my arguments are legitimate and I am right and 2,000 years of Catholic theology is wrong. I don’t know. Frankly, it really doesn’t matter at this point. Am I taking your bread and wine/grape juice and remembering you and your sacrifice representationally, or am I literally ingesting your body and blood transubstantially (I might have just made that word up)? The real question is, am I living “fo real kine?”

Looking back at every time the HWP uses “real kine” and how it compares to the words the traditional English translation (NLT) use is interesting.

• Verse 51: forever = fo real kine
• Verse 53: Guy Das Fo Real = Son of Man; fo real kine = eternal life
• Verse 55: body, das food fo real kine = flesh is true food; blood, das drink fo real kine = blood is true drink
• Verse 57: Da Fadda stay live fo real kine = Living Father who sent me; he make me live fo real kine = I live because; I goin make dem live fo real kine = will live because of me
• Verse 58: Whoeva eat dis kine bread goin live fo real kine = Anyone who eats this bread…will live forever

So it seems the translators use the same words to communicate what traditional English would call both truth/true and forever/eternal life.

As for what I’m thinking right now, you, Jesus, are for real. You are the real kine. You are the Guy Das Fo Real. Your flesh and blood are part of the truth of who you are. It transcends transubstantiation. I guess that’s the biggest problem I have with transubstantiation. It’s too limiting on what you are. It wasn’t your body and blood that made you special. It was your indwelling Spirit and Deity in that body and blood that made it special. And when I take representational communion as opposed to transubstantiated eucharist it keeps me in a place of worshipping the fullness of your Deity beyond who you were while you were here. And then, you know what. Maybe I’m wrong. I might be. But I think you know my heart on this. You know I love you. You know I take it seriously when I experience communion as bread and either wine or grape juice. In fact, being someone who doesn’t like wine, I actually prefer when it is wine because I don’t want to like the flavor of what I’m taking. I want it to be a bit bitter than you had to be broken for me.

Father, I don’t know that I accomplished much this morning except to really appreciate the translators of the HWP translation, and maybe continue to think about the depths, the unfathomable depths, of who you are. I love you.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen