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At the start of last week’s homily, I noted that the gospels for the next four weeks would relate stories and reflect upon Jesus as the “Bread of Life.” During this month of Sundays, each of the gospels would present a teaching about Jesus, using St. John’s idiosyncratic depiction of Jesus as the “Bread of Life.” Then, each gospel would raise a question to challenge us to translate that teaching about Jesus―the Bread of Life―into our daily lives both inside the church and outside the church. Last week, the teaching was: Jesus is really and truly present in the Eucharist―the Bread of Life―that fills our every hunger. The question this challenged us to answer was: Do we believe that Jesus Christ―his body and his blood―is really and truly present in the bread and wine shared in the Eucharist? The teaching for today, the 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time, is: Jesus is present to us in the Eucharist—the Bread of Life—as the teacher and authentic source of God’s word. What Jesus teaches is what God has to say to us...today, not yesterday, last year, or in ancient times. The question this teaching challenges us to answer is: How does partaking of the Eucharist draw us into a deeper relationship with God’s word? To get our minds around the concept, perhaps distinguishing between Pez and Prime Rib would be helpful. In last week’s gospel, the crowd declared their belief that Jesus must surely be a prophet. Why? Jesus had filled their hunger with five barley loaves and two fish. An amazing miracle, indeed! But, the people, well, they enjoyed the Pez but completely bypassed the Prime Rib. Then, in today’s gospel, the crowd returns; the people are full of questions and possess many doubts. While the food Jesus provided had filled their bellies, Jesus—the Bread of Life—provided them something more important: fulfillment of their soul’s deepest longings. Addicted to the Pez, they overlooked the Prime Rib. Knowing what was in their hearts, Jesus called their bluff, using some rather harsh terms. “You are looking for me not because you saw signs,” Jesus said, “but because you ate the loaves and were filled.” In other words, “You had your fill of perishable food, but you missed the point entirely.” So, Jesus taught them: “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” Now, remember: Jesus—the Bread of Life—is teaching something that raises a challenging question. The teaching is: Jesus is present to us in the Eucharist—the Bread of Life—as the teacher and authentic source of God’s word. The challenging question is: “How does partaking of the Eucharist draw us into a deeper relationship with God’s word?” Let’s think about the answer to this challenging question this way: If we were to partake of the Eucharist, we would be drawn into a deeper relationship with God’s word and give serious consideration to how much of what we consume is both unnecessary and leads to the unintended consequence of bad health…both physical and spiritual. So, let’s attempt to partake of the Bread of Life—the word of God—by considering today how much of what we consume is both unnecessary and leads to the unintended consequence of bad health…both physical and spiritual. Let’s see where these reflections lead us and how they challenge us to seek not the food that satisfies our bellies and creature comfort ―the Pez―but, as we are drawn into a deeper relationship with God’s word―the Prime Rib―we are given a new spiritual purpose in life, one that satisfies the deepest longings of our souls. Like Philip who, in last week’s gospel, said to Jesus, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little” as well as the crowd in today’s gospel whose members are pestering Jesus with their questions and doubts, we also understand very well what it means to work for food that perishes. We understand this so well we may be consumed with spending our entire lives working only to provide for that food. As my father once said to me, “All of this just doesn’t grow on trees, you know.” Working so hard to put food on the kitchen table, we consume and consume and consume to the point that, in the United States, obesity may be of epidemic proportions. In fact, 3.8 million of our fellow citizens weigh more than 300 pounds, more than 400,000 people (mostly males) weigh over 400 pounds, and the average adult female now weighs an unprecedented 163 pounds! The National Center for Health Statistics has been tracking this health problem for the past four decades. Here’s what NCHS has discovered: · Between 1962 and 2000, the number of obese Americans grew from 13% to 31% of the population. Childhood obesity more than tripled. In 2008, obesity prevalence among adults stood at 34% of U.S. adults aged 20 and over (meaning they had a Body Mass Index [BMI] in excess of 30.0); 14.6% of two- to four- year olds was obese. 32 states had a prevalence of obesity; of these state, 6 had a prevalence of obesity equal to or greater than 30% (Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia). Only one state (Colorado) had a prevalence of obesity less than 20%. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, obesity is responsible for 300,000 deaths every year. · Today, 63% of Americans are overweight, meaning that they have a BMI that exceeds 25.0.
