Bread of Life, 20th Sunday

Let us be clear about this, God has always fed us. By natural means (if I can be that simple) he created a loving cosmos and a habitable world. His clouds bring rain. His sun warms the earth. He has given us fertile soil to nurture plant and animal.

Through the natural world he brings forth bread and milk to feed and strengthen us, oil and wine to bring joy to our hearts.

God has given us all these natural resources plus the intellect, curiosity and a creative spirit to discover new ways of agriculture, production and distribution. He has given us (though we have often failed to use it) the human spirit to steward and to share these nourishing gifts.

The first reading reminds us of God's generosity and abundance. Wisdom, as God's overflowing goodness and providence, his active Grace in the world, has dressed her meat and mixed her wine, she has spread her table.

God's abundance is laid out before us and it is not to be denied to anyone who asks.

Wisdom announces to all who thirst and hunger - come and eat my food and drink my wine.

Eat and drink in gladness, thanksgiving, gratitude and understanding.

 Besides God's natural means, of course, there are God's supernatural gifts.

Food enough for Noah's Ark. Manna from heaven.  Elijah's hearth cake and water that sustained him for 40 days of walking. And there was Jesus feeding of the multitude, where very little fed all in need.

But, these miracles, as great as they are, only sustained natural life. They do not create new life. They may keep the body alive but they cannot keep death a bay.

We have heard for the last couple of Sundays that only Jesus offer's food that is beyond both natural and supernatural.

Only Jesus goes beyond what sustains life to what transforms life, making the old new and destroys death forever.

And Jesus does not create this bread - Jesus, himself, is this bread.

Last week we heard that the people were being given an invitation to share in this new life, but they were not responding. They had already closed their minds. And today they still quarreled about how can this man give his flesh to eat? Of course, they are thinking about natural food and drink. Some of them may even have thought of supernatural food, Moses and the manna from heaven, or Jesus himself who just multiplied, loaves and fish to feed the many.

 We know Jesus was concerned for the poor. He taught that they had the God given right not to

go hungry because of the greed of the powerful.

Jesus, certainly was aware of his Father's supernatural gifts, for he himself had just feed 5,000.

But, Jesus is saying there is more. Man cannot live by bread alone, but only by the word of

God.

 

Jesus is telling the people this day - I am the Word of God, I am the bread come down from

 heaven. I am the bread of life that does not only sustain life here and now, in a more

 human and humane way, but offers new and eternal life.To eat this bread is to be totally united with God through Jesus. To eat this bread is to have one’s whole life enlivened with the spirit of Jesus.

Such a person is fully alive – now and forever.

Only by consuming the living bread, that is Jesus, are we conformed to God and brought back into right relationship with him and all of his creation. And this is the key idea in to today's Gospel - that when we eat Jesus' flesh and drink his blood we "remain" in Jesus and he remains in us. This “remaining” is the action of the Eucharist.

By remaining we will have a new, spirit driven life, here and now, and this new life, in the Spirit, is eternal life.Jesus is telling us that he is true life because his Father is true life and we who share his life, his body and blood, share forever this same true life.

St Augustine said of the Eucharist - become what you eat.In the second reading St Paul tells us to watch carefully how we live. Not foolishly but in wisdom, making the most of the opportunity!

And what an opportunity we have in the Eucharist.

Real relationship and eternal presence are the heart or the Eucharist.

Through the Eucharist we “remain” in Christ and he, his whole way of life, his teaching, his attitudes and relationships towards his Father and the people around him, are real nourishment and food for our daily living.

It compels us not to fear - for God provides.

It compels us, in gratitude to cherish all that God gives us through the natural world and its resources and its harvests of creation.

It compels us to be good stewards and not destroyers of God's creation. It compels us to be gracious shearers in God's abundant gifts not fearful hoarders.

Because Wisdom tells us – All (each generation) are invited to God's abundant table.

We are not to squander what God gives us (natural or supernatural) but husband and hand over, to those that come after us, all the gifts we have received from God.

 I am the bread come down from heaven and the bread I give is my flesh for the world.

And we, through the Eucharist, are to become bread broken and shared for, and with, the world.To remain in him we must choose to do so. We must become what we eat.

 At the end of all that is, Our Lord sits on his throne and says to all creation, all humanity and especially those who call him Lord, See, I am making all things new. 

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

To the thirsty and hungry I will give water and bread as gifts of life.

I am the life - says the Lord.