Pentecost+14/Proper 16B (Joshua 24:1-2a,14-18; Psalm 34:15-22; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69)8/26/2018 Humans are animal species. We are creatures with a finite lifespan. We like any other animals need protection and food. We eat, sleep, rest, and procreate. We often forget this fact that we are animals for various reasons. I would say the development of technology or medicine might trick us to believe that we are somehow very different from other animal species. Yet, how advanced our technology or medicine may develop, our human nature first as part of animal species does not change. Natural disasters, for example, might remind us we are not gods but animals, creatures whose power is quite limited, who cannot stop raining or flooding. Especially during this time in our town, we see our limitedless, helplessness, and powerlessness more than ever. We can try to protect ourselves yet we become quite vulnerable when unstoppable natural disasters, perhaps a stronger one like an earthquake happen.
On the other hand, we are not just an animal species. There is something that distinguishes us from other animals, which is language. We are linguistic animals. We speak. We express ourselves with words and bodily gestures. We communicate with one another through the use of language. This is the most unique characteristic thing about being human. God’s punishment to the idolatry of the Babel tower was to set one another apart by taking the one common language away from them. No same words were there. Which means there was no communication among people. This importance of language or this distinct nature of humans which differentiates us from other animal species might be so deeply embedded in our common vocabularies. Biology, sociology, physiology, or theology all have the suffix ‘-logy.’ It comes from Ancient Greek ‘logia,’ meaning speech, talk, or words. So theology in its literal sense is simply ‘God-talk.’ What about our liturgical language that we speak in worship? After each lesson is proclaimed, the lector says, “The Word of the Lord” or sometimes “Hear what the Spirit says to the Church.” Words are everywhere, and for us Christians words we hear in worship are not just words but the Word of God. Or it is at least used as a means that God uses in order to communicate to us. And most importantly, we Christians are the ones who confess our faith in the Word that became flesh. The Word of God became human, incarnate, flesh just like us. Jesus is the Word of God in whom we put our trust. In a way, God became an animal, the Word became human in the person of Jesus. (this idea is originally borrowed from Herbert McCabe’s saying, “God is an animal-more exactly, the Word made flesh.”) Let us not be confused in our belief in Jesus Christ the Word of God with that of a fundamentalist or a biblicist. Of course, we believe that the Hebrew Scriptures and Christians Scriptures, Old and New Testaments are to be the Word of God. But this doesn’t mean that we believe in the Bible. We believe in Jesus who is the human embodiment of God’s Word. And because of Jesus, the Bible can be considered the Word of God in a secondary manner because for us Christians we believe that the entire Bible points to Jesus. When it ceases to do that very work, if we treat it as the Answer Book for all the problems, for example, it loses what’s most essential and crucial to our faith in Jesus the Word of God. In short, we would all agree that words matter. One does not have to be a linguist to recognize this. We all speak everyday. We talk. We communicate with words. We at least use one language. We express our feelings and thoughts with words. What we say matters to us. And how we say also matters to us. What Jesus says and how he says in today’s gospel lesson trouble lots of people around him. Let’s not forget that these people who are troubled by Jesus’ saying are not the religious authorities who already dislike him very much. These people are his followers and close disciples. This is the group of people Jesus offends with his words. So we can imagine that what and how Jesus says must be provocative or even upsetting. So what does he say? What are his provocative words? I’m not sure if you have noticed that for the past three Sundays and including today we’ve been sort of stuck in John 6. So here are some keywords that particularly frustrate his followers; “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” So there are three times in John 6 that his followers get offended by Jesus’ saying. First, they raise a question, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” It’s about where he’s from, which can determine who he is. They don’t believe that Jesus is from heaven. They even know his mom and dad. Second, they complain and ask, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” This question, I think, is not really a question but their sarcastic response to Jesus’ saying. Obviously Jesus will die if he gives his flesh to others. And the last time Jesus offends his close disciples, they are puzzled and say, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” To make it simple, what in the world is Jesus teaching us? No one can accept nonsense. The result of Jesus’ saying in John 6 is that many people leave him. He turns them away by revealing his identity as the bread of life from heaven, his