It was kind of like a 4^th of July family reunion.  The South Carolina cousins were bringing lots of fireworks; Roman candles, bottle rockets, missile batteries, and some that required a pipe launcher.  Of course, such things are not legal in every state, so caution had to be exercised.  The gathering this year was to be at the new home of Aunt Betty, who had remarried three months before. 

Little did the South Carolina folks realize that Aunt Betty had married a state trooper.  They found all this out after unpacking the car.  The father turned to his youngest son, age ten, and whispered for him to grab the paper bag from the kitchen and hid it real quickly.  The boy disappeared and the family started talking about the different types of food to be offered for the day.  Hot dogs, hamburgers, and chicken were on the menu.  Aunt Betty’s husband informed all the men that the gas grill is all set to use out back; just turn on the gas and push the ignition button with the lid down.  They soon head out back, just as the ten-year old South Carolina son, comes back around the house.  The father hurries to him and said, “Whew, that was close!  Aunt Betty’s husband is a state police captain and almost saw that bag with the fireworks.  Did you hide them well?”

“Oh, yes sir!” the boy said.  “Nobody will ever think to look in the grill”

Your sins will find you out!  Kind of like the woman who was complaining to her neighbor that her husband always came home late, no matter how she tried to stop him.  “Take my advice,” said the neighbor, “and do what I did.  Once my husband came home at three o’clock in the morning and I call out from the bed, ‘Is that you, Jim?’ And that cured him.

“Cured him?” asked the woman, “but how?”

The neighbor said, “Well, you see, his name is Ted.”

Well, I can assure you that the synagogue in Capernaum had some fireworks on that Sabbath day, long ago.  A fairly new resident of the community had been teaching and said some totally radical, off-the-wall things.  “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”  BOOM!  POW!  CRACK!  Eating flesh and drinking blood!  Who had ever heard of such a crazy notion?  Was the guy just wacky or was he possessed?  When did he move here?  And how long do you think he’ll stay?  Not long, I hope.  But, I suspect it is not just his hometown people who have difficulty with this image that appears to border on cannibalism.

Jesus said some things about his flesh and his blood.  It is important to see beyond just the Eucharistic tone here.  Yes, Jesus is talking about the meal that is eaten around his table, the holy food and drink that is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet that is to come.  But, he is talking more about attitudes that his followers are to develop as they live their daily lives.  What attitudes are we to have that lead us in the direction of true wisdom?

 I would want to place gratitude at the top of the list.  At the very least we are to be filled with gratitude when we come to the Eucharist.  We are to feel excitement as we take his body and blood, in faith, into our very being.  But, we are to have that same attitude in the presence of any food, at any meal.  To simply offer thanks for what has been presented for us is the very minimum we should offer.  When we stop to think about what has been sacrificed, what has had to die, in order for us to be fed we should feel a shiver of gratitude.  It is that shiver that moves us to being more and more present to our food and to the one from whom all blessings flow.  It should also move us to a greater urgency to share with those who have nothing or very little.

I would also suggest that we need to develop the attitude of renewal.  What is the purpose of food?  The simple answer and the correct one is that we may be renewed.  That is true of our food taken at mealtimes.  From that nourishment we gain strength for our physical bodies in order to do the work God has given us to do.  The purpose of spiritual feeding is that we may be renewed for mission and ministry in the Lord’s name.  The Eucharistic feeding is never to be a selfish action.  We are not to be fed so we may feel better and go on with life as usual.  St. Paul pointed out that we eat and drink judgment upon ourselves if we partake of the Eucharist without discerning the body for which his body was broken.  That body is the continuing incarnate one we call the church.  The body and blood empower us for change, as well.  It is to give us a God-awareness that directs us in the path he would have us walk and not the one of our own choosing.

That leads us to the third attitude I suggest we need.  We are to share.  When we are truly grateful, when we are renewed for service, we take the step that Jesus asks us to take.  We share with others that they may be fed physically and spiritually.  It is a profound truth that when we share our time, talent, and treasure in thanksgiving for all that we have received the more we have.  No one has ever out-given God!  When we give of our time, talent, and treasure we are simply letting go, investing, what is God’s in the first place.  Sharing is the best way I know of insuring that today’s bread will be sufficient and that we need not worry about where tomorrow’s bread will come from.  Like the bread my grandmother would share with me on a Saturday morning, when the cook’s biscuit would be baked with the bread reserved for Sunday, so the bread we eat this day is but a foretaste of the bread that is to come.

Be grateful, be renewed, and share for this is true food indeed and this is true drink indeed.  This is the bread that leads to eternal life and it should lead to an explosion of faith.  Amen.