Eating and drinking are at the heart of today’s Scripture readings, both the reading from Proverbs and today’s Gospel. And since we live in Southeastern Louisiana, I can hardly imagine any theme more congenial to our sensibilities, or any other audience more sympathetic to these biblical themes.

Today’s reading from John is the summit and the conclusion of the Bread of Life discourse. At the beginning of this chapter (chapter 6) Jesus performed the miracle of the multiplication of loaves. He fed several thousand people with bread. The rest of the chapter is a teaching by Jesus about the meaning of the miracle – what is the "bread" that Jesus offers and how are we fed by it.

Up to this point in the discourse, Jesus identifies himself as "the bread of life" or "the living bread". Bread has many meanings and resonances in the OT, and Fr. John spoke clearly and well last week about the manna or "bread" with which God supplied his people during their 40 years of wanderings in the desert. Another common and frequent OT metaphor for the term "bread" is God’s teaching or God’s Word. The "Word of God" in the OT is a living, active, creative and creating reality. In the first account of creation, God speaks and brings into being things that were not. God said "Let there be light, and there was light." The word of God in the OT is a reality that creates life and gives life. It also nourishes life and sustains life. "Bread " is often equated with the Torah, or the law. The Torah sustains and nourishes human life because it guides, teaches and instructs the people of God in the way to live. It orders human society and human relationships in humane and healthy ways because they are ways that reflect the love and compassion and justice and generosity of God. The Torah is God’s gift to his people because it teaches them how to live faithfully and well.

Thus far in the Bread of Life discourse, then, when Jesus is identified as "the bread of life," or "living bread", the reference has been primarily to his teaching or his word as that which nourishes or sustains human life.

But today the terminology and the emphasis shift to "eating the flesh of the Son of Man," and "drinking his blood." This terminology is so explicit and so graphic that to literalistic minds and ears it could sound like a summons to cannibalism. And indeed, these phrases may reflect, or have contributed to, the charge of cannibalism that some brought against the Christians of the first two centuries.

But however explicit and graphic the language may be, it is not an invitation to slaughter Jesus and consume Him. It is, however, an affirmation of his full humanity. "Flesh…and blood" in the Hebrew idiom mean the whole human person. It is the common OT expression for human life. Two verses earlier in this discourse, Jesus has declared that the "bread" –the nourishment- that He will give for the life of the world is his flesh. In other words, he will give his own life, all of his person, his entire and total self, so that the world may live.

The summons – the command- to eat his flesh and drink his blood is a summons to receive, to partake of his life and of his self; to abide, remain, stay close to him; to let him live his life in us. It is a summons to share in his sacrifice, and to let his love live in us. And it is also clear that the means through which we receive this life of his and this love of his is a eating and drinking – the Eucharist.

Again and again in today’s part of the Bread of Life Discourse, the result or effects of receiving the Eucharist are expressed in terms of life:" having life, having eternal life; whoever eats me will live because of me," "the one who eats this bread will live forever."

Think back for a moment to our OT reading" Wisdom calls…You are simple, turn in here! To those without sense she says, "Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live and walk in the way of insight." Here, too, Wisdom, divine teaching or instruction is presented as food and drink, as a sumptuous and satisfying meal, which leads to maturity, life, and to insight.

Just as a culture’s attitude toward and habits of eating and drinking reveal a people’s values, a philosophy of human life, so too, does the Eucharist embody and reveal a conception, an economy of human life, centered on and expressed by communal eating and drinking – table fellowship with God and with each other.

The conception of human life – its meaning, purpose, and destiny – which is expressed in the Eucharist, is very different from the messages we receive most of the time on television, in newspapers and magazines, on billboards and in the countless catalogues that we will receive in the mail. In our consumer society, one might distill the overriding message of the media as "I have, therefore I am" We are inundated with the philosophy that to buy is to be happy; that to posses more and more of the world’s material goods is the goal, purpose, and meaning of human life, - or at least, one of its most highly desired ends.

We are also taught that our productivity determines our self-worth. That how much we do and how many hours we work is a direct indication of our value as an individual and to society. "I do, and I do a lot, therefore I am."

We live in a society in which productivity and possessions are often treated as ultimate values- as the meaning and purpose of human life and as the measurement of a person’s worth. Yet, we are one of the most unhappy, depressed, stressed anxious and violent societies in the world. I am reminded of a book I read in the late seventies about the state of our health care system: it was entitled: "Doing Better and Feeling Worse."

In contrast to our society’s productivity and possessions philosophy, what we gather to do here on Sunday – offer prayer and praise to God – is very counter-cultural. It is not an accomplishment, a goal that we can list on our resume. We have nothing concrete to show for it, unless perhaps, we take the service bulletin home with us. It does not purchase us another worldly good.

Whether we realize it or not, whether we are conscious of it or not, whether we have spent much time reflecting on it or not, when we come on Sunday to participate in the Eucharist, we are engaging in and assenting to a very different understanding and conception of human life than that which is presented to us largely through the mass media.

Over fifty years ago, an Anglican Benedictine and liturgist, Dom Gregory Dix, already perceived the bankruptcy of possessions and productivity as goals of life, and contrasted those philosophies with the vision of and for human life which is embodied in the Eucharist. He wrote:

"Over against the dissatisfied ‘Acquisitive Man’ and his no less avid successor, the dehumanized ‘Mass Man’ of our economically focused societies organized insecurely for time, Christianity sets the type of ‘Eucharistic Man’ – man giving thanks with the product of his labors upon the gifts of God, and daily rejoicing with his fellows in the worshipping society which is grounded in eternity. This is [the one] to whom it was promised on the night before Calvary that he should henceforth eat and drink at the table of God and be a king. That is not only a more joyful and more humane ideal, it is the divine and only authentic conception of all human life, and its realization is in the Eucharist."

When we come to the altar, friends, we are affirming and consenting to the fact that we were made primarily not for productivity of the world’s goods but for fellowship; that we were made not to acquire things, but to give ourselves in friendship and love to God and to others. By eating and drinking the flesh and blood that is Jesus, by feeding ourselves on the life, love, and wisdom of God offered to us in the Eucharist, we are participating in the divine intention and purpose for human life. We are beginning; we are on the way to fulfilling our true and final destiny – friendship, intimacy with God and with each other at table in his kingdom. This is t This is truly a much more humane, joyful, and authentic conception of human life than that which is presented to us in our culture.

We are graced and blessed this morning to be able to gather at God’s table in a newly renovated and beautiful sacred space. It is an exciting and joyous occasion to "christen" these new surroundings by our celebration of the Eucharist.

But our celebration of the communal eating and drinking at God’s table does not end here. Just as Jesus was sent to the world by the Father, we are sent to the world by Jesus. We are people who have been given a mission. There are many folk in this community who are not here and who have never been here, and who are hungry and searching for a more profound and authentic meaning to their lives than what they receive from our culture. Our challenge and our vocation is not only to feed on the life, the love, and the wisdom of God given to us in the Eucharist, to make it part of ourselves and our lives, but also to take it out into the world. We are sent to others – in our families, in our jobs, in our schools, in the marketplace – to share with them what we have come to know about God and about ourselves: That the ultimate meaning of human life is fellowship – friendship – with God and with each other. We are made to give ourselves to and for each other for the sake of God. Relationships – human and divine – are what we are made for. Our destiny is to sit at table with God and each other in his kingdom – and the Eucharist is both our foretaste and pledge of that divinely appointed end

The Rev'd Pamela Snare is Curate of Christ Church, Covington

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