John 6.60-69.
Almost two months ago, we started a very special set of readings. It began with our second readings from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians about how to live as a follower of Christ, a letter we continue to hear from even this weekend. And then at the end of July, we began a series of Gospel readings focused on what is called “the bread of life’ discourse from the Gospel of John. It started with the miracle of the feeding of the 5000+. The following week’s Gospel had the people asking Jesus for a sign that he is indeed of God. (Maybe its just me, but I can almost think that Jesus would be thinking …… “feeding 5000+ of you with 5 loaves and two fish wasn’t sign enough????”)
But, as always with the writings in John’s Gospel, the messages are much deeper, much more profound. For the readings in the past month have all led up to this weekend, and to these passages we hear today. Jesus, through his words – human words, in a language they understood, and through his actions – working with their physical reality, healing the sick, even raising the dead – Jesus revealed that there is something more to who they were, and who God is. He moves them from an experience of God within their humanity, to a vision of God that is Mystery. He moves them from a worldview of physical food and physical healing, to a worldview that recognises the spiritual domain that is within them and that surrounds them, and He provides them a teaching about Spiritual Food, and Spiritual Healing. Jesus moves them from their familiar surroundings into mystery. A mystery that many of them were unwilling to enter into.
The same can be true of us, for we sit in our comfortable pews – I don’t mean those wooden seats, but rather the images and models we have of God that we are comfortable with – and then we are presented with the mystery of the spiritual domain within which we exist. We are reminded that the physical things of life, especially ourselves, are temporary. We are spiritual beings, not just physical – it has been said that the physical is like a cocoon that houses a spiritual butterfly. You and I are destined for eternity, yet spend our time and energy worrying about the cocoon, not nourishing the beautiful butterfly inside. And like the disciples back then, when we are confronted with spiritual truths and a spiritual message, most people will turn it down. What the all-too-human society we live in conditions us to want is spectacle, material things, and not mystery, or something that moves us beyond our comfort zone.
And so, after spending time with humanity, preaching a message that challenged and reshaped their image of who and what God was, and of performing miracles on the physical plane that reinforced that His were not just words, but were evidence of a greater presence – Jesus presents the mystery of the eucharist. That in connecting with God in this way, we transcend time and space and receive the spiritual nourishment that allows us to become ALL that we were created to be. Jesus presents to them, and to us, a doorway. A threshold that once we cross, moves us into an even greater awareness and connection with our Creator. A threshold that moves us beyond the familiar and into the realm of mystery. And the only way to cross over that threshold is through faith. Faith that God will continue to be revealed to us in deeper and even more profound ways. Faith that the spiritual nourishment we receive is indeed food for our soul. Faith that you and I are destined for an eternity with God, and faith that while we are existing in the here and now, we will receive the grace we need to live out God’s calling, God’s mission for us. Faith that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of our Saviour. Faith that we join with God in an intimate spiritual union. Faith that for our journey through this life and into eternal life, God provides us a supernatural nourishment, food for our souls
The Jesus we follow is relentlessly loving, not least towards those who hated him, those who spurned him.
To be able to become that loving requires supernatural nourishment, food for our souls. The Jesus we follow was full of empathy towards those in distress. He had a way of connecting with those who were hurting, with the outsiders, those whom society loved to spurn. To be able to become that caring requires supernatural nourishment, food for our souls. Indeed, despite Christ’s constant command to love one another, we can still choose not to do so, or too easily fail when trying. To be able to live that commandment requires supernatural nourishment, food for our souls.
For many of those followers two thousand years ago, followers who were firmly planted in their earthen lives, they were unable to see what Jesus was revealing to them. They were unable to cross that threshold of faith, and so could not accept what they saw as intolerable language. They had heard words that they did not understand – which, in fact, repelled them. It simply was impossible for them to believe that Jesus was inviting them to eat his flesh and drink his blood and so, many of those who had followed Jesus up to that point walked away. They had reached an obstacle which they could not overcome – a threshold they could not pass.
And when asked, Peter speaks for the apostles when he says to Jesus that they will not leave – they were prepared to put their trust in the person of Jesus. They had seen enough to sense that he is the Holy One of God and that, in him, they would somehow find eternal life. It is unlikely that the apostles understood Jesus’ words any more than those who chose to leave but they discerned that there was a deeper truth in those words than they could yet be able to perceive. They accepted that their lack of understanding did not mean that the words were wrong – rather, they accepted that over time, they would grow into a greater understanding and a deeper experience of their meaning.
The very fact that you are here today means that you have crossed that threshold …… Life on this side of the threshold hasn’t been made easier. The stresses and pressures of our physical realities still exist and impact us. And while the reality of Jesus’ teaching about the Eucharist is sometimes rock solid within us, at other times can seem like mystery. Yet, you and I accept that we don’t understand the full implications and impacts of this faith in the Eucharist. We accept that with God’s help, we will enter into this mystery, and grow into its meaning and impact in our lives. And this is why the Eucharist is so central in our beliefs as Catholics. And why the Gospel readings of the past month about the Bread of Life have been leading up to this day. And to this threshold.
May the Eucharist, the bread of life, continue to nourish us, and help us become all that God created us to be, both now, and into eternity.