sacrificial compassion to give his life for the sake of the world, and his strong urge to his disciples to believe in him. Now, what is more striking to our generation would be that Jesus’ words do not seem to trouble or offend us any more. It’s not because we all believe this. Rather, it doesn’t offend us because we don’t really care enough to bother us. We might be too used to his words that we might not actually believe his words or take his words seriously. Do we believe his words? Do we believe in Jesus as the living bread from heaven? Do we believe that in the Eucharist he sacramentally gives us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink, which he has done through his death and resurrection? Do we even reflect enough to find his teaching difficult to the extent we cannot accept it? I ask all these questions because I find myself not being so offended or troubled by his words. I am more like I know all that. How arrogant my attitude is! My friends, Jesus’ words must trouble us. His words must awaken us. Not because Jesus is asking us to believe something that doesn’t make sense to us. His words are difficult because Jesus calls us to become part of who he is, that we no longer belong to this world but to the kingdom of heaven through baptism, that in eating his flesh and drinking his blood, we give our flesh and blood as his flesh and blood, and lastly that in the words of Jesus the Word of God we do the work of love that the world finds difficult to accept. Jesus tells his disciples whose hearts are shaken and offended, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” The words Jesus has spoken is the Spirit that gives life to those who hear and believe. His words through the work of the Holy Spirit give life to those who put their trust in Jesus the Word of God. Believe it or not, all of you here have come to Jesus because it is granted by the Father as Jesus says in today’s gospel lesson. I would like you to listen to what Jesus is saying to you at this moment. What words is he speaking to you? I’m not asking you to go back to today’s gospel lesson and repeat to yourself his words there. I’m prayerfully asking you to listen carefully to the words of Jesus that are so intimate, personal, and loving. What does Jesus call you to be and do in your life with others at home, here at St Agnes’, or in your local community, or at your workplace? We might have different, unique, and personal words that Jesus tells us. But one thing that is common to all of us which Jesus tells this morning is that we are called to be his words. We are called to embody his words that bring life to those who are suffering. This does not mean that we are called to preach or talk at people. Maya Angelou, an American author, actress, screenwriter, dancer, poet and civil rights activist, gives us a hint on how we can be the words of Jesus. She says, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” How we make people feel, that they feel loved by God, that’s the words of the faithful followers of Jesus who is the love language of God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. P.Yn. Eating is the most fundamental behavior that all animals share in common. Without eating, animals cannot sustain their lives. For us humans, eating gives not only energy to do what we do but also a means to enjoy our lives. Eating is a sacred human activity. One doesn't have to be religious or spiritual to take eating seriously. Imagine how our secular culture celebrates eating on Thanksgiving Day and so on. Eating is universally crucial and vital to all human beings.
This week, I met a patient who considered himself an atheist. Once he learned I was a priest of the Episcopal Church, he wanted to share a religious joke about Anglicans and eating. So this is the joke (which I found the same joke here): “A sinner dies, goes to hell, and finds himself being escorted by the Devil along a dark corridor leading to a series of dungeons. As they pass the first dungeon, he peeks inside and sees thousands of people being whipped repeatedly and screaming in horrible agony. ‘Who are they?’ he asks the Devil. ‘Those are Catholics who ate meat on Fridays,’ the Devil explains. They pass a second dungeon, where he sees thousands of shrieking people being stretched on racks. ‘Who are they?’ the new arrival asks. ‘Those are Jews and Muslims who ate pork,’ the Devil replies. They come to a third dungeon where people are being boiled in oil and screaming even more horribly than the inmates of the first two dungeons. ‘Who are they?’ the sinner asks. ‘Those,’ the devil says, ‘are Episcopalians who ate their entrée with their salad fork.’” The joke makes fun of Anglicans for our peculiar manner. It also covers some eating regulations that are typically observed in the Jewish, Muslim, and Catholic traditions. And at its core, this joke shows how eating is so important in religious lives. For Christians in particular, eating, not just during coffee hour, is essential to our faith. Our practice of eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood is at the heart of our Christian faith. For this very reason, the early church was often misunderstood for practicing cannibalism. From the non-Christian perspective, they were cannibals, eating human flesh and drinking human blood on a designated day when they gathered together. Consider that the second part of Sunday worship, which was the Holy Eucharist, was only open to those who were baptized. Those who weren’t baptized couldn’t participate in the Eucharist. Neither were they able to see what was going on inside. So, it makes sense those who were not Christians probably wondered what was going on behind the door. If they heard something, it was something like, “Take, eat. This is my body. Drink this, all of you. This is my blood.” For outsiders, all these words of flesh and blood might trigger some gory scene of a human sacrifice. The words already sound very much like cannibalism. Today’s gospel lesson makes it even more explicit. Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” (Jn 6:53-55) “My flesh and my blood, one must eat and drink to have eternal life…” Jesus’ flesh is true food. His blood is true drink. Now, the entire world knows we are not cannibals in a literal sense. Yet, I would like to say that we are in a way ‘sacramental’ cannibals. We Christians believe that Jesus is really and truly present in the bread and wine as his body and blood. But we always use the language of sacraments, which is to say, “Jesus is sacramentally present in the bread and wine as his body and blood not just here locally, but everywhere universally in the catholic sense.” So this sacramental practice of eating his body and drinking his blood does make us in a symbolic sense cannibals, but ‘sacramental’ cannibals. This essence of this sacramental practice of the Eucharist, however, is not just limited to eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood. It is also related to an act of theophagy. Theophagy is a sacramental eating of a God. For us in our Christian tradition, the Eucharist is the sacramental eating of God. So in this Eucharist, we eat God. Eating God in the Eucharist is a mysterious way of becoming God. So what we do here every Sunday is becoming God by consuming God. One thing that we need to keep in mind is that this act of eating God, a sacramental theophagy, or this act of eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood, is not something we earned or initiated first. It is God’s most intimate and human way to break into our mundane world. Eating God is the way to be in union with God. God allows God’s very own self to be consumed by us to be at one with us. This is really the mystery of the incarnation. That God became human, this whole divine mystery doesn’t make sense to us. Why would God do that? What’s the purpose of God becoming flesh? It’s God’s way of communicating to us his unconditional love as well as his way of communing with us. Here I am holding this piece of wafer. When this wafer is consecrated through the power of the Holy Spirit in our baptized gathering, we receive the host with utmost reverence. Our action speaks louder than words, especially my words right now. We might wonder why we act in such a respectful and reverent manner. What makes you receive this piece of wafer in your palms together as if you’re receiving something so precious? From a non-Christian perspective, it still is a piece of bread. Yet, with faith in God, we know deep down in our hearts that God is very present in this mere wafer. It is to say that God is present in what seems the most common and mundane moments in our lives as well as those times that we feel worthless, guilty, ashamed, unheard, forgotten, and abandoned. If we believe God is truly and really present in this piece of wafer after our prayer of Great Thanksgiving, it is to proclaim and profess that God is very well present in all those lives of the most disregarded, ignored, and oppressed. At the same time, this piece of wafer is what we offer to God. What we’re really offering to God is all our disappointments, shames, guilts, failures, sorrows, and despair as well as all our successes, joys, hopes, and gifts with thanksgiving. In all those moments of our lives symbolizes this piece of wafer. And in all those moments, Jesus is present, crying with us, suffering with us, laughing with us, and rejoicing with us. God gives God’s very own self in his Son Jesus Christ. First in the mystery of the incarnation, God becoming flesh in Jesus...and then through his death and resurrection, God gives God’s very own flesh and blood for the life of the world. We are called to eat his flesh and drink his blood to become part of God, embodying God in us. This free act of God is not for his own glory, but for his love for all. This act of eating God is then not for our own sake, but for others. As Jesus freely gave himself for all, we are called to do the same. Not only do we partake the Eucharist to become truly human by eating God, our human bodies becoming divine are to be freely given to all. So Jesus invites us once again in these words from our first lesson, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” (Prov 9:5-6) In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever…,” says Jesus. This particular saying of Jesus would’ve certainly caught the attention of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang (BCE 259-210) about 2,200 years ago. Qin was the first one who united six tribes in the region where China is now. He summoned all his officials to search for the elixir of life, the infamous immortality potion. In his trials to obtain eternal life, not only did he spend so many resources but also he is thought to have consumed mercury sulfide. Which we know is poisonous. So, did his search for the elixir of immortality, his eternity project succeed? No. He died at the age of 49 years old.
