The Reverend Ronald J. Kolanowski
August 16, 2009
The 11th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 15, Year B

Now that I have children I find myself saying things I heard from my mother when I was a child.  Today’s readings remind me of one of those truisms that I say to my five-year-old when he asks to have more candy or the unending requests for popsicles.  “You can’t have sweets right now – after all ‘you are what you eat.’”  The “you are what you eat” phrase – that’s one heard by most of us at one time or another.  Our readings today might use this expression. 

The passage from Kings about Solomon asking for wisdom reminds me of Proverbs 9:1-6, which is also used as the Hebrew scripture in some churches today.  “Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars.   She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table.  She has sent out her maids, and she calls from the highest point of the city.  "Let all who are simple come in here!" she says to those who lack judgment.  "Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed.  Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of understanding.”

Wisdom builds a sturdy house and prepares a sumptuous feast.  Having readied her feast, she sends out her maids to issue an invitation to come – an invitation worded in such a way that there is no doubt that those who accept it will gain spiritual and practical insight, having feasted on her delights.

For the third week in a row we continue with the passage about Jesus as the bread of life.  This week we are told that “unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life within you.”  It is understandable that Jesus’ followers found this hard to hear.  What could sound more foolish?  Anybody in their right mind would wonder what John could possibly mean.  One can also imagine why rumors of Christian cannibalism spread around the Empire.  John is alluding to the God of Christians and Jews who defeats evil not through dominating it but through enduring and outlasting it – all of which is embodied in a new way in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Jesus’ words here connect well with Lady Wisdom’s banquet in Proverbs.

We are to eat, consume, and take in the bread of Christ into our lives.  How do we do this?  How do we take in Christ, the bread of life?  Obviously, from Holy Communion and eating the bread and drinking the wine.  Eating the body of Christ, drinking the blood of Christ.  We take in Christ from reading and digesting the Scriptures.  The Bible itself is the bread of life.

We take in Christ from experiencing the Holy Spirit in other loving people.

We take in Christ every day as we encounter situations that invite us to give ourselves in love by serving the needs of others.  As we serve the needs of others, the love of Christ enters us more fully.

John wants us to SEE into Jesus, and through Jesus, that our real longing is not for things that pass away.  Our true longing is for things that endure, that are imperishable.  Jesus is making a direct connection between the boundless life he offers and the death he must face to offer it.  As with much of John's gospel, a message of welcome and inclusion seems to vie with a message of superiority and exclusion that is so often the message of the world.  This is God’s invitation to all to feast on God’s abundance; it is not our meal to withhold or put restrictions on.

A colleague of mine at Episcopal Divinity School named Ben is a Dalit from South India.  In the caste culture of India, the Dalits are the people considered the untouchables.  He shared stories of Dalits who were devastated by the Tsunami a few years ago.  It seems that some relief supplies were withheld from Dalits and kept for use by those of upper castes.  Not only did many lose their homes and loved ones, but because of caste practice they were having difficulty sharing in the relief supplies – they are the untouchables.
 
Ben also shared stories of those who oppose the caste system.  He talked about the Church of South India, which is part of the Anglican Communion, and the denominational divisions among Christian Churches in India which are so divisive, so a number of churches merged to create this new church –abandoning denominationalism.
 
Ben told about a special inter-communion liturgy that transcends denomination, caste and, in some cases, Christian boundaries.  What happens is that people from across the community gather at church.  Each one brings a fistful of rice and drops it into a common pot.  It is then cooked, brought into the church and consecrated as communion. 
 
In a highly stratified society, they are breaking all the rules and creating something new.  Common rice from homes of all classes and castes, touchable and untouchable alike, is placed in a pot, cooked and becomes Christ’s body.
 
Like our readings that urge us to seek God’s wisdom, hands filled with rice share a common meal that has the power to change everything.  GOD’S WISDOM BREAKS IN – where new life seems impossible. 
 
The power in our readings is God’s radical desire to create new life again and again and again in spite of the wisdom of the world.  To seek God’s wisdom is to seek something new that nourishes completely.  The early Christian communities believed Christ called them to live in a new way.  Are we not called to do the same – no longer male or female, Jew or Gentile, white or black, gay or straight, Dalit or Brahman, Catholic or Protestant, Christian, Muslim or Hindu.

When Jesus invites us to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he is inviting us to ingest God's Word, to feast on God's light, God’s life, God's truth, God's love.  To let them ABIDE in us, so that we might ABIDE in Jesus – and in the One who ABIDES in Jesus.

But be warned, when you eat and drink, you will be filled, you will be satisfied.  Your life will change.  For if God dwells within you, fills you, how can you hate others?  How can you be prejudiced against others, knowing that God dwells in them, too?  How can you turn away when you see injustice and pain, knowing that God came in human form to relieve our pain? 

After all…..remember:  “you are what you eat.” Amen.

Copyright © 2009 by The Reverend Ronald J. Kolanowski