Reconnecting the Eucharist to Real Eating

8 Pentecost, Cycle A Proper 13, August 3, 2014

Genesis 32:22-31 Psalm 17: 1-7, 16

Romans 9:1-5 Matthew 14:13-21

Lectionary Link

   I would like for us today to get very basic and obvious because we sometimes cover up the obvious with accrued traditions and practices. 

  What is the most poignant expression for a new born baby of the real presence of the baby's mother?   The nursing baby is most basic expression of the real presence of the mother in the life of the baby.  It is the touching closeness of the maternal body and it is the very flow of life sustenance from mother into the baby as a direct source of life.

  The real presence of abundant and sustaining life is eating and drinking as what is most basic about life.  Certainly the experience of  the eating event as an experience of real presence gets diversified and variegated as a child grows because mom and dad become more indirectly present to the child in how they provide the food even while the family meal can still be a significant real presence of people to each other.

  I believe that we in the church in our liturgies in how they have developed in various social settings have lost the connection of the Holy Eucharist being a real meal feeding real hungry people who experience the Real Presence of the power of a power of real life saving nutritional life because of this eating.

  One of the most important identities of the people of Israel is the amazing miracle of their survival through a very long journey through a very unfriendly wilderness.  The very formation story of the people of Israel is told around this survival story.  They believed that they survived this long journey because of a continuous food miracle. The people of Israel were so amazed about their survival they believed it had happened because of a miracle.  They believed that they knew the real presence of God through this miraculous manna which was given to them every day.  How did we ever survive the long journey?  We had to have had the bread of angels, the bread of heaven to survive this long journey.

  The manna tradition was used by the early Christian writers to speak about the practice of the Eucharist.  The miraculous feeding of the multitude by Jesus in the wilderness was a presentation of Jesus as a new Moses.  The early church believed that presence of the Risen Christ was multiplied to them each time they ate bread and drank wine in obedience to his commandment to do so.  But the real presence of Christ in the food was also connected with the receiving of real sustenance of real food.

  The socio-economic situation of many within the new gatherings of the Jesus Movement was communal in nature.  Excommunication from synagogue and from families of birth meant that many followers of Jesus had to rely upon their new extended families.  The urbanization in the Roman Empire meant that home churches became extended families for newly relocated people.  So the gathering for Eucharist also was a gathering for a truly open communion where people were verified to have adequate food for their life because they ate in public together.  If persons in the community could be seen eating in public, it was a way for the community to guarantee that each person was getting enough to eat.  The Gospels include the sacramental tradition of knowing the presence of Christ when people were given food.  Remember the parable, "Lord when did we see you hungry or thirsty?  When you provided food and drink to the least of these my brothers and sister, you did it to me"  Early Eucharist was a practice of the real presence of Christ known when Christ was known because Christ was present in the one who needed food to eat.

  You and I and the church have lived in a highly altered practice of the holy Eucharist.  We have made it such a stylized and aesthetic meal of religious devotion that we have lost the direct practice of it being in the context of an actual sustaining meal.

  I would submit to you that this is due to the socio-economic condition of the people who gathered for the Eucharist.  Already within the Pauline community of the Corinthian church, the members began to see the community meal as a sort of "party" and even to the point of inebriation.   Paul warned them that if they ate and drank in an unworthy manner that they would be guilty of the very body of Christ.  Obviously, this was a community that had enough to eat and so their community and public eating resulted in their losing the "miraculous aspect of eating another kind of heavenly food."  Paul suggested that they do their eating in their own homes before they came together.  One can see how the socio-economic conditions helped to shape the practice of the Eucharistic liturgy.

  This socio-economic change should not mean that we lose the connection between the real presence of Christ in the bread and the wine and the real presence of life in eating real food and drinking real drink.

  The Eucharist as a public gathering still has far reaching socio-economic ramifications especially in making people aware of human need.  It is no accident that churches in the global South are growing in number where rapid urbanization means that extended family church gathering is a very important event for social networking in a new location.  It is no accident that the only reason why mass attendance stays steady in developed country is because of the poorer immigrant community.  Poor people need community more than independently wealthy family units.  Poor people need to gather and network for identity and mutual help and care.  Poor people need open communion because when they are seen in public it becomes more or less evident as to whether they are getting enough to eat.  Poor people depend upon the miracle of getting something to eat as the very identity for their lives.

  It is all well and good that we can gather and dip our tiny little bread-oid into the chalice and sing and chant our Mass settings to know the aesthetic devotional sublime moment of sensing the other-worldly in our Eucharistic event but we should not forget the real connection of the Eucharist with real hungry people being the real of presence of Jesus to people who have become the ministers who give food and drink to the least of these.

  The aesthetic devotional presence of Jesus in the Eucharist should be the political inspiration for us to encourage our country to find a way to feed these poor children who have arrived at our border as well as all who through no fault of their own have found themselves in need of food and drink for the maintenance of their lives.

  We can reconnect the beauty of the Eucharistic liturgy with real eating as we leave this Eucharistic gathering full of the presence of Christ and determined to be those who help to organize the people of our communities to bring food to those who are hungry through no fault of their own.

  May God give us a sense of the holy and real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist; but may the holy and real presence of Jesus within us motivate us to bring food to the people who will also be the presence of Christ to us when we feed them.  Amen.