Some have called this hunger for food an “epidemic.” I’ll let the statistics speak for themselves. Now, while those statistics are alarming, our hunger for the food we believe will bring happiness reveals an epidemic of even more vast proportions. We are willing to work very hard in order to acquire all of those trinkets, gizmos, and blings that promise to make us happy. Now, what these statistics mean in terms of you and me is that, in 1997, Americans generated 340 million tons of municipal waste, averaging a whopping 1.272 tons per person. That rate of consumption has not declined and, with the number of landfills decreasing, many are worried about where the United States will dump all of its garbage. Working so hard for this food which promises to make us so very happy, we dispose of much of it just as soon as the happiness promised is surpassed by the happiness something new promises. So, don’t think for one moment that I’m talking only about the food we put on the kitchen table each day which satiates our pangs for physical nourishment. I’m also and especially talking about the food we set on the table of our daily lives which satiates our pangs for happiness. It’s one thing—and an important thing—to work hard with the goal of putting nourishing meals on the kitchen table each and every day. It’s quite another thing to work hard with the goal of surrounding ourselves with all of those trinkets, gizmos, and blings that we believe are so essential to happiness. Just as eating too much food from the kitchen table leads to obesity that will end in a premature physical death, so too devouring too much food from the table of our culture leads to consumerism that will end in a premature spiritual death. Note well: both are driven by the need for good things (neither food nor material comforts are bad). The problem is that something we “want” is transformed into a “need” that, in turn, becomes a “craving.” When that craving is fed and fed and fed, it comes to its inevitable end in something that is not good for us—death of the body and soul. Think about it: What’s a garage sale or a yard sale or a neighborhood sale? These are nothing more than clever ways to make money by getting rid of what we don’t want anymore. Like little kids, we believed that we’d die if we didn’t get all of that stuff. And, now, we can’t wait to get rid of it or dispose of it so that we can clear the decks for all of the new stuff we are intent upon acquiring. What Jesus offered the people in the crowd was more than simple, physical sustenance―the Pez. He offered what the power of sin had destroyed: the Prime Rib of liberation so they could live as God’s children. The people had become slaves and prisoners to their craving for food as well as for temporal happiness. And, in the end, their craving for Pez made them blind to who Jesus was―the Bread of Life God had sent―because they cared for nothing other than themselves, as this became evident in their desire that Jesus fill their bellies with physical food not the spiritual food Jesus was offering. This is the food that doesn’t perish, namely, a transformative spiritual purpose in life. So, what has all of this to do with partaking of the Eucharist? How does this draw each of us into a deeper relationship with God’s word? The answer to those two questions is found in Jesus’ surprising answer to the question posed by all of those people in the crowd: “What can we do so to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus said: “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.” Briefly consider why you came to Mass today. Now, which of the following two attitudes best reflects your attitude? Attitude #1: “I went to Mass.” Attitude #2: “I partook of the Bread of Life and was changed by it.” Notice that the first attitude is one of passivity. I came and did what I am supposed to do. I got nothing out of it. Contrast that first attitude to the second which is one of activity. I fed on the Bread of Life―the Word of God in Scripture and the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ―and it changed me. While passivity and activity are the obvious contrast, the primary contrast is that the second attitude reveals someone who is doing God’s work, that is, believing in the one God sent. In the Eucharist, God gives us the Bread of Life in Word and in Sacrament. In the scripture, the Word of God offers the food that endures for eternal life. It possesses the power to nourish and satiate the deepest hunger present in our souls. In the Sacrament, God offers us the Body and Blood of his only begotten Son that liberates us from everything that enslaves us due to sin. This Bread of Life possesses the power to strengthen and nourish us—it gives us a new (or renewed) spiritual purpose—to be his body and blood alive and at work in our world today. It surely is much easier to grasp this concept than it is to live it. Take the people in that crowd, for example. Focused upon what they could or should or must do, they missed what God was doing before their very eyes. Thinking only about themselves―what they could or should or must do, or what belief would cost them―they had blinded themselves to what God was accomplishing in their very midst. Enslaved by our consumer society, as many of us