“Come, Eat, and Drink”
Sunday, August 16 Prov. 9:1-6; Eph. 5:15-20; Jn. 6:51-58
Today has been spent supervising an internship. I wrote for me what was a difficult an evaluation for a student in a ministry program. I basically told him he needed to look at his life and see what his own spirituality is before trying to minister. I have found that to be a minister, clergy, you have to have a grasp of who God is in your life–for one thing if you don’t then you will be pushed to and fro, and another is you will be torn to pieces. He commented it seemed cold, and as I look back it was. It was difficult for me to write, not an easy one, and also he had revealed little of himself, when he revealed himself he was easy to relate to, easy to talk to. It is hard to open yourself up, but when you do God will come in. Went to bed at 11, exhausted. Deo Gratis! Thanks be to God!
“Come, Eat, and Drink”
INTRODUCTION
One of the amazing things about St.Victor’s is the feast that we have, all sorts of foods, meats, and salads. Our meals are but a part of along tradition. They have been in ample supple for thousands of years. Egyptian heroglyphics attest to the lavish fare of their feasts–such as perfumed wines and tiny birds, eaten whole, accompanied by exotic fruits. Persian banquets included horses, camels, deer, and a variety of birds roasted whole. Even today some of the Bedouin tribes in the Arabian and North African desert regions honor visiting dignitaries and celebrate weddings with what is purported to be the largest single dish in the world: Eggs stuffed into fish; fish is then stuffed into chicken, which is stuffed into sheep. then the sheep is stuffed into an entire camel, and the whole things is roasted. No one, however, outdid the Romans, who served ostrich brains, hummingbird tongues, suckling pigs, vegetables mixed with flecks of gold, pearls and precious gems and even ice cream.
These lavish banquets, however, were extraordinary. As such, they were limited only to certain guests. Their guests were pampered and plied with food and drink and entertained with music and dancing, while slaves and servants looked on and the poor could only imagine such luxury.
I. WISDOM
Aware of the popularity of banquets and the preciousness of even the most meager fare, the author of Proverbs used the motif of a great feast to entice the hungry to find their food not in a royal banquet hall, however lavish, but at Wisdom’s table. Invitations to Wisdom’s feast are not limited to a few. Rather, anyone who is hungry enough to hear and accept her invitation will be well fed by wisdom.
Wisdom’s invitation and generous offer of food for all had its roots in Israel’s past and offered a prelude of its future.. Her great spread, offered freely “to shomever is simple,” recalled the manna in the desert that fed the Israelites who were willing to depend daily on God’s providence for their survival. Wisdom’s feast also anticipated the meals that Jesus would offere to any and to all.
II. THE MEALS OF JESUS
First among those meals was the supper of barley bread and fish, which fed the physical hungers of the great crowd who had come in search of him. He knows until the physical hungers are satisfied no one will be open to having their spiritual hungers fed, and then once the physical hungers have been met, we humans are open to the that which speaks to our inner being.
But there is a third feast which continues to welcome each and everyone of us who believes in Jesus as true food and true drink in the breaking of the bread, which he left to us as an everlasting rememberance.
Today’s gospel features this aspect of Jesus’ willingness to feed every human hunger. The Jesus of John has represented Jesus as the divine desire to be bread for the life of the world. In order to provide this bread of life, Jesus was to be handed over, taken and broken on the cross so that his life could be given for all of us.
When we come again and again to his table we are fed by his life-giving word. These visits at the table that Jesus continues to prpeare and to host are life-sustaining moments of great intimacy. These meals continue to provid us with the gift of grace, which enables us–once our hungers have been fed–to tend to the hungers of others.
Throughout our lives, we Christians remain God’s beloved beggars, invited to the banquet of God’s own making. Now it devolves upon those of us who have found bread to tell others where they too, can find bread. It is not enough to merely give directions. Rather, we are to be companions on the journey and tablemates on at the feast who are willing to be broken and given and shared so that others may eat and have life.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.