The people of Israel have a long tradition of being fed by the Lord God. From manna provided to the Israelites in the desert in Exodus to Elijah being fed by an angel in The First Book of Kings, examples abound of all of the ways the Lord provides for his people. Over and over again, when the afflicted man calls out, Psalm 34 reminds us, the Lord hears, and from all his distress, he saves him. Elijah doesn’t necessarily want to be saved. He prays for death, saying, This is enough, o Lord! Take my life… But rather than fulfilling Elijah’s wish, God sends an angel who touches him and orders him (twice!) to get up and eat. Elijah must be open to being fed by the Lord in order to endure the trials that lie ahead; he must learn to savor how good the Lord is to him, and be strengthened by his food for the journey.
Given all of these examples, one might imagine that when Jesus speaks of feeding the people, they will be open to this image. I am the bread that came down from heaven, he tells them in John's Gospel, I am the bread of life. Even more importantly, unlike those who ate the manna in the desert and lived but only for a normal lifespan, Jesus asserts that whoever eats this bread – Jesus himself, the living bread that came down from heaven – will live forever. Jesus is calling the people to union in him, but they murmur amongst themselves. To grasp what he is saying, they would need to step back from what they think they already know and open themselves to listening for something new. But they are set in their ways, firm in their pre-established parameters, hung up on their own ideas of how the world should be.
And when Jesus describes this bread as my flesh that I will give for the life of the world? That is when he really loses the crowd! They have no concept of the kind of sacrificial offering Paul describes to the Ephesians, the sacrifice of Christ who loved us and who handed himself over for us. We, however, who have the hindsight of experience, know that it is in fact Jesus’ very sacrifice and our participation in it that allows us to reveal the Father’s love for all, as we strive to be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven us in Christ. This is what it means to be fed by Christ’s presence in the Eucharist: filled with his love, we can become imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in that love. Taste and see!
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
No comments:
Post a Comment