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. |
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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