Year B/Aug

Year B/Aug. 23, 2009/John 6:56-69/The Rev. Elly Sparks Brown, D. Min.

Prayer: O Bread of Life, implant in our hearts a deep hunger for you!

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves…Live everything. Live the questions now.” This advice from the 19^th century German poet Rilke reminds us that the Bible abounds with questions.

In the Garden of Eden, God says to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” Later, Cain, their son, will ask God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” When the angels in disguise tell Abraham that in the spring Sarah will have a son, Sarah laughs. “Why did you laugh?” the angel wants to know. Before the burning bush, Moses questions God: “If I tell the Israelites the God of your ancestors sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” Fleeing from Jezebel, the prophet Elijah hides in a cave, but God pursues him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Perhaps the most important question in the Bible is the one Jesus directs to his disciples before the Transfiguration: “Who do you say that I am?” When Jesus heals the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath, he addresses the Pharisees: “Is it lawful to do good or do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4) Question marks punctuate many other passages, but today’s gospel features the most poignant. “Do you also wish to go away?”

August, Year B in the lectionary cycle, is Bread Month. We have been and are in the midst of Jesus’ bread of life discourse in John’s gospel. The feeding of the five-thousand precedes Jesus’ declaration, “I am the Bread of Life.” Jesus is speaking metaphorically about feeding us with the Bread of Heaven—his very life and presence. But the crowd takes him literally, just like Nicodemus did when he thought being reborn meant re-entering his mother’s womb, or the Samaritan woman, who thought she could actually draw living water from the well.

Missing Jesus’ point, the crowd raises questions of its own: “How can he claim to be bread from heaven? Is this not Jesus, son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” Skepticism infects several who walk away when Jesus meets their discomfort with an even harder saying, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” Eating flesh? Drinking blood? Even the idea of doing this violated Jewish law and caused many to turn away, most likely in disgust and disbelief.

As we know, Jesus always invites, but never insists. Thus, he gave the disciples a choice, “Do you also wish to go away?” This is the same choice Jesus gives us. What is this food that Jesus gives us? One Biblical commentator explains, “This time, God notonly provides the food, God is the food and God gives power to choose it.

This food nourishes us in a way that invites us to a new level of intimacy with Jesus. It calls us beyond being casual receivers of God’s bounty and connected recognizers of God’s presence, to a new committed relationship with Christ, the bread of heaven.” (Martha Rollins, CEO of “Boaz and Ruth,” a group to aid formerly incarcerated people)

Intimacy with Jesus and with one another is the impetus behind blessing, breaking and eating the Bread of Life. Webster defines intimacy as the condition of being marked by close association or familiarity. It relates to one’s deepest nature, to what is essential and innermost. Any type of intimacy—spiritual, emotional, physical or intellectual—presumes commitment and compassion, the ability to bear with one another, the courage to grow and flourish. In the words of Eucharistic Prayer C: “Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ…” (BCP, p. 372) Or consider words from the Eucharistic Prayer in Rite I: “That we may be made one body with him, that he may dwell in us and we in him.” (BCP, p. 336)

A story is told of a woman who made the most delicious stew in the world. Someone asked her, “How on earth do you make it? You must give me the recipe.” Beaming with pride, the woman replied, “Well, I’ll tell you—the beef’s nothing,

the peppers nothing, the onions nothing, but when I throw myself into the stew, that’s what makes it what it is.” (from Spiritual Literacy)

This is what makes the Eucharist what it is—Jesus throws himself into it. From the image you have in front of you, it also looks like the bread throws itself into the heart of Jesus. Thus, we have a transformative, life-giving dynamic of divinity and humanity in an intimate relationship of mutual indwelling. When we consume the bread, we commune with Jesus and with one another.

Salvador Dali, the Spanish artist, painted this picture in 1950. Mary holds Jesus on her lap. Surrounded by an open frame, Jesus gazes down at the broken chunk of bread inside of him. Notice that there is a cross etched on the bread. With one hand on the world and another on the Bible, the toddler’s gesture prefigures the man’s arms outstretched on the cross. As we look inside the frame, Mary’s skirt seems to dissolve into an infinite horizon. As light emanates from the center of the picture and we focus again on the broken bread, a question arises—where is the other half of the loaf? Why, it is within us, of course, holy food for God’s holy people.

Every day, Jesus gives us the chance to choose life by ingesting his presence and dining on his love. “Do we also wish to go away?” After being bathed in the light,

how can we embrace the darkness? After drinking living water, how can we thirst for anything else? After feasting on the bread of heaven—the very presence and power of God--how can we chew on anything less?

These are good questions. Love them. Live them now. Bread, broken and shared, is at the heart of what it means for Jesus to be Jesus. And in our hearts is the one who feeds us with his very life.