19 Sunday B: The Living Bread

From Fr. Jude Botelho:

In the first reading we meet Elijah when he is in the pit of despair. He flees to the desert but there a terrible depression overtakes him. He asks God to take his life. But instead of doing so God sends an angel to him with food and water. Strengthened by these, the prophet arises and makes his way to the mountain of God. We should be aware that God did not solve Elijah's problem but gave him nourishment so that he could cope with whatever difficulties he faced in his mission. We often want God to solve our problems but he prefers to provide us with the nourishment that will help us to cope with life's problems. Am I using the nourishment God is providing right now?

This was all included with the tickets!

There was once a family that had fallen on hard times when the family business failed, and they lost everything. The neighbours were very sympathetic. The children were embarrassed when they had to move to a mobile home after they had to sell their house and business premises. Some of the neighbours came to the parents to offer their help, and to find out how best they might be able to help. The father told them that the one thing he wanted, more than anything in the world, was to be able to take his wife and kids and move off to America where nobody would know them, and try and start again. The neighbours worked on the fund-raising, and after a certain length of time they had sufficient money for tickets by boat from Cobh to New York. The family had never been away from home before, so they had no idea how to prepare for such a voyage. They bought bread and cheese and packed a few boxes with sandwiches. They gathered together in a single cabin in the boat, with no desire to mix with others, in case of finding themselves embarrassed or out of their depths. On the first, second, third, fourth and fifth days they ate sandwiches. From then on the sandwiches began to go bad. The cheese and the bread had blue-mold on them, and they began to smell. By now they were all in a bad way. They were sick, hungry and deeply discouraged. With a day or two to go before arriving in New York, one little lad begged his dad for a few pennies, so he could go up on the deck and buy a few sweets. The dad gave him the pennies and off he went. He didn't return and after about half an hour, the father was forced to go up on deck to look for him. When he came up on the deck, he was totally amazed by what he saw. There were long tables surrounded by people, and they were all eating a beautiful dinner. There in the midst of them was his son, with a plate of turkey, ham, potatoes, and vegetables in front of him, together with a large beaker of Coke. The father came up behind him and whispered, "Why did you do this? You know rightly, we cannot afford this." The young lad's eyes lit up as he replied: "Dad, we could have had this every day. This was all included with the tickets!" When we enter heaven and look around… Jesus could say "I never mentioned sandwiches once in the whole gospel. I often spoke of being invited to the feast…"
Jack McArdle in 'And that’s the Gospel Truth'

The context of the gospel is the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes with which Jesus fed the multitude. We know that the crowds kept searching for him and following him. But Jesus had confronted the crowd about their real reason for following him; they wanted more bread not more of him! When Jesus spoke of himself as the 'bread of life' in last Sunday's gospel and this Sunday's as well, he meant it in the sense of food that sustains faith –his teachings. Only at the end of today's section of the gospel does he refer to this bread of life as the Eucharist. Jesus not only claimed that without his teachings they could not live, but without Him they could not live. He claimed to be the source of life itself. But the people began to complain just as the Israelites complained in the desert. How could this Jesus be the source of life? After all they knew his history, they knew his village and where he came from; he was ordinary just like them. How could he claim divine origin? But Jesus reminded them that knowing him was a gift and not an acquisition. "No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me. Whoever believes has eternal life."

"Shortly after Columbus discovered America, rumours spread that the new world contained a fountain of youth. A sixteenth century Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon fitted a ship and sailed to America to search for this legendary fountain but never found it. In the movie 'Cocoon' there is a group of senior citizens. These old people experienced a return to their youth when they bathed in a swimming pool used by aliens from another planet. Their exciting experience prompted them to accept an invitation from the aliens to go back with them to their planet. The senior citizens were told that once they reached the alien planet, they would live forever."
Mark Link in 'Sunday Homilies'

Giving up or going on!
One day a partially deaf boy came home from school with a note from his teacher. He handed it to his mother. She opened it and slowly read it. The note suggested that her son was too dull to learn. He was holding back the whole class. It would be better for everybody if he would withdraw from school. When the boy's mother finished reading the note, she felt awful. She also felt challenged. "My son, Tom, is not too dull to learn," she said to herself. "I'll teach him myself." When Tom died many years later, the entire nation honoured him in a remarkable way. At exactly 9:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, every home in the United States turned off its lights for one minute, as a tribute to the man who had invented those lights. Thomas Edison invented not only the electric light but also the movie projector and the record player. When he died, the boy who was 'too dull to learn' had over a thousand patents to his credit, thanks to his mother who never gave up!
Mark Link, in 'Journey'

Don’t take gifts……
"I will go with two small suitcases," said an emotional President A P J Abdul Kalam as he prepared to leave Rashtrapati Bhawan with a desire to see India as a developed nation by 2020. In possibly his last public function as the head of the state, Kalam had advice for the countrymen - "Don't take gifts that come with a purpose and build families with character and a good value system. On the 25th I will leave Rashtrapati Bhawan after having spent five glorious years there. What I have got are two small suitcases. I will go with two small suitcases," he said. The President went on to add that besides the two suitcases, he had a big reserve of books that he would be taking with him. "I will take the books with me. They are my own books," said Kalam. The 75-year-old Scientist-President, who turned philosophical and nostalgic in turns, recalled how his father had taught him not to accept any gifts. "Yesterday, a well-known person gave me a gift of two pens. I had to return them with unhappiness," he said, also quoting from the ancient Hindu code of law 'Manusmriti' that by accepting gifts the divine light in the person gets extinguished. "I am sharing this thought with all of you since no one should get carried away by any gift which comes with a purpose and through which one loses his personality greatly," he said…
Times of India

One day at a time
God provides a mysterious food called manna for the Israelites during their time in the desert. However, they were told not to stockpile the manna, but to gather only what they needed for one day. Jesus told his disciples not to worry about tomorrow. He said, "When you pray to your heavenly Father, you are to say, 'Give us this day our daily bread.'" No matter how difficult life may be, for those who trust in God and who live one day at a time, the manna falls every day.
Anonymous