Even though this ambitious project of China’s first emperor failed, this search for the elixir of immortality still continues now in the name of medicine. Aging is a biochemical process. We humans cannot stop time but can slow the aging process according to life extension advocates. There are even some websites such as ‘fightaging.org’ or ‘life extension advocacy foundation.’ Their mission is mainly to increase the human lifespan. I have no intention of criticizing this life extension advocacy, but what we can see or what we cannot avoid seeing is a perpetual desire to live forever. Which in turn reflects a fear of death. This social phenomenon with the radical development of medicine and technology makes doctors like modern gods in our time as if an MD now stands for a minor deity. We Christians are not immune to this desire to live forever. Out of all kinds of people, religious or non-religious, we Christians are the ones who always talk about eternal life, at least once a week if we come to church on Sunday. When we recite the Apostles’ Creed, we confess that we believe in the life everlasting. The Nicene Creed, which we’ll confess after my homily, says a bit differently that we look for, not believe in, the life of the world to come. Either way, we are talking about eternal life all the time. Also, in our prayers, especially the ones in our prayer book, almost always end with the phrase, “forever and over” or “now and forever.” We Christians do mention the life eternal a lot. (But I’m not sure if we take it seriously as we’re supposed to.) Now, is our talk of eternal life the same as life extension or immortality? Does Jesus talk about eternal life in the same way that those ‘fight against aging’ or ‘life extension advocacy foundation’ groups use? This is to ask whether the manna is the same as the bread of life that Jesus talks about in today’s gospel lesson. The answer is no. Jesus says, “Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.” Our understanding of eternal life is not about immortality or life extension or a big win against aging. There’s nothing similar to extending lifespan or slowing down the aging process. The Christian understanding of eternal life is much closer to what all this anti-aging project or the emperor’s search for the elixir of immortality is most scared of. Which is death itself. What then calls us Christians to face first is not the living bread, the bread of life. It is death that we are to directly look at. This isn’t something new to us. Going back to the creeds I mentioned earlier, this call to face death is already there. Believing in the life everlasting in the Apostles’ Creed or looking for the life of the world to come always comes after the resurrection of the body or the resurrection of the dead. And the resurrection doesn’t happen without death. Death is the first step that one must encounter and pass through. This order of death, resurrection, and life eternal is indeed how Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, becomes the bread of life, the living bread for the life of the world. Just like last Sunday’s gospel lesson, Jesus equates believing in him as eating the living bread. He says, “Whoever believes has eternal life...whoever eats of this bread will live forever.” Believing in him is eating him the bread of life, the living bread from heaven. This sounds rather cannibalistic, but the Church has always meant this eating of Jesus “sacramentally.” We can do this very human act of eating only symbolically because of our human limitation to grasp the divine mystery that is really and truly present in the Eucharist. Now I might sound a bit technical or dogmatic but I will just go ahead. This tradition and custom of eating Jesus’ body and drinking his blood seems to have some condition. That is only the baptized are allowed to do so. (I’m aware that there are some parishes who have the so-called open communion policy that all can take Communion regardless of their baptismal status.) This sounds like the Church is making baptism as a requirement for the Eucharist, setting up a bar or even policing who can receive the Eucharist or not. But this so-called requirement should be considered as our Christian commitment that calls one to face death before coming to the Eucharist. So put it differently, coming to the altar to receive the Eucharist forces us to face death, go through death to receive life eternal in God. Again, without death, there’s no resurrection. It is the only ticket to resurrection. At this point, I would like to talk about two kinds of death we face. One is our biological death which anti-aging or life extension advocates are most concerned about. The bottom line is that we cannot live forever here on earth. Living forever may not even be an issue. Having a body that is healthy and is not aging, staying youthful is one thing. And not getting killed is another. The other kind of death sounds more metaphorical, but it is indeed one kind of death. This type of death happens whenever our desire to control or be in charge of something fails to take place. Our desire to control someone or something or some situation often