John 6:24 - 35
When I was a little kid, I was always getting banged up. I've got some grandchildren who are as agile as monkeys, and others who bang into walls and fall down stairs and have a hard time getting through a day without breaking something or other. This doesn't seem to be gender related, either; I have a granddaughter who is like that. I was like that; my mother being of german ancestry, used words like klutz and toifelkopf, which I think meant potato head, when referring to my lack of grace, but usually in a nice way. In any event, any injury that set me to crying back when I was four could usually be remedied by my mother kissing the injured part. Obviously, you grow up. But I remember my wife Joan kissing away injuries in our own children, and I see my daughters doing the same for my grandchildren as well. What is this instinct, that seems to be part of our very humanity? Mothers of every nation and race, and sometimes fathers, know that kissing a child is very powerful. And a kiss doesn't just bring about healing, one on the forehead at bedtime dispels the demons that keep you awake at night when you are four. A kiss from your mother is a sign that you are forgiven for something terrible that you did, like break a lamp or accidentally ride your tricycle into a flower bed.
Today's gospel sounds very complicated. But if you stand back and just listen, it's simple. Jesus talks about his purpose in coming into the world. People who seek God, who listen to God speak to them, will come to Jesus. And Jesus will give them his flesh to eat so that they will never die, so that they will have life.
Many protestants hear these same words and conclude that Jesus was speaking metaphorically. When he says, you have to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he means that you have to put your faith in him and follow his teachings. After all, Jesus' first listeners had the same problem: how can this man give us his flesh to eat? And maybe you and I would add, why? After all, God could have saved us in so many ways.
The first point is that the protestants are right. Well, not quite right, but we would have to agree that Jesus was speaking symbolically. We would have to agree that to be saved we have to put our faith in him and follow his teachings. Saint Thomas was once asked what would happen to a mouse that ate a crumb of the holy Eucharist that had fallen on the floor? His answer was, “nothing”. Thomas believed that the crumb was the body and blood of Christ. The mouse was receiving holy communion. But the mouse was incapable of responding to the symbol. He is the same before and after taking the Eucharistic crumb. Unfortunately, I think many of us are like the mouse. We receive the Eucharist out of habit, because that's what you do when you go to mass. Maybe we have a warm feeling, or maybe we offer a silent prayer or two, but when we go out to our cars, the moment is forgotten and we go on with life as though this encounter with the living God never happened. Our faith is unchanged, or resolve to follow his teachings is unchanged. We are like Thomas Aquinas' mouse.
Salvation does not come from receiving the Eucharist, from the physical act of eating this bread which is really the body of Jesus, or drinking this wine which is his blood. Salvation requires that we believe, and that the belief changes us, and that we become Christ, we put on the mind of Christ, we reject fame, power, riches, and pleasure, and embrace the cross, on which none of these exist. And that is more than the longest lifetime's work. Thank God Jesus has done the work for us and squared things for us with God almighty, his father. He makes up for everything lacking in us, and our efforts, puny and weak as they are, always pay off in eternity.
And God sends Jesus to us out of sheer love.
So why do we really eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus? What is going on in this scenario, which we Catholics insist is not symbolic, it is both symbolic and real? The Eucharist is Jesus in the flesh and blood, but our consuming the Eucharist is a symbol of our desire and intention to become one with Jesus.
When a mother kisses away the pain of a scratched knee or a bruised forehead, the physical contact has to be there for her love to work it's magic. Were she to stand off and say, “I love you, and I hope your pain goes away,” it wouldn't be the same. The kiss must be there.
God knows you and I are physical beings. Our bodies are the sacraments of who we are. We all know we aren't “just a body” but everything we know, everything we feel, must come to us through the body. When a mother kisses her child, it is a sacrament of loving concern, and there is no substitute, no words, no gestures, no toy or treat which conveys this loving concern better than a kiss.
And that is the reason the Eucharist is really the body and blood of Jesus. It is God's unique way of speaking to us through our bodies, of telling us of his loving concern, of his forgiveness, of his promise to be with us always, or his guarantee that death will not be the end. Jesus spoke in symbols when he compared himself to bread come down from heaven. But at the last supper, he created a reality that has been happening for 2000 years and will continue till the end of time.
A mother's kiss is intimate, the kiss between lovers is more so. But the Eucharist, the kiss of God the Father in giving us the body and blood of his son for our food and drink, is the most intimate of acts of love, love not just for our souls, but for everything about us.
A mother dispenses her kisses without expecting anything in return. A kiss that heals, a kiss that dispels night monsters, a kiss that forgives, a kiss that rewards – freely and abundantly given. And the kiss being given and received, the child dives back into life, having quickly forgotten the moment that will stay in the mother's heart forever. But new and then, the child turns and brings a kiss to her mother. She doesn't need a kiss, but what joy it brings her!
And we children of God the Father, who receive his intimate kisses Sunday after Sunday in the Eucharist, a physical sign of his desire to heal us, to forgive us, to encourage us, to give us life – how will we kiss him back?
