Brief synopsis of the readings: Elijah, in our first reading, journeyed into the desert for a day. He then sat under a broom tree and stated: “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” After he fell asleep and angel woke him and ordered him to eat and drink. Finding a hearth cake and jug of water he ate and drank and fell back to sleep. But the angel returned and again told him to eat and drink. Strengthened by the food he walked 40 days and 40 nights to the mountain of God. John’s Gospel continues from last week. The Jews murmured against Jesus for referring to himself as the “bread that came down from heaven.” How can he claim to be the bread that came down from heaven when we know he is the son of Joseph? Jesus then ordered them to stop murmuring and explained that no one comes him (Jesus) without the Father’s selection. “Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.” Further, “whoever believes has eternal life.” Jesus then affirms that he is the bread of life, unlike manna that nourished but did not grant eternal life. Finally, “whoever eats this bread [Jesus] will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
My first thought in the first reading is this: “Wow this must be great bread!” After walking one day in the desert and being ready to die, Elijah eats the hearth cake, drinks some water, and walks for 40 days and 40 nights. Talk about an energy bar!
Elijah holds an interesting place in the Old Testament. He is fleeing from East to West and telling God that he is not up for the job; this mirrors Moses who fled from West to East and also felt he wasn’t up for the job. At the same time he is foreshadowing Jesus who speaks the truth and brings the life giving bread. You see, here Elijah was running for his life. He had just called out King Ahab for worshipping the pagan god of his wife Jezebel. Ahab promised to return to worshipping God but Jezebel swore to kill Elijah.
It’s no exaggeration to say that this bread, this hearth cake, saved his life. Ahead of him lies a hostile desert, behind him lies a hostile queen. Only this bread allows him to live. The “mountain of God” that ends this reading is Mt. Sinai where Moses first received the covenant. It becomes not only a reminder that Moses successfully led the newly freed slaves, but also showed that Mt. Sinai (the covenant) is a safe haven.
And so when we move to the Gospel we see the progression of bread. Two weeks ago we saw the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the “magic bread” that keeps reproducing until everyone is fed. Last week Jesus spoke of how the bread itself wasn’t magic apart from the fact that Jesus is the bread of life. Here he continues the metaphor by explaining that this bread isn’t just bread that we bake, but is instead “bread that came down from heaven.”
As Christians we hold a spectrum of views about what we now call Eucharist or Communion. Some communities find the idea of communion simply a metaphor for belief in Jesus and see no reason to break and share bread. Others believe that communion is a reminder and break bread annually or monthly, and some break break weekly but see this bread as reverting to regular bread at the end of the worship service. Catholics are nearly unique in the believe that once the bread is blessed (consecrated) by a priest it irreversibly becomes the “body of Christ” and needs to be treated differently.
I don’t wish to enter into a debate about who is right and who is wrong, but I do wish to spotlight this reality: when the authors of 1st Kings and John wrote, nutrition was a critical issue. Famine was a reality everyone lived with and the idea of always having enough (and never fearing starvation) must have seemed heavenly to any audience. I believe I’m safe in saying that nobody who is reading this worries about starvation.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t face challenges when we think about our relationship with God and with salvation. Even if we don’t face the challenges of starvation we do face other challenges. Several years ago a friend of mine heard Mother Theresa speak here in the United States. He expected her to speak about how easy we have things while she has it hard. Instead she talked about how much she worried about wealthy countries like the United States. She explained that in Calcutta the needs were simple: for those who were hungry she could easily give them food and meet their needs.
Here in the United States most of the people she met weren’t hungry for food (though God knows we have our share), but instead they were hungry for loneliness. She talked about speaking at a parish in a wealthy suburb of Boston: at the end of her talk a wealthy man shook her hand and gave her a $100 bill with the instruction to give it to someone who needed it. She refused. She gave it back to him with this instruction: You find a poor person and give it to him (or her) yourself. She explained that while a poor person certainly needs money to meet his (or her needs) they also need the connection that only he could give. She wanted him to find someone in need not only because that person would benefit from the money, but also because both of them would benefit from the encounter.