Don't doubt God's Word
The night fell heavy in the heights of the mountains and the man could not see anything. All was black. Zero visibility, and the moon and the stars were covered by the clouds. As he was climbing only a few feet away from the top of the mountain, he slipped and fell in to the air, falling at great speed. He could only see black spots as he went down, and the terrible sensation of being sucked by gravity. He kept falling and in the moments of great fear all the good and bad episodes of his life came to his mind. He was thinking now about how close death was getting, when all of a sudden he felt the rope tied to his waist pull him very hard. His body was hanging in the air. Only the rope was holding him and in that moment of stillness he had no other choice but to scream: "Help me God". All of a sudden a deep voice coming from the sky answered, "What do you want me to do?" "Save me God". "Do you really think I can save you?" "Of course I believe You can." "Then cut the rope tied to your waist." There was a moment of silence and the man decided to hold on to the rope with all his strength. The rescue team tells the next day that a climber was found dead and frozen - his body hanging from a rope, his hands holding tight to it, only one foot away from the ground. Lesson from the story: And We? How attached are we to our rope? Will we let go??? Don't ever doubt about the Words of God. We should never say that He has forgotten us or abandoned us.
Anonymous

Every human being yearns for a full life, for a life that will not end. Jesus was offering the people the possibility of life that would last, he was offering them himself as the means to obtain this fullness of life but the people would not accept him. They wanted proof. "Show us right now that you have miraculous powers. Provide us with what we want right now." They just wanted bread! Today, Jesus is offering us a fuller life. The blessings that he is offering are not something that we have to wait for until we reach heaven. He is bread to be eaten now, not preserved in a freezer for the future. Jesus is all we need for a full life. If we have Jesus now there is no reason for us to be discouraged or to pray for death as Elijah did. Jesus invites us to get up and eat and continue on our journey. Have we tried Jesus? He never fails!

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From Fr. Tony Kadavil and the Sermons.com

1. Marching caterpillars:
You may know the famous story of Jean Henri Fabre, the French naturalist, and his processional caterpillars. He encountered some of these interesting creatures one day while walking in the woods. They were marching in a long unbroken line front to back, front to back. What would happen if he made a complete ring with these worms? Would they break their circle or not? So, Fabre captured enough caterpillars to encircle the rim of a flowerpot. He linked them nose to posterior and started them walking in the closed circle. For days they turned like a perpetual merry-go-round. Although food was near at hand and accessible, the caterpillars starved to death on an endless march to nowhere. That seems to be the story of many people today. They are on a march that leads to nowhere. We need to stop for a moment, and sit down in the presence of Jesus and receive him as the Bread of our spiritual life.

2: Starving to death in the midst of plenty of food:

During the winter of 1610, the population of British immigrants to Jamestown, in the U.S. (the Pilgrims) went from about 500 people to about 60. While disease and American-Indians took some lives, most of the settlers simply starved. There were plentiful supplies of fish, oysters, frogs, fowl, and deer all around them. But these settlers from the city were not accustomed to obtaining food from the land. Hence, they starved! [Cullen, Joseph P. "James' Towne," American History Illustrated (October, 1972).] We sometimes act the same way. God comes to us continually in the Person of the Holy Spirit to guide us. As a loving Father, God awaits the opportunity to meet our needs, but we are not accustomed to receiving things from His loving hand. In today’s Gospel, Jesus promises to give us spiritual food. It is up to us to receive the Heavenly Bread.

3: He died arguing with them that the canisters were empty.

John Krakauer wrote a book entitled Into Thin Air, the story of an expedition to Mount Everest during the spring of 1996 which resulted in a great loss of life. One of the most unfortunate stories was about a young man named Andy Harris, who was one of the expedition leaders. He had stayed at the peak past the deadline that the leaders themselves had set, and as he was coming down, he was in dire need of oxygen. He radioed his problem to the base camp telling them what he needed and told them that he had come upon a cache of oxygen canisters left by some of the other climbers, but they were all empty. The problem was they were not empty - they were absolutely full, but because his brain was already so starved for oxygen and he wasn't thinking clearly, he died arguing with them that the canisters were empty when in reality they were full. The problem was that the lack of what he needed so disoriented his thinking that, even though he was literally surrounded by what he needed, he never took advantage of it. The very life that he needed he held in his hand. He just didn't take it. What oxygen is to the body the Bread of Life is to the soul. Without that Bread, we will never satisfy our real spiritual hunger which is why every day we need to feed on the Bread of the word of God.

4. A modern Good Samaritan:
A few years ago the news media carried the story of a modern-day Good Samaritan who packed his car each day with dozens of homemade sandwiches and traveled to the inner city to distribute them to homeless and otherwise needy people. Eventually, those who benefited from his generosity became familiar with the Samaritan’s customary route and began to congregate on certain corners at aspecific time each day to wait for their daily gift of food. Today’s gospel describes such a scene where people who had been sumptuously fed onthe previous day by Jesus came searching for him for another free meal.

5. The Great Depression Bread-lines.
In the depression years of 1930’s millions of Americans were out of work and many thousands were hungry. In a number of cities religious groups set up bread-lines to feed the hungry. One of these was the Franciscan monastery at Cincinnati, Ohio. Every evening, the Friars, Brothers and lay volunteers prepared and gave a nourishing sandwich of bread and meat to hundreds of hungry men and women. It was interesting to note the reactions of the recipients. Many accepted the well-prepared and well- wrapped food with a smile and a thank you. Others, with head hanging, snatched the food package and shuffled off. Some tore the bag at once and started eating as they hurried away. Most of them ate every last crumb after a silent prayer and put the wrapping into a nearby container, though some would eat only the meat and discard the bread on the roadside. A few discontented ones just opened the package and then threw the entire contents away in protest. The way those hungry unfortunates reacted to that little lunch is a lot like the way his listeners received the words of Jesus in today’s gospel.

6. Cat to kill mice:
Once there was a young hermit who lived as an ascetic in a forest. He owned nothing except a pair of loincloths. One morning, to his great disappointment, he found that mice had destroyed one of the loincloths. He brought a cat to kill the mice and then a cow to give milk to the cat. Later, as the cows multiplied, he hired a girl from the nearby village to look after the cows and to sell the extra milk in the village. Finally, his ever-growing material needs prompted him to end his religious life, marry the girl and settle down as a farmer in the village. This little story illustrates how easily the never-ceasing hunger for material things can take over our spiritual life. In today’s gospel, Jesus promises to satisfy our spiritual hunger by offering his body as our food.

