The Medical Mission Sisters of Fox Chase tastefully prepare the Sunday Eucharistic table. I celebrated the Mass with them on Sunday August 9. The scripture readings spoke of Jesus' reactions to his followers who wanted at least another miracle of loaves and fish. He instructed them: "Eat my Flesh; Drink my Blood."
Nineteenth
Sunday of the Year John 6 on The Bread
of Life
Food and all of the rituals surrounding food play a big part
in our lives. For some of us, granted,
food is a pedestrian matter and meals are simply a necessary fueling station as
we go about our busy lives. But for most
of us the rituals of food all the way from shopping to relaxing with friends
after a meal are part of a program to sustain a meaningful life. This even despite our anxiety about so many
local and international food needs,
To signal that religion is not something outside human life,
then, it should come as no surprise that the inspired authors of the Bible give
food and our eating a key role in the Bible, all the way from the forbidden
apple in Genesis to the scorn that Paul in First Corinthians heaps on those who
exclude the less fortunate from the Christian table. In between such symbolic frames to Scripture,
Yahweh is busy rescuing his people in times of famine and Christ is proving our
Father’s generosity of spirit in events like the miraculous catch of fish and the
miraculous multiplication of loaves and
fish.
The Eucharist itself that we celebrate at this table gives us
a simple mnemonic key to understanding all of our interactions with food:
bless, break, take, eat. Bless, break, take,
eat. It will be well for us to integrate
these four simple words not only into our eating together and even into snack
time but also into every daily routine.
These four simple directions imitate the simple directions of a recipe
book, words like shop, chop, boil, savor in their various forms. But “bless, break, take, eat” are written in
the recipe book for our lives. These
four words are not only about food; they are about every resource God gives us to
carry out our mission in life.
We read today in the Book of Kings about the prophet Elijah
suffering from a bout of depression, meditating on his failure to bring about
any sustained change to the paganism of Israel. He has tried to change the culture of
paganism, even by arranging the deaths of false prophets and now he is running for
his life from the regime. He has no
appetite; would prefer even to die. But
God has not finished with him and insists that he eat for the journey and the
work ahead. His journey will take him
to Horeb, that is, Mount Sinai, to meet God in his prayers and hear
instructions that will sustain the prophetic mission in Israel.
In this instance God summons Elijah from his depression with
a blessing of food. Elijah must break
from his own desire for death and take and eat. The food that he finds as a blessing before
him has no source but in the God who has been miraculously accompanying him all
of his prophetic life. Without an
understanding of this food as blessing, Elijah would have ignored what was set
before him and remained confirmed in his desire for death. But he is obedient to God’s call: Bless,
break from your self-pity, take and eat.
Whether we recognize it or not, God is always putting resources in front
of us for our mission. Bless, break,
take and eat.
This message is underlined in the gospel reading from
John. You are following me, Jesus says to the crowd,
because you ate at the multiplication of the loaves and fish. As if that was not enough of a sign, you
want more from me. You want more of the
food that will sate your physical appetites.
But now I ask you to bless, break, take and eat of my very life and its
gifts. Eat my flesh; drink my blood.
This invitation is as startling to us as it was to the
disciples, some of whom were always trying to define Jesus in their own terms. I think of this invitation as stunning
material imagery but one with literal meaning.
It is an invitation to grasp all of the Incarnation as a gift for our
own wholeness of body and spirit. Like
the best of hosts, Jesus conscious of his mission from his father, sets a full
table for us in the Eucharistic celebration and offers for our sustenance everything that he is and
has.
When it comes to meals in the gospel stories, Jesus is more
often a guest of someone else than the host.
But, nevertheless, even as guest he brings gifts to the table: for
example, forgiveness to the host Zacchaeus and to that unusual guest, the woman
who bathes his feet with her tears, healing to Peter’s wife, miraculous wine to
the wedding feast, a powerful revelation at the Inn in Emmaus. He never comes to a meal empty handed. But he most startles us with the meals in
which he is host: the Last Supper, the enduring Eucharist, in which he offers
himself to us, and, in today’s gospel, the feeding of the five thousand.
Yes, eat my flesh, drink my blood is a crude expression. But I believe Jesus uses it to stun us into
the knowledge that, whether we are a guest at his table or he comes as a guest
at our table, he will share himself with us and give us every gift we need to
bring about a wholeness of body and spirit, and this even when one or another
part of us, as in the case of Elijah, seems to be failing us.
He calls the knowledge, the trust that he will give us himself
in the Eucharist and whatever sustenance we need by the simple word “belief.”
May we remember the words of the Eucharist, bless, break,
take and eat. Like Elijah may we have the willingness to take what God offers
us. Like Peter and the disciples may we
come to know that there are no other tables that will truly sustain us. And may we recall the words “bless, break,
take and eat three, four, five times a day.