Thirty two years ago I was a seminarian assigned to a wealthy parish in Los Altos, California. Greg, the youth minister for the parish, told me about one night that he and a few of his friends decided to spend the night with the homeless in the tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco. At the time it was a rough area and several people thought it was a bad idea, fearing for their safety. They never felt in danger, but instead spoke about how alive, and yet how isolating that area is after dark. During the night they encountered a homeless man who asked them for a bottle of booze; they weren’t sure whether or not what to do but they got him a bottle of schnapps. He shotgunned it, expressed surprise over how sweet it was, and said to them: “Please don’t leave me. I’m so lonely.” They spent the next few hours with him and I like to think that this is exactly what Jesus had in mind.
They didn’t give him Communion. They didn’t confer any of the 7 Catholic sacraments, but they made a connection with him that meant more to him (and me) that was as sacramental as they get. Perhaps they could have had a conversation without the alcohol but maybe not. Maybe this was a peace offering to allow the man to open. I’m aware that if his homeless man (who, almost 32 years later, probably is no longer alive) struggled with alcoholism, Greg and friends contributed to it. But on the other hand, it created a connection.
We are two thousand years removed from John’s Gospel and I believe that our obsession with magic bread takes us away from Jesus’ message. If our Eucharist is just bread we do injustice to Jesus. It’s not about gluten and water, but about connection. I mean no disrespect to Eucharist but we need to understand that Eucharist isn’t just about “eternal bread” but about bringing us together as disciples. When 5000 of us connect through bread, when Elijah walks 40 days and 40 nights because of hearth cake and water, it isn’t because of what we do. It’s because God has called us beyond what we can do. It’s because God has called us to see each other not as competitors for scarce resources but as fellow victors of the Kingdom of God. No bread, in and of itself, lasts forever. But the relationships that God calls us to are eternal.
The Gospels over the last few weeks have centered on bread, feeding the hungry, and Eucharist. All during this time I’ve been ruminating on a movie I saw in the 1980s called Babette’s Feast. It’s a pretty obscure movie and I’m guessing most of you have never seen it; if not, you should. The movie takes place in the 1800s in Denmark. Babette was a young French woman who came to Denmark and was employed as the cook and housekeeper by two adult sisters. They were the daughters of a harsh Christian minister who had died a while earlier; he was a strict man who discouraged them from marrying and professed a belief that was strong on the rules and weak on joy. His spirituality spread through the village and the whole place was, let’s say it, dour and depressed.
On the 100th anniversary of the minister’s birth his daughters wanted to hold a feast in his honor. Babette had recently come into some money and decided to put on a feast much more generous than his daughters imagined. She purchased an incredible amount of food and spent days preparing the feast. On the night of the celebration the citizens of the village feasted on a meal beyond their greatest expectations. Much to their surprise they found joy not only in the food but also in each other. Babette’s generosity provided them the fuel that allowed them to look beyond their expectations of each other and see them in a whole new light. The last scene of the movie left many of us with an image we will never forget. Neighbors who saw each other every day suddenly saw them in a new light: strangers became neighbors, neighbors became friends, friends became … well, sharers in the feast. No Christian I’ve ever met sees this movie without describing it as “Eucharistic.”
And yet, under the strictest Catholic understanding of Eucharist, it wasn’t. There was no priest, no mass, no consecration. Again, meaning no disrespect, I’m not claiming this scene was a Catholic mass. But I can’t pull myself away from the belief that Babette did essentially the same thing Jesus did at the Last Supper. She took a community of disparate people and brought them together celebrating a feast. She prayed that this feast was the first step in committing them to go forward as a community that recognized each other and committed to enlarging this community to the next generation and the next generation and…well, to this day.
In the final analysis Eucharist is only truly Eucharist if it brings us together. It needs not only to deepen our faith in God, but in ourselves and each other. Just as the participants in Babette’s Feast look on themselves with a new joy, so should we. Let us feast together under God’s love.