7. Once upon a time there was a young woman who had become very scrupulous about the Eucharist. She was afraid that the priest was careless about distributing Communion and permitted tiny bits of the host to fall on the floor around the altar rail. After Mass was over and the priest had gone back to the Rectory, she would sneak up to the altar and collect what she thought might be parts of the hosts in which Jesus was still present. She would pick them up with a little spoon she always carried in her purse and then place them in a little plastic bag. However, after she had collected many of these little bits of Jesus, she did not know what to do with them. So she brought them home and created a little altar in her room where she could pray to Jesus. Her parents thought it was nice that she had the little altar with a votive light burning in front of Jesus.

Finally, one morning the priest caught her collecting bits of the Eucharist from the floor. Greatly embarrassed, she tried to explain what she was doing. The priest who understood how young people can become obsessive, took the plastic bag from her and promised that he would wash it out in the special sacristy think. But, Martha, he said, Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist to be with us because he loves us, not to drive us crazy with fears. If he was worried about such things he would have consecrated jelly beans at the last super.

8. Are You Hungry?

There's a story found in the Chronicles of Narnia. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the fifth volume of that series, Mary, Edmund, their cousin Eustice, and some of the colorful creatures of Narnia, come upon a crystal clear pool of water with what appears to be a golden statue of a man at the bottom. Only, they discover that it is a magical pool that turns everything into gold that touches the water. It appears that the statue at the bottom of the pool is a man who either didn't know about the pool's magic powers, or he was so consumed with accumulating gold that he ignored its dangers. Even though the characters of the story are awed at the magic of the pool, they recognize that such a place is far more dangerous than it is beneficial, and so they swear themselves to secrecy and wipe their memories clean of that place.

You see, when you waste your energies seeking to fulfill the hunger for things that perish, what you'll find all too often is that you'll still be dissatisfied, and your dissatisfaction will usually put you deeper into the hole you're digging for yourself. Whatever piece of the pie that you're hungering for - whether it's a bigger slice of acceptance or riches or gratification of your urges - you're going to find yourself hungry for more and more and more, until you're so out of control that you can't back-peddle fast enough. In our consumer-driven world, in which many people literally work themselves to death accumulating a never-fully-satisfying abundance of things, Jesus' words challenge our society's misguided substitutes for "life."

Steve Wilkins, Are You Hungry?

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9. Sometime this week you will make a trip to the grocery store to get a loaf of bread. It will be readily available on the shelf. There will be quite a variety to choose from. You will pay little attention to the price, not realizing that the packaging that the bread is wrapped in actually costs more than the wheat that is in the bread. All in all, you will think it a very uneventful trip, but you will be wrong.

It is quite difficult for many of us to understand the importance of bread unless we turn on the TV and watch what is going on in so many parts of the world today. When there is no staff of life there is suffering and famine. A simple loaf of bread: Something, which we do not give a second thought, but in certain parts of the world it means life itself.

It is only as we comprehend that situation that we can really begin to understand the importance of bread not only now but also in the time of Jesus. Just think for a moment how so many significant theological events in the Bible revolve around the subject of bread. The most important event in the Old Testament of course, was the Exodus event--the trip from Egypt to the Promised Land. But what caused the Hebrews to be in Egypt in the first place? It was for want of bread you will recall. The wheat crop had failed due to draught, and the Hebrews had migrated to the land of the Pharaoh because there was a surplus in storage there. It was bread, or the lack of it, that initiated this whole chain of events...

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10. Southeast Asia is hot. The economies of its countries are sizzling, especially Viet Nam and Indonesia, with the highest growth rates of almost anywhere on the planet. Investors and tourists from all over the world are flooding both countries. Of course, Bali, Indonesia, is where everyone wants to go. But if I could go anywhere in Southeast Asia, it would be the island of Sumatra.

Why Sumatra? Because this island is the archipelago of 17,000 islands known as "Indonesia" is where the "manna" of that country is grown. The best coffee in the world comes from Sumatra. It is called Kopi Luwak coffee. Kopi Luwak is one of the most unique coffees in the world, and very hard to find. Only a couple of thousand pounds of this coffee comes up on the world market each year. And almost all of it comes from the island of Sumatra.

This coffee bean has an interesting story and one that echoes with our Psalm today...

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11. Thinking Metaphorically

In a sermon on the "I Am" sayings of Jesus, I once mentioned the Simon and Garfunkel song which had the line, "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you. What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson? Joltin' Joe has left and gone away." Originally part of the soundtrack for the film The Graduate, the song "Mrs. Robinson" has become one of the 1960s' best-known, iconic ballads.

But in a 60 Minutes interview a few years back Paul Simon mentioned that some time after the song was released, he received a letter from Joe DiMaggio in which DiMaggio expressed his befuddlement at what in the world that song could mean. DiMaggio wrote, "What do you mean 'Where have I gone?' I haven't gone anywhere! I'm still around--I'm selling Mr. Coffee." Then Mr. Simon smiled wryly at Mike Wallace and remarked, "Obviously Mr. DiMaggio is not accustomed to thinking of himself as a metaphor!"

But then, who is? Most, if not all, of us see ourselves as real people with literal, descriptive identities. For instance, I am a pastor, a husband, a father, a committee member, a volunteer, a son--these are all straightforward descriptions of who I am in relation to the people around me in life. Like most people, I cannot readily conceive of myself as a symbol for something, as a kind of metaphor that represents something beyond myself.

Indeed, if someone came up to you at a party and said, "You are my shelter from the storms of life," well, you'd be taken aback. Then again, if you met someone who constantly spouted self-referential metaphors, you'd have to wonder about him or her. We expect people to denote themselves by saying things like, "I am a plumber" or "I'm a stay-at-home Dad." But our eyes would widen if someone said, "I am the oil that lubes my company's machine" or "I am the antibody that shields my family from the virus of secularism."

This is not a terribly typical mode of discourse. Yet Jesus, with some frequency, did refer to himself in a metaphorical mode, starting with John 6:35 when Jesus said, "I am the Bread of life."

Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations

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10. Our Help Comes from Above

Looking out at my backyard during the fall, I noticed the leaves falling while the tree branches remained stretching heavenward--not only did they remain that way after the leaves were gone, but when the snows came and the often brutal winds of Chicago seemed to bend them into submission. But in the spring the trees seemed to speak to me saying, "Notice that we kept our branches lifted towards where our help comes from." To me it seemed that they praised God with or without leaves, as if they knew that keeping their branches up was a means of patient waiting faith, and it was in the spring when the buds appeared on their branches that those trees seemed to say to me, "We told you. We told you that our help comes from above."

So not only does this text tell us that God provides through Jesus not what we want but what we need and that God's promise can sustain us through all times, but, finally, the text tells us God's presence through Jesus allows us room to grow in grace.’

Ozzie E. Smith, Jr., What Do You Want?

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12. Spiritual Awareness

 In a broadcast address in London, T. S. Eliot talked about "spiritual awareness." He observed that many persons aspire to become Christians and believe, presumably, in the efficacy of the Christian faith, but never reach the stage of actually experiencing it. Aspiring towards real belief, i.e., becoming truly Christian, is one thing, whereas complete awareness of it is another. Aspiring can easily become an end in itself. And, as Charles H. Duthie of Edinburgh remarked: "It is a matter of living forever in the preface and never becoming involved in the story."

This condition of spiritual awareness is clearly defined by Jesus in the words of our text. It is a state of soul devoutly and eagerly to be aspired to, in contrast to what Lord Cecil of Britain once referred to as "believing in God in a commonplace sort of way." And, it becomes the gift and possession of any persons who are utterly dissatisfied with themselves, and who decide to fulfill those important requisites that make them completely satisfied in Christ.

Donald MacLeod, Know The Way, Keep The Truth, Win The Life, CSS Publishin
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ILLUSTRATIONS:

1)    Clothed in Human Flesh

Next to the Bible, my favorite book is Harper Lee's award-winning novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird." I love both the book and the movie. The main character, the one who tells the story, is a little girl named Jean Louise Finch, who goes by the name of Scout. Her father, Atticus Finch, is the town's lawyer and a man of deep principles and integrity. I always wanted to grow up and be like Atticus Finch.

One day, Scout came home from school and told her father about some problems she was having with the teacher and several other students. In an effort to help her get along better with others, Atticus gave her this advice:

"First of all, if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

That's exactly what Jesus did. Clothed in human flesh, Jesus felt pain as we feel pain. He suffered as we suffer. He even experienced death. Jesus climbed into our skin and walked around in it.

Billy D. Strayhorn, Beyond Skin Deep

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2)    Our Christian Landmarks

 During World War II allied armies marched into Germany on their way to Berlin. Retreating German soldiers switched road signs and destroyed landmarks in an effort to confuse their enemy. And, to an extent, it worked, for many a G.I. followed a false marker only to end up in the wrong place. That just goes to show the need for landmarks, the importance of reliable signposts by which to steer.

Here locally, landmarks like the courthouse, the river, the college, or the bridge are important in helping us find our bearings. Why, if some villain came in one night and removed our signposts, the next day would become a bewildering jumble of uncertainties, and we'd all be lost.

The text is about landmarks. It refers to the Jewish custom of setting boundary stones to mark out property. Just as we do today, so our Hebrew forefathers did then. Wells, fords, buildings, and stone sentinels were their guides. Hence the strict law: "Remove not the ancient landmark which your fathers have set."

We live in a day of rapid change, and this law is being grossly ignored. Our history is being bulldozed to clear the way for development. Some professors are twisting the guideposts in the minds and hearts of our students. Traditions are forgotten, manners ignored. The result is a kind of chaos -- social confusion and rootless individualism. We live in a society that's lost its bearings and is adrift on a sea of change.

The Lord's Table is a landmark. For nearly 2,000 years Christians have been gathering to eat this meal. And, for all, it can be the means of getting one's bearings.

Stephen M. Crotts, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost, CSS Publishing

3)    A Reminder of Our True Home

The influence that food can have on us appears in a Chinese story originally told by Linda Fang. She presented this story at the Smithsonian Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C., March 19, 1988.

At the foot of a great mountain in China lived a father and his three sons. They were a simple and loving family. The father noticed that travelers came from afar eager to climb the dangerous mountain. But not one of them ever returned! The three sons heard stories about the mountain, how it was made all of gold and silver at the top. Despite their father's warnings, they could not resist venturing up the mountain.

Along the way, under a tree, sat a beggar, but the sons did not speak to him or give him anything. They ignored him. One by one, the sons disappeared up the mountain, the first to a house of rich food, the second to a house of fine wine, the third to a house of gambling. Each became a slave to his desire and forgot his home. Meanwhile, their father became heartsick. He missed them terribly. "Danger aside," he said, "I must find my sons."

Once he scaled the mountain, the father found that indeed the rocks were gold, the streams silver. But he hardly noticed. He only wanted to reach his sons, to help them remember the life of love they once knew. On the way down, having failed to find them, the father noticed the beggar under the tree and asked for his advice.

"The mountain will give your sons back," said the beggar, "only if you bring something from home to cause them to remember the love of their family."

The father raced home, brought back a bowl full of rice, and gave the beggar some as a thank-you for his wisdom. He then found his sons, one at a time, and carefully placed a grain of rice on the tongue of each of them. At that moment, the sons recognized their foolhardiness. Their real life was now apparent to them. They returned home with their father, and as one loving family lived happily ever after.

Today we gather in this church to receive a reminder of home, a taste of food that will help us remember who we are. I mean the bread of life, our Father's gift to us. This is the food of God's kingdom, and reminds us that this kingdom is our true home.

Charles Hoffacker, Food from Home

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4)    Missing the Point

The German theologian Helmut Thielicke told of a hungry man passing a store with a sign in the window, "We Sell Bread." He entered the store, put some money on the counter, and said, "I would like to buy some bread." The women behind the counter replied, "We don’t sell bread." "The sign in the window says that you do," the hungry man said. The woman explained, "We make signs here like the one in the window that says ‘We Sell Bread.’" But, as Thielicke concludes, a hungry man can’t eat signs.

Life sometimes fools us too. Bread isn’t always found where it seems to be. Today’s Gospel lesson picks up where we left off last week in John 6. Like the crowds looking for something else or that man looking in the wrong store, we often miss the point when God offers us enduring life in Jesus.

