Readings
of the day: Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a; Psalm 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; John 6:51-58
Who among us is adventurous with food?
Who among us enjoys trying new kinds of food; food we have not encountered
before?
Our first reading today from Deuteronomy
features the people of Israel being led by Moses through the desert. They face
a crisis: They are hungry, and there is no food. God responds to the plea of
the people of Israel for food by sending them manna.
This manna is great, except that none of
the people of Israel journeying through the desert had ever seen this strange,
supposedly edible, frostlike substance before. Deuteronomy describes this manna
as “a food unknown to” the people of Israel “and [their] fathers.” The word
manna derives from a question in Hebrew that means, “What is it?”
What is it? Is this manna more like
chicken; or does it taste like tofu, or more like broccoli or Brussels sprouts?
(By the way, children and anyone here with children, grandchildren, or
great-grandchildren, I encourage you to eat your vegetables, and sometimes to
try food you haven’t seen before.) Is this manna like gruel? What is it? The
people of Israel had no idea what this food was, so they asked, “Manna”? All
they knew was that this was the food God had sent them to satisfy their hunger.
I like to try new kinds of food; foods I
have not encountered before. One of my favorite summer festivals when I lived
in my home city, Edmonton, Canada, was Edmonton’s Heritage Festival, held
during the first weekend in August. The Heritage Festival features well over
one hundred tents, or pavilions, with food from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and most
countries of the world in between. The pavilions also include cultural
performances; the demonstration and sale of art and goods from many countries,
but my favorite part of the Heritage Festival is the food.
One year at the Heritage Festival, I
entered the Canadian pavilion out of curiosity. What foods are typically
Canadian? Bannock is typically Canadian apparently, although it may have
originally been Scottish. What is it? Bannock, as prepared by indigenous North
Americans, is a kind of flatbread made with wheat flour, water, sugar, and
lard, with spices or dried fruits often added for extra flavor. Bannock is very
tasty and filling, as I found out at the Heritage Festival.
What is it? If the journey by the people
of Israel of which we hear in our first reading had taken place in Canada, the
people’s manna might have been bannock. God would have given them this bannock
to satisfy their hunger after forty years of travel through a landscape of snow
and ice!
Today, on this feast day of the Most
Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Jesus invites us to try a new kind of food; a
food that, even more than the manna of which Deuteronomy speaks, is a food
“unknown to” us and to our ancestors.
Some of us may be wondering: What am I
talking about when I speak of the Eucharist as a food “unknown to” us and to
our parents; our grandparents; our great-grandparents; to those who have gone
before us in faith? The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ‒ or how, because
Christ instituted this sacrament with the simple words, “This is my body… This
is my blood,” ordinary bread and wine become Christ’s own Body and Blood‒ is a
mystery.
Like any mystery, we can understand only
so much before the mystery defies our language and our imagination. We are
reduced in awe to the same question the people of Israel under Moses once asked:
“Manna”? What is it?
The Eucharist is a sacrament; the real
presence of Jesus Christ in this sacrament; “the source and summit of the whole
Christian life.” Jesus says in our Gospel reading: “I am the living bread that
came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread
that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
Jesus’ words mystified the Jewish crowds
who first heard him. How can this be? How can this man be more than the manna
that God gave us under Moses in the desert? How can Jesus be for us “the living
bread… from heaven”; God himself, given to us as food and drink “for the life
of the world”; “I am”? Jesus invites us to try a new kind of food; a strange
kind of food; the mystery of God himself, given to us as food and drink “for
the life of the world.”
The food of which Jesus Christ invites
us to partake is a strange, new kind of food indeed. I wonder: Is it strange
because this food is the real presence of Christ our Lord and God in sacrament?
Or is it strange primarily because, unlike every other food that becomes part
of our bodies when we eat it, we become
what we receive and eat in the case
of the Eucharist, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ?
In a sermon
on the Eucharist, St. Augustine once prayed over the people to whom he was
speaking: “Be what you see; receive what you are.” In our second reading St. Paul
asks us two questions about the Eucharist that are very similar to St.
Augustine’s exhortation:
“The cup of blessing that we bless: Is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break: Is it not a participation in the body of Christ?”
What is it? Perhaps an even better
question to ask ourselves about the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is, “Who is it?” And then we might ask
ourselves, as we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, in light of who the
Eucharist is, the real presence of Christ, our Lord and God, “Who are we?”
How is it that we participate in this
food we are invited to consume; this food “for the life of the world”? Do we
keep it to ourselves or do we, as I have seen many examples in this parish, go
out, filled with the real presence of Christ, to our world? Do we go out to
those who hunger for enough ordinary food let alone for the Eucharist? Do we go
out gently and joyfully to those who long for the real presence of God; of
Christ; those who long for forgiveness; to those who long for peace and justice;
those who ask of us, “What is it; who are you”? In what ways are we what we see
and receive in this celebration, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ?
To our world, we are called to be a new
kind of food; “the living bread”; perhaps strange or never before encountered
by some; perhaps not accepted by all. And yet we are what we see and receive in
this celebration: Christ to the world; Christ to those most in need of the real
presence of our Lord and God in our world. Having partaken of Christ, we are this new kind of food “for the
life of the world.”
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