John 6:24 - 35
When I read this Sunday's gospel, I
was impressed by how the vast crowd that had just been fed from five
loaves and two fish seem to have missed the larger lesson Jesus
wanted them to learn. But even when he explains, they continue to be
obtuse. They are following him expecting that they won't have to
worry about food anymore; He reminds them that there are more
important things than food. He tells them that they should do the
works of God which he defines as believing in the one who God sent.
They suggest he do a sign, and of course it is for more food; God
provided manna for their ancestors, why don't you do likewise? And
these are the people that just experienced exactly that. Finally
Jesus refers to himself as the bread of life. I'm not sure the crowd
was any wiser.
But then I thought about Holy
Communion, when we receive the bread of life. We don't understand
what is going on any more than these people did. Of course we can
talk about transubstantiation, the Real Presence; we can have various
shades of faith in the teachings of the Church regarding this
sacrament. Someone did a study once which showed that even Catholics
who go to Communion regularly don't always believe that this is the
real body and blood of Christ. And of course most non-practicing
Catholics have ceased to believe in any meaningful way, or they
wouldn't have stopped coming to Mass.
When I received my first Holy
Communion at the age of seven, I'm pretty sure I had no idea what I
was doing. The sisters who taught us made sure we knew that this was
not just bread; only the priest could touch it with his hands. After
the consecration, the priest would go through the rest of the Mass
including the distribution of communion with his thumbs and first
fingers touching, only to be used to touch the sacred host, until his
fingers had been rinsed when the vessels were being purified. For us
receiving, we held our hands over our hearts and received on the
tongue; and we knew there would be serious consequences if we so much
as let the host touch our teeth. I knew in a vague way I was
receiving Jesus, but how that could be and why it was important I did
not know.
And I'll share a secret with you. I
still don't. I see Christians in other denominations who believe the
Eucharist is just a symbol, and they still seem to act like
Christians. And there are many theories about how Jesus can become
bread and wine besides the official theory of transubstantiation.
And there are many theologians who have written about why Jesus chose
bread and wine, when he could have picked anything else. But that's
all they are, theories.
I think it's interesting that those of
us who follow Jesus and consider ourselves Christians kind of pick
and choose what to follow; who among us turns the other cheek?
There are very few Christians, including our priests and bishops, who
literally sell all they have and give to the poor and follow him.
And all that stuff about how we treat the least of our brethren? I
think I fail pretty much on every count. A few bucks to feed to
hungry, clothe the naked. … I do visit the sick now and then. I
don't think I've ever visited the imprisoned. After all, with more
than a billion Christians in the world, there shouldn't be any
poverty or war or hunger anymore. Those of us who claim to follow
Christ usually don't do it very well, and it clearly doesn't matter
wear you are in the church; bishops and archbishops and cardinals as
we see in today's headlines, are not necessarily paragons of virtue.
But maybe that's the point. One thing
all Christians do in some form or another is celebrate the Eucharist.
They may not believe what we believe, but they did hear Jesus say,
“Do this in memory of me” and so they do, sometimes daily,
sometimes only four times a year. I suspect the apostles didn't
understand either; bread becoming Jesus' body? Wine becoming his
blood? And then eating it? What did it mean?
Those of us who are Christians should
be spending our lives trying to figure out what this means for us.
It means that God became human, but more. It means that we become
one with each other in space and time, because there is only the one
body, the one blood – but much more. It means that we want not
only our souls but our bodies to be changed by this miraculous food
which we symbolize by receiving it – but much more. It means that
in receiving the body and blood of Christ we demonstrate that we want
to be one with him – but much more. And we could keep on going,
because there is no exhausting this mystery.
Maybe in the end Jesus does not want
us to understand; maybe in the end he wants us to approach the
sacrament as his first apostles did – wondering what it means, what
it means to me, today, now.
In fact, maybe explanations stand as
barriers between us and what He wants for us. He said, “This is my
body … This is my blood....Do this in memory of me.” He is
saying, perhaps, “Spend your lives bringing divinity into the
world, making the material world sacred, uncovering the divine in
every being, human and otherwise. I want all to be one, as I and my
Father are one.”