Michael J. Heggen, The Bread of Life

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5)    Spirit and Life

Years ago, Harry Emerson Fosdick, then at the height of his influence as minister of the Riverside Church, New York City, was making a tour of Palestine and other countries of the Near and Middle East. He was invited to give an address at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where the student body comprised citizens of many countries and representatives from sixteen different religions. What could one say that would be relevant or of interest to so mixed and varied a group? This is how Fosdick began: "I do not ask anyone here to change his religion; but I do ask all of you to face up to this question: What is your religion doing to your character?"

This was a call to consider one of the great issues of human belief: religion and life, Christianity and character, word and spirit. Emerson once said, "What you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear a word you say." Jesus' discourse in this whole sixth chapter of the Gospel of John had two foci - spirit and life. "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life." By this he meant that those who appropriated his spirit, i.e., fed upon him as the bread of life, would find, thereby, a fulfillment and satisfaction no other means could give.

Donald Macleod, Know the Way, Keep the Truth, Win the Life, CSS Publishing Company
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6)    A More Wholesome Grain

Turkey Red Wheat. The hard wheat from which a high quality flour is made has an interesting history. Mennonites lived in the Ukraine, a part of nineteenth century Russia. Because of their opposition to war arising from their Christian faith, they decided to emigrate when Russia introduced military conscription. As families packed to leave, they selected the best of their Turkey red seed grain and filled a trunk to take with them.

When the Mennonite refugees migrated to the prairie provinces of Canada and the plains states of the United States, they brought the seed with them and found the prairie land receptive. From these trunks of wheat have come the hard flour that is preferred for many purposes over the soft wheat which was the only kind available earlier. This wheat made the prairies a breadbasket that has shipped wheat and flour all over the world.

William E. Keeney, Preaching the Parables, CSS Publishing Company

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7)    Human Knowledge

Listen to this statistic: Knowledge is exploding at such a rate--more than 2000 pages a minute--that even Einstein couldn't keep up. In fact, if you read 24 hours a day, from age 21 to 70, and retained all you read, you would be one and a half million years behind when you finished (Campus Life)

 An amazing statistic. Now tell me when do you suppose this information was compiled? It will alarm you that these statistics do not take into account the Internet…

 8)    Homily from Father James Gilhooley

 Henry Fehren tells a wickedly delicious story. It is set in Africa, but it also could be your own community or my own.

A great chief was planning a mammoth banquet. He invited everyone in the phone book. This was to be the party of the season and then some. All the best people would be there - even Tarzan and Jane. The invitation spelled it out loud and clear. The chief would supply all the meats, salads, and an overflowing dessert cart. But each guest had to bring a bottle of wine. It was your standard BYOB affair. Each couple's wine would be poured into a huge vat and so there would be plenty for all. 

One enterprising couple decided they would save a few dollars and bring but a bottle of colored water. No one would know they were El Cheapos. Party day arrived. All the guests put on their party clothes. One man wore a T-shirt that read: "Life is brief. Eat dessert first." They came to a giant tent and poured their wine into the vat. The time came for the first toast - to the chief of course.  The Baccarat crystals were filled. Everyone raised a glass to drink deeply. Disbelief registered on the face of all. They sipped again, but they were right the first time. Each couple had had the same brainstorm. They had reasoned their bottle of colored water would be lost in the giant vat.  Yes, everyone had brought a bottle of water. They got back exactly what they had brought - a glass of water.

Fehren cleverly applies his story to those people who cry out in something approaching pain, "I don't go to Mass because I get nothing out of it." They are a nickel a dozen at the college where I was chaplain. In turn, I am sure the students were simply articulating what they heard at home from Mom and Dad from a very early age. 

The story line indicates very nicely, thank you, that such people get nothing out of the Liturgy precisely because they bring nothing to it. They approach the church with empty spirits and holes in their minds. They come as empty vessels. Given those givens, what did they really expect to get from the Eucharistic celebration? All they bring with them is a bottle of colored water. Some come with a bottle with a hole both at the top and the bottom. Can you think of any other slice of life where we get something when we bring nothing?

    Dolores Schirh writes: "'Eat my body. Drink my blood.' is not just another metaphor...When Jesus said, 'I am the vine,' He didn't tell us to eat twigs. When He told us, 'I am the light of the world,' He didn't tell us to eat light bulbs. But when He said, 'I am the bread of life,' He said, 'Eat this bread.'" 

Thus we come to the Eucharistic celebration because the Teacher invites us. We come to participate in a divinely free banquet. We certainly do want to be raised up on that famous last day that today's John 6:44 promises. Each of us wants to say with Gerard Manly Hopkins: "In a flash, at a trumpet crash, I am at all at once what Christ is...and this Jack...is immortal diamond." And it is later than anyone of us dare think. 

Check out what He does not promise. Christ does not say the celebrant will behave like a vaudeville comedian. He has never been quoted as saying the music will be of Mozart quality. Nor does He promise the Liturgy will be something choreographed by Barishnykov and the church structure will be designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Even the flowers may be faux.

If one is getting the body and blood of the most provocative person in recorded history, are we really coming up with a bad hand? And, if we feel we are, are we not saying something about our own empty selves? Each weekend everyone of us is invited to attend a banquet. And, unlike the one thrown by the African chief, we do not even have to bring the wine nor even a bottle of colored water. Relax and party!

The emperor Napoleon was asked what the greatest day in his life was. It was expected he would mention one of his great victories. But he answered the day of his First Communion.

And, while you party, reflect on the words of St Francis de Sales. "Only two kinds of people need frequent Communion - the not so good that they might become better and the good that they might stay that way."

 9)    Two Fat Ladies.

