As he did in last week’s Gospel Jesus describes himself saying: “I am the bread of life Jesus was fond of these “I am” statements I am the way, the truth and the life I am the good shepherd But he was especially Insistent on“I am the bread of life.” To set this in context Jesus has just fed the 5000 Creating quite the buzzEveryone was Clamoring for moreMore bread, more miracles. Now this would have been the Perfect opportunity For Jesus to say: “Now that you have Eaten your fill of My miraculous bread, Let me give you A lecture on The essential beliefs of The Christian Faith.” But NO. He says: You are missing it 1
Feed on ME. Hey it might sound strange but We do it Insisting that In the Eucharist We are Eating and drinking the Body and blood of Jesus the Christ. So today’s gospel is Another reminder that The Christian faith is more than A set of beliefs, A set of rules, or a list of Intellectual propositions. It is a matter of encountering Jesus in a much more Intimate way It is a matter of us Getting personal with God… God becoming A part of us Jesus is not Just a symbol, Or an ideal. No. “I am The bread of life.
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What matters is Not just what’s in the head It’s about that knowledge Taking the elevator down into The gut and Into the heart If the Christian faith was Purely spiritual Or rooted squarely in The intellect There would be No need for bodies No use for bread and wine We could do This Christian thing Alone But just as the people of Jesus day Had trouble with this There is a part of us That recoils from This idea of Jesus as breadThe intimacy of it. We want to keep Our distance. But the words“I am the bread of life. Feed on me,”3
These words are Earthly… They are earthy… They are corporal They are carnal. Those words Defy distance. So if we want to follow this Jesus Who insists “I am the bread of life” We must see that…. Divinity is realized Within humanity, Instead of outside of it. I am the bread of life The invitation to Feed on HIM This is about being asked Into the heart of God and And the way into the heart of God is Not through understanding It is the strangest of things The way into the heart of God is… Doing things that we are Already doing
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I‘m talking about Eating Drinking Relationships That is where God is So that what we might see that There is no need To fly up to the clouds Jesus makes himself available Through the ordinary So that we may see That human life itself is Sacred. God is Not something That you memorize He is in a meal Lovingly shared He is in the simplest Act of service This is scandalous stuff And now that we are On the subject of Scandal There is a concept 5
Referred to as the Scandal of the Particular Scandal of the Particular That is Particular As in One thing Particular As in the opposite of Universal Universal ideas and principles are Applied to all of humanity And embodied in Grand sweeping Platitudes such as: Love you neighbor All men are created equal These are the type of statements We love to talk about And be on board with To speak to the Scandal of the Particular I bring to mind Francis of Assisi Though Francis was educated And knew all the great platitudes 6
Universal philosophies… Ideas and abstractions Were not what drove him Instead He was always most interested In the ordinary He began with the specific, The particular: This person, This flower This squirrel. Francis’ life showed that When you start With the specific, One person, One relationship One piece of bread, One meal You have a beautiful doorway To the universal. You see it’s really easy To say Love your neighbor All men are created equal It’s another thing To love a real person
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A person who you might Not like or respect But loving that real person That is knowing God It's a scandal Precisely because It's so ordinary. And what is true in One place One thing One act Finally ends up being True everywhere. This is especially clear in The sacrament of the Eucharist. The Eucharist offers one focused Moment of truth, Showing that the Christ and A most ordinary bit of Elemental bread are One. In this mysterious sacrament of Eucharist, You eat the bread; It becomes one with you; You become one with Those around you Look In this world we live 8
Our hungers are so deep. We are bundles of Seemingly insatiable need, We rush here and there In a vain attempt To fill our emptiness. We fill ourselves With platitudes But remain Famished Can it be that in The simplest things: In another broken human In our bread, our wine, That our fulfillment Stands before us?
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