and what does it call us to?
In the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom personified invites all those who seek to understand the knowledge God makes available to them to her table for a feast of metaphorical food and wine, that they might be nurtured in God’s ways. To walk in the ways of God is wisdom; to walk in the way of evil is foolishness. Humankind, given free will, must learn to discern rightly; Wisdom invites all to forsake foolishness that we may live and advance in the way of understanding. As Psalm 34 recognizes, without God, we remain impoverished, but when the poor one calls out in his need, the Lord hears him and provides all that is required. The point of Wisdom is to understand this truth, that we might taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
The crowds surrounding Jesus in John’s Gospel are not so sure that they want to taste and see all that Jesus is offering them. I am the living bread that came down from heaven, he says; whoever eats this bread will live forever. But the crowds shocked, even disgusted by Jesus’ statement, Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. They are unwilling to open to the transformation he is inviting them to through the very real sacrifice he will make of his flesh on the cross.
In Eucharist, bread and wine are essentially changed through the process of transubstantiation – going beyond (trans) substance to become essentially different. As we partake of Eucharist, as we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we ourselves are essentially changed as well, transformed for eternal life. Eucharist challenges us to recognize that all we have, including our lives, belongs to God. If we recognize our poverty without God, we will know how rich we are thanks to God’s presence in our lives.
We must therefore, as Paul encourages the Ephesians to do, watch carefully how we live, not as foolish persons but as wise, filled with the Spirit. To be wise is to remain in the Lord, to know the Lord, and to follow the Lord – no matter what. To trust in God is Wisdom itself; our participation in Eucharist allows us to remain connected to the source of all Wisdom. We gather to celebrate to give thanks for the salvation that we live because we live in him and he in us. We must focus on what God is calling us to: to choose something different, something radically different, that is, life in him made available to us through his flesh and his blood.
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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