Clarissa Dickson Wright is a British celebrity chef She and Jennifer Paterson, are best known as the Two Fat Ladies  on the British television cooking show  of that name.  They  preached the joys of cooking that accurately, if irreverently,  described them both.   The  show  was  heavy on  humor as  well  as calories.  Avoiding popular low-fat diets, the two fat ladies  sought to reclaim traditional home-cooking.  They themselves  were the best  advertisements for their recipes, which usually featured heavy doses  of butter and cream.   The  two fat ladies  are part of a growing trend to forget food deprivation and  just  say  yes  to bacon. Dietitians now  argue that fat-free foods are high  in sugar and calories - which explains why  people  on low-fat or no-fat  diets get  fat.    Gwen   Shamblin's  The  Weigh   Down   Diet,  which  advises using   spirituality  to  avoid overeating, has  already sold  more than 1.2 million copies  to overweight Christians.    The  bottom line  is  that people  are scrambling like  crazy to find the diet that is  right for them.   But there is  another diet not many people  talk about, presented in today’s gospel: the "Bread of Life Diet."  It's spiritually high-carb, but offers full nutritional value.  Jesus  says, "I am  the bread of life," and  promises that people  on  his  program “will never hunger or thirst again!”  These  are extravagant claims, like  the kind  you  might find on soy  milk or fat-burners. But Jesus can deliver on what he promises. 

10)  He died arguing with them that the canisters were empty. 

John  Krakauer wrote a book  entitled Into Thin Air, the story of an expedition to Mount Everest during the spring of 1996  which resulted in a great loss of life. One of the most unfortunate stories was about a young man  named Andy  Harris, who  was one of the expedition leaders. He  had  stayed  at the peak  past  the deadline that  the leaders themselves  had  set, and  as  he  was coming down, he was  in  dire need  of oxygen. He radioed his  problem to the base  camp  telling them what he needed  and  told them that he had  come  upon  a cache  of oxygen canisters left by  some  of the other climbers, but they were all  empty. The  problem was  they were not empty - they were absolutely full, but because  his brain was  already so  starved for oxygen and  he  wasn't thinking clearly, he  died  arguing with them that the canisters  were empty  when   in  reality they were full. The  problem was  that the lack  of what he  needed   so disoriented his  thinking that, even   though he  was  literally  surrounded by  what he  needed, he  never took advantage of it. The very life that he needed  he held  in his  hand. He just  didn't take it. What  oxygen is to the body  the bread of life is to the soul. Without that bread, you  will  never satisfy your real spiritual hunger which is why  every day we need to feed daily  on the bread of the word of God. 

11)  Pastor’s  bread of life:   

President  Woodrow Wilson’s father was  a preacher who  eked out a meager living. One day, when  he was  riding his  horse, he stopped  to chat with a member of his  parish. “That’s a handsome looking animal you  have  there,” said  the latter admiringly.  “But why  is that your horse is so  big  and  strong and  you  are so  thin?” “Perhaps,”  replied Wilson, “it  is  because   I feed the horse and  the congregation feeds me.”

12) “I am  going  to be a preacher:” 

After his return from church one  Sunday a small  boy  said, "You know  what, Mommy? I'm going   to be  a  preacher when  I grow up." "That's fine," said  his  mother, "but what made  you decide   to be  a  preacher?" "Well,"  said  the boy  thoughtfully. "Since I have   to go  to church every Sunday anyway, I think it would be more fun to stand up and yell  than to sit still and listen."

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From Sermons.com:

Before we read the text for this morning I am going to ask you to do something a little different. I want you to listen to the reading not with a heart of faith but with a skeptical mind. If it helps, imagine that you do not know that Jesus is anything else but a teacher. You are a first century person who has just been introduced to him. [Read John 6:35, 41-51] 

Pretty incredible isn't it? For someone to make such claims. What if, later today, you were introduced to someone and that someone said, "Hi, I am the bread that has come down from heaven." You would look at your friend who just introduced you to this person and you would say, "I'm sorry, what did he just say?" Anyone who seriously made such claims would easily be labeled a kook, a nut, certifiable.

C.S. Lewis, in his book "Mere Christianity," makes the following statement about Jesus: "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg -- or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us." 

Throughout the book Lewis argues for the truthfulness and importance of the Christian faith. But before we go any further, let me recommend this: If you have a friend who has doubts about the Christian faith, go get this book "Mere Christianity" and give it to them. If they are honest in their doubts it will overcome many of them. In the book you will find the following idea put forth: Jesus was either a liar, lunatic, legend, or Lord...

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There is an old, old story about a cantankerous, crabby old man. His neighbors avoided him. His four boys moved away from home as soon as they could. You get the picture. His poor wife stood by him, but it was not easy.

One night he went to bed and just slipped away. 

His four boys were called in. What should they do? "He was hard to live around," one of them said, "and no one could get along with him, but he was our pa. We owe him a decent burial, out in the meadow beyond the field."

So they went out to the barn and found some boards and made a casket. They put the box on their shoulders and carried it out past the barn. As they passed through the gate, one of the boys bumped into the post and this caused them to drop the box. The casket broke open and the cantankerous, crabby old man sat straight up.

 He was alive! He had only been in a very deep . . . sleep!

 Well, life got back to normal. He lived two more years, just as ornery and mean, cantankerous and crabby as ever. The boys could go back to their homes, but his poor wife had to stay and put up with him. 

Then one night he went to bed and just slipped away . . . this time for good.

His four boys were called in. What should they do now? "Well," said one of them, "he was hard to live around, and no one could get along with him, but he was our pa. We owe him a decent burial, out in the meadow beyond the field."

So they went out to the barn and found some boards and made a casket and put the old man in it. They put the box on their shoulders and started out of the house. And as they did, their mother--the old man's wife--said sternly, "Boys, when you get out by the barn . . . BE CAREFUL GOING THROUGH THAT GATE."

That cantankerous old man should have read our lesson for the day: "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." 

Do you imagine that bitter, cantankerous people have no idea that their attitude is an offense against God?...

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 Our Christian Landmarks 

During World War II allied armies marched into Germany on their way to Berlin. Retreating German soldiers switched road signs and destroyed landmarks in an effort to confuse their enemy. And, to an extent, it worked, for many a G.I. followed a false marker only to end up in the wrong place. That just goes to show the need for landmarks, the importance of reliable signposts by which to steer.

Here locally, landmarks like the courthouse, the river, the college, or the bridge are important in helping us find our bearings. Why, if some villain came in one night and removed our signposts, the next day would become a bewildering jumble of uncertainties, and we'd all be lost.  

The text is about landmarks. It refers to the Jewish custom of setting boundary stones to mark out property. Just as we do today, so our Hebrew forefathers did then. Wells, fords, buildings, and stone sentinels were their guides. Hence the strict law: "Remove not the ancient landmark which your fathers have set."  