does not succeed. We would like to be in charge of our lives but our lives are often out of control. Our desire to control being ended or unfulfilled is a type of death that we face almost everyday. So for us Christians, not only do we courageously face death for the hope of the resurrection but in reality how we do that matters. Herbert McCabe, a Dominican friar, once said, “Death, which is the punishment of fallen man, has become, because of the Cross, the way to resurrection and new life...the whole of life is a preparation for death because it is only from death that eternal life can spring.” (Herbert McCabe, The New Creation, pp. 172-3) Rather than seeing death as an irrelevant last moment of life, our death becomes the beginning of life eternal Jesus promises. For any professional writer, the very first sentence of her very first chapter is crucial. It almost dictates the rest of its contents. That, my friends, is what death is all about for us Christians. We’re like this writer who is so carefully crafting her very first sentence to begin a new chapter of her book. And looking at Jesus, his entire life was committed to write this first sentence as he was crucified. As our whole life is devoted as a preparation for death, we are not afraid of death. What matters is how we would like to die, what kind of death we would like to have. Some say, “Dying well and living well are the same thing.” This devotion to live our entire life as a preparation for death is what baptism calls us to live out our lives. In baptism, we already died with Christ and are risen with Christ sacramentally. Everytime we receive the Eucharist, the living bread of Jesus from heaven, we are reminded of our baptism, our death and resurrection with Christ. My friends, Jesus is the bread that came down from heaven, the bread of life, the living bread. Receiving this bread of life from heaven dares us to live couragely without fear of death. Our fight is not with aging or death, but with the world that acts out of fear and anxiety of death. To eat this bread of life is for us to prepare ourselves by committing ourselves to be the food for those in need just as Jesus says, “...the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” His flesh we are given, our flesh we prepare to give to the world. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. P.Yn. Pentecost+11/Proper 13B
(Exodus 16:2-4,9-15; Psalm 78:23-29; Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35) Have you ever tried to sell something to someone in your life? When I was in college, I worked as a salesperson to sell refurbished computer monitors at computer and electronics fairs. One of the very basic strategies to sell something to someone is to know what that person actually needs. But I guess for a business person who can sell anything, it may not necessarily be about finding out what people need but really about making people believe what this business person offers is what they really need. Creating a problem that people can have and offering a product that can be a solution to that problem. So one of the things that Sales 101 can teach us is storytelling. Artistically craft a big picture problem that people might deal with, and skillfully provide a product that can solve that problem. There’s a human psychology behind this. People usually don’t care about great products or the ones who sell them. People care about themselves and those who can help them solve their problems. I believe there’s at least one business ethics at stake here. As a salesperson, am I telling people the real issues that they have and suggesting some solutions to their problems? Or am I creating a problem that people actually don’t have, which is called as fear marketing and tricking them to buy my products? At this point, you might wonder why Im talking about the psychology of business or Sales 101 this morning. Well, in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus in a way quite explicitly appears like a salesperson, but not a very successful one. We might think it is inappropriate to compare Jesus to a salesperson, but let’s be honest and admit that he’s selling the food to the crowd who follow him. So let us look closely at how Jesus as the divine provider approaches the crowd. The story begins after Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand. The crowd looks for Jesus and eventually finds him. In their question of Jesus’ going about, he points out why they follow him and what they want from him. He directly tackles into the real problem that these people deal with. The food. That’s what they look for and what they want from Jesus. But it’s not just the food. It is what the food does to these people. It is the essential means to sustain their lives. So, the food is really about the life. Without eating anything, we cannot continue our human lives. Now, let’s listen to Jesus who goes right into what these people, including ourselves, are really concerned about: “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” Let me modernize this saying: “Look, guys. You worry about the food that can instantly feed you. That’s why you look for me because I gave you the loaves of bread. But I can give you something better. This food has no expiration date. This food lasts forever. I’m the only provider of this food. I even have the divine stamp on this food!” The crowd who is definitely interested in this food with the divine stamp is curious. They ask, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” This wording is a bit confusing, but it can mean, “What must we do to perform the works of God in order to get this bread that doesn’t perish but endures for eternal life?” Simply put, “What should we do to get that food that endures for eternal life?” The crowd takes the bait. The bait whose literal meaning is the food in old Norse, beit. Jesus’ answer is way too simple. The crowd would feel quite confused by his answer. He says, “Believe in him whom God has sent. Believe in me.” There’s nothing that people have to do in order to get this food from God. There’s no requirement to fulfill. There’s only one thing, which is to believe in Jesus. This rather simple and easy answer to get the eternal food can very well trigger doubt in people’s hearts. If it’s too easy, it’s not worth it, we often say. Also, when something comes too easy, we most likely let it go the same way. I imagine the crowd would probably feel the same. They become suspicious so they demand from Jesus some kind of proof that helps them believe in him. They ask Jesus, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” I think it’s a reasonable request on the crowd’s part. The logic is, “Look, Jesus. If you want us to believe in you, you gotta give us something to convince us. Didn’t you perform the miracle of feeding all of us? Do something like Moses did. Give us something!” Jesus responds, “Very truly, I tell you. It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” This answer of Jesus doesn’t seem too convincing. He’s actually not giving them what they demand. It would’ve been so much easier if he gives them something to eat, performing another miracle for them so that they can believe. But he’s telling them something else. He uses the example of Moses who these people mention and says that Moses is different from him. Moses did not create the manna. He didn’t give the manna. It is God alone who can feed the Israelites in the wilderness. The crowd now doesn’t seem to care much about what Jesus says before. They simply ask him, “Give us this bread always.” This is a unthoughtful and desire-driven response on their part. Basically, they don’t really care what Jesus tells them. They just want to have that bread, that food which has no expiration date and lasts forever. They even seem to forget that they are asked to believe in Jesus. After all, the crowd just doesn’t get it. And this is very typical of St John’s gospel. Throughout his gospel, Jesus tells people one thing and they don’t get it. Now we see this phenomenon of not understanding Jesus and getting stuck in their own heads. In his response to the crowd’s demand, Jesus now has an opportunity to become a successful salesperson. They take the bait and they want the food now. He can sell his product to these people. He just has to give something to them and he can surely become the one with power and authority. But he isn’t. He’s not a successful salesperson. Far from it. He answers to these people, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” He neither sells nor makes a profit of honor and power. Instead, he offers them his entire self, personhood. He is not merely a sign to make people to believe in something or someone other than himself, but he himself is the sign and symbol that reveals what God is like to the extent that he is God incarnate. His intention is not to sell, but to save, not to make a profit out of people, but to profit their lives, their whole selves out of his love and compassion. There’s no intention of gaining something from people, but of gaining their lives by giving himself, losing his life. So, to summarize today’s gospel lesson, Jesus wants to give the crowd his entire self, his whole personhood as the bread of heaven coming from God. The only thing that the crowd ought to do is to believe in him as the bread of life. Receive him as he presents himself. Receive him as the bread of life for you and for the whole world. My friends in Christ, Jesus tells us this morning that he comes to each one of us, to every single person in this world in the most intimate way, the deepest way possible. He comes as the whole person. He doesn’t just show or give us bits and pieces of him. He reveals who God is, the God of compassion, the God who unconditionally loves every single person and creature in this universe to the extent that God becomes the food to feed all. The Eucharist that we celebrate and receive every Sunday in this sense is the greatest outward sign of that divine love. Being himself present in the bread and wine, letting him consume by us, we are known to Jesus and he is known to us. In the mouth of Moses, God says, “At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.” Receive the bread of life, Jesus. Have your fill of bread. Know that Jesus is the Lord your God. To feed on him is to believe in him, which is to put your trust in his love, to fall in love with him. And as we are known to him and he is to us, all of us who become the catholic church of Christ, who become one body of Christ, are to be that bread of life, the bread of Christ for our neighbors and for the world. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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