are, we want God to provide Pez―food that fills our desire for physical nourishment and temporal happiness. But, alert for signs that God is providing what we expect, we fail to partake of the Bread of Life by listening to the Word and entering into the Sacrament―the Prime Rib―through which God is offering us a new (or renewed) spiritual purpose. No, just like the crowd pestering Jesus with their questions and doubts, we demand of God “What are you going to do for us today?” and sit then back, waiting until Jesus―the Bread of Life―does what we want, when we want, and in the exact way we want it. We may see, but we are spiritually blind because we do not see the many ways that God is blessing us. Meanwhile, what God actually is accomplishing today—just as God did for the people in that crowd—is transpiring right before our very eyes. But, like them, we don’t see it. Why? Because we are busy doing the work that will fill the kitchen table but we are not doing the work of God by partaking of the Bread of Life. We’re waiting for God to come to us rather than believing in the one God has sent: Jesus, the Bread of Life. It’s so very easy to tell this is our attitude because we pray in the way this poem indicates: I knelt to pray, but not for long, I had too much to do. I had to hurry and get to work for bills would soon be due. So I knelt and said a hurried prayer, and jumped up off my knees. My duty was now done, my soul could rest at ease. All day long I had no time to spread a word of cheer no time to speak of Christ to friends, for they’d laugh at me I’d fear. No time, no time, and much too much to do. That was my constant cry.
No time to give
to souls in need. St. Paul expresses all of this succinctly and, let me warn you, it’s not what you want to hear. If we are going to partake of the Bread of Life, we must “put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires.” Instead, we must partake of the Bread of Life so that it will renew us “in the spirit of [our] minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.” This is no easy goal to achieve because, for many of us today, it requires putting off looking good so that others will see us and be impressed, putting off having the latest new trinket, gizmo, or bling we believe will make us happy, and putting off avoiding those people we don’t like. Instead, it requires putting on belief in the one God has sent, putting on attentiveness to scripture, putting on the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and putting on holiness of life. Not easy, but possible! You don’t believe me? Well, just last evening at 9:30 p.m., a friend who has been enduring a very difficult patch in his life for the past nine months (and likely, longer) phoned me. In that conversation, my friend related his decision a few weeks back to believe in the one God has sent, the Bread of Life, and to make the Eucharist part of his daily life. Those weren’t his words but they were what he meant based upon today’s gospel reading. “You won’t believe the change it has made , Father. It has opened my eyes to things I’ve never seen and to changes I need to make in my life.” Now, just how bad was that patch, you may be wondering? So bad that my friend once thought about and once tried to take his life. He was shocked to wake up alive! Be skeptical if you want because perhaps you don’t believe in the one God sent and haven’t partaken of the Bread of Life. But, the change in my friend’s tone of voice and in his tone of optimism about the future was unmistakable. Sure, I’m willing to bet, the road ahead isn’t going to be a “bed of roses” but more than likely a bunch of thorns that he’s going to have to deal with. Yet, if my friend remains true to his commitment and seeks his sustenance in the Bread of Life, I have absolutely no doubt that he will see blessings in his life that he has never seen, although they have been there all along. His addiction to the Pez meant that he never tried the Prime Rib. With God’s grace, that taste of the Prime Rib will sustain my friend in those trials, difficulties, and temptations that are sure to come. Like my friend, evidence that we have partaken of the Bread of Life will emerge as we choose to become exile from the culture of consumerism in which we exist because we believe in the promise of the one God has sent: “Whoever comes to me will never hunger and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” This is how Jesus—the Bread of Life—is the source of our true nourishment. As the Bread of Life, Jesus is the teacher and authentic source of God’s word. His teaching satisfies the deepest longings of our souls and raises challenges that we must meet if we are to grow in grace and holiness. Partaking in the Eucharist—the liturgy of the Word of God and the liturgy of the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood—draws us into a deeper relationship with God’s word. This alone possesses the power to change us and give us a new (or renewed) spiritual purpose. Mass is boring? Only to those who don’t believe in the one God has sent. Now: How we can participate more meaningfully in the Bread of Life? Well, that’s a topic that will have to wait to consider until next week.
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HOMILY