We live in a day of rapid change, and this law is being grossly ignored. Our history is being bulldozed to clear the way for development. Some professors are twisting the guideposts in the minds and hearts of our students. Traditions are forgotten, manners ignored. The result is a kind of chaos -- social confusion and rootless individualism. We live in a society that's lost its bearings and is adrift on a sea of change.

The Lord's Table is a landmark. For nearly 2,000 years Christians have been gathering to eat this meal. And, for all, it can be the means of getting one's bearings.

 Stephen M. Crotts, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost, CSS Publishing

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A Reminder of Our True Home 

The influence that food can have on us appears in a Chinese story originally told by Linda Fang. She presented this story at the Smithsonian Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C., March 19, 1988.

At the foot of a great mountain in China lived a father and his three sons. They were a simple and loving family. The father noticed that travelers came from afar eager to climb the dangerous mountain. But not one of them ever returned! The three sons heard stories about the mountain, how it was made all of gold and silver at the top. Despite their father's warnings, they could not resist venturing up the mountain.

Along the way, under a tree, sat a beggar, but the sons did not speak to him or give him anything. They ignored him. One by one, the sons disappeared up the mountain, the first to a house of rich food, the second to a house of fine wine, the third to a house of gambling. Each became a slave to his desire and forgot his home. Meanwhile, their father became heartsick. He missed them terribly. "Danger aside," he said, "I must find my sons."

Once he scaled the mountain, the father found that indeed the rocks were gold, the streams silver. But he hardly noticed. He only wanted to reach his sons, to help them remember the life of love they once knew. On the way down, having failed to find them, the father noticed the beggar under the tree and asked for his advice.

"The mountain will give your sons back," said the beggar, "only if you bring something from home to cause them to remember the love of their family."

The father raced home, brought back a bowl full of rice, and gave the beggar some as a thank-you for his wisdom. He then found his sons, one at a time, and carefully placed a grain of rice on the tongue of each of them. At that moment, the sons recognized their foolhardiness. Their real life was now apparent to them. They returned home with their father, and as one loving family lived happily ever after.

Today we gather in this church to receive a reminder of home, a taste of food that will help us remember who we are. I mean the bread of life, our Father's gift to us. This is the food of God's kingdom, and reminds us that this kingdom is our true home.

Charles Hoffacker, Food from Home
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Missing the Point

The German theologian Helmut Thielicke told of a hungry man passing a store with a sign in the window, "We Sell Bread." He entered the store, put some money on the counter, and said, "I would like to buy some bread." The women behind the counter replied, "We don't sell bread." "The sign in the window says that you do," the hungry man said. The woman explained, "We make signs here like the one in the window that says 'We Sell Bread.'" But, as Thielicke concludes, a hungry man can't eat signs.

Life sometimes fools us too. Bread isn't always found where it seems to be. Today's Gospel lesson picks up where we left off last week in John 6. Like the crowds looking for something else or that man looking in the wrong store, we often miss the point when God offers us enduring life in Jesus. 

Michael J. Heggen, The Bread of Life

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 Spirit and Life 

Years ago, Harry Emerson Fosdick, then at the height of his influence as minister of the Riverside Church, New York City, was making a tour of Palestine and other countries of the Near and Middle East. He was invited to give an address at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where the student body comprised citizens of many countries and representatives from sixteen different religions. What could one say that would be relevant or of interest to so mixed and varied a group? This is how Fosdick began: "I do not ask anyone here to change his religion; but I do ask all of you to face up to this question: What is your religion doing to your character?"

This was a call to consider one of the great issues of human belief: religion and life, Christianity and character, word and spirit. Emerson once said, "What you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear a word you say." Jesus' discourse in this whole sixth chapter of the Gospel of John had two foci - spirit and life. "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life." By this he meant that those who appropriated his spirit, i.e., fed upon him as the bread of life, would find, thereby, a fulfillment and satisfaction no other means could give.

Donald Macleod, Know the Way, Keep the Truth, Win the Life, CSS Publishing Company
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A More Wholesome Grain

Turkey Red Wheat. The hard wheat from which a high quality flour is made has an interesting history. Mennonites lived in the Ukraine, a part of nineteenth century Russia. Because of their opposition to war arising from their Christian faith, they decided to emigrate when Russia introduced military conscription. As families packed to leave, they selected the best of their Turkey red seed grain and filled a trunk to take with them. 

When the Mennonite refugees migrated to the prairie provinces of Canada and the plains states of the United States, they brought the seed with them and found the prairie land receptive. From these trunks of wheat have come the hard flour that is preferred for many purposes over the soft wheat which was the only kind available earlier. This wheat made the prairies a breadbasket that has shipped wheat and flour all over the world. 

William E. Keeney, Preaching the Parables, CSS Publishing Company

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Human Knowledge

Listen to this statistic: Knowledge is exploding at such a rate--more than 2000 pages a minute--that even Einstein couldn't keep up. In fact, if you read 24 hours a day, from age 21 to 70, and retained all you read, you would be one and a half million years behind when you finished (Campus Life) 

An amazing statistic. Now tell me when do you suppose this information was compiled? It will alarm you that these statistics do not take into account the Internet. They do not even take into account the personal computer. And, why not? It is because the statistics are from 1979.

It is crucial that we learn not the glut of information that is screaming down towards us on the information super highway, but that we learn something that will sustain us for the days to come. The Prophets from of old proclaimed: They will all be taught by God. Are we listening? 

Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com

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 A Piece of Him

At the time of the Napoleonic Wars, the famous British Admiral Horatio Nelson was due to be buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. His sailors lifted his casket over their shoulders and majestically carried his body into the cathedral. Draping his coffin was a magnificent Union Jack. After the service, the sailors once more carried his body high in the air, this time to the graveside. With reverence and with efficiency they lowered the body of the world's greatest admiral into its tomb. Then, as though answering to a sharp order from the quarterdeck, they all seized the Union Jack with which the coffin had been covered and viciously tore it to shreds, each taking his souvenir of the illustrious dead. A swath of colored clothe as a memento. It would forever remind them of the admiral they had loved. "I've got a piece of him," one sailor remarked, "and I'll never forget him." 

In like manner you now can have a piece of Christ - living bread - physically, spiritually, personally. Reaching out to receive him in faith is all that's required.
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From Fr. Tony Kadavil:

18- Additional anecdotes: 1) According to the Assistant Director General of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, about one half billion of the over four billion people who live on earth are at the brink of starvation daily. Some 200 million children become mentally handicapped or blind due to a lack of nutritious food and another 10 million succumb to other hunger related illness. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately one-third of the world’s population is underfed and one-third is hungry. Four million people die each year of starvation and 70% of children under six are undernourished. In an effort to alert the well fed to the needs of their hungry brothers and sisters, many communities have organized consciousness-raising programs. For example, Cornell University sponsored a once-a-week rice lunch which raised ca. $12,000.00 toward the alleviation of famine in Africa. A Canadian church held what was called a “starvation banquet”; those who participated ate one meal a day consisting of a small amount of clear soup and a half slice of bread. The money which would otherwise have been spent for an average day’s meals was given to the city’s food banks for the needy. Several years ago, in the U.S. Senate, a resolution was presented, designating Monday of Thanksgiving Week as “National Day of Fasting.” All Americans were invited to experience hunger willingly and to re-evaluate their own life-styles and eating habits.

While these efforts are admirable, and although the statistics quoted above are staggering, they pertain solely to physical hunger. Equally alarming are the statistics which estimate that approximately three billion members of the human family suffer from chronic spiritual hunger and/or malnutrition. These hunger pangs must also be recognized, as these can be just as lethal as their physical counterparts. In recognition of this fact, the Church puts the gathered assembly in touch each week with the food that will satisfy its hungers. Each week the community is fed with the bread of life, in both word and sacrament; nourished by this essential food, every believer receives the strength needed for continuing to live a committed life. (Patricia Datchuck Sánchez).

2) Two Fat Ladies. Clarissa Dickson Wright is a British celebrity chef She and Jennifer Paterson, are best known as the Two Fat Ladies on the British television cooking show of that name which accurately, if irreverently, described them both. They preached the joys of cooking. The show was heavy on humor as well as calories.  Avoiding popular low-fat diets, the two fat ladies sought to reclaim traditional home-cooking.  They themselves were the best advertisements for their recipes, which usually featured heavy doses of butter and cream.  The two fat ladies are part of a growing trend to forget food deprivation and just say yes to bacon.  Dieticians now argue that fat-free foods are high in sugar and calories – which explains why people on low-fat or no-fat diets get fat.  Gwen Shamblin’s The Weigh Down Diet, which advises using spirituality to avoid overeating, has already sold more than 1.2 million copies to overweight Christians.  The bottom line is that people are scrambling like crazy to find the diet that is right for them.  But there is another diet not many people talk about, presented in today’s Gospel: the “Bread of Life Diet.”  It’s spiritually high-carb, but offers full nutritional value.  Jesus says, “I am the Bread of life,” and promises that people on his program “will never hunger or thirst again!”  These are extravagant claims, like the kind you might find on soy milk or fat-burners.  But Jesus can deliver on what He promises.

3) He died arguing with them that the canisters were empty.  John Krakauer wrote a book entitled Into Thin Air, the story of an expedition to Mount Everest during the spring of 1996 which resulted in a great loss of life. One of the most unfortunate stories was about a young man named Andy Harris, who was one of the expedition leaders. He had stayed at the peak past the deadline that the leaders themselves had set, and as he was coming down, he was in dire need of oxygen. He radioed his problem to the base camp telling them what he needed and told them that he had come upon a cache of oxygen canisters left by some of the other climbers, but they were all empty. The problem was they were not empty – they were absolutely full, but because his brain was already so starved for oxygen and he wasn’t thinking clearly, he died arguing with them that the canisters were empty when in reality they were full. The problem was that the lack of what he needed so disoriented his thinking that, even though he was literally surrounded by what he needed, he never took advantage of it. The very life that he needed he held in his hand. He just didn’t take it. What oxygen is to the body the Bread of Life is to the soul. Without that Bread, we will never satisfy our real spiritual hunger; that is why every day we need to feed on the Bread of the word of God.

4) Al and Barbara’s banana-nut bread: During Operation Desert Storm, Al and Barbara Davis, a retired Virginia couple, read that soldiers in the field weren’t getting enough potassium and protein. One problem was that bananas, an excellent source of potassium, spoiled before they could get to the soldiers. So Al and Barbara had an idea: why not make banana-nut bread and send it to the soldiers overseas? Their bread-making operation became a daily task: they made 100 loaves every morning, which they mailed to soldiers in the Middle East. Since 1991 when they first began their bread-baking, Al and Barbara Davis have made and mailed over 35,000 loaves of bread to U.S. troops. I thought of Al and Barbara when I read these words of Jesus. “This is the Bread that came down from Heaven . . .” When planes land in the Middle East carrying Al and Barbara’s banana-nut bread, it must have seemed like manna from Heaven to the soldiers there.

5) Giving up or going on!  One day in Port Huron, Michigan a partially deaf boy came home from school with a note from his teacher.  He handed it to his mother.  She opened it and slowly read it.  The note suggested that her son was too dull to learn.  He was holding back the whole class.  It would be better for everybody if he would be withdrawn from school.  When the boy’s mother finished reading the note, she felt awful and challenged.  “My son, Tom, is not too dull to learn,” she said to herself.  “I’ll teach him myself.”  When Tom died decades later on October 18, 1931, the entire nation honored him in a remarkable way.  At exactly 9:59 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, every home in the United States turned off its lights for one minute, as a tribute to the man who had invented those lights.  Thomas Edison invented not only the electric light but also the movie projector and the record player.  When he died, the great inventor  who was “too dull to learn” as a boy had over a thousand patents to his credit, thanks to his mother who never gave up.  Today’s first reading tells us how God himself fed his disappointed prophet Elijah and encouraged him to keep going for forty days to have an encounter with Him (Fr. Mark Link, in Journey.)

6) “It’s free!” Our daily bread!  There was an Italian family that had fallen on hard times when their family business failed, and they lost everything.  The neighbors were sympathetic, worked hard at fund-raising and after a certain time managed to get them sufficient money for a trip to America, where the family believed they could make their fortune.  The family had never been far from home so they had no idea how to prepare for a long sea voyage by boat from Cobh to New York.  They bought bread and cheese, and packed a few boxes with sandwiches.  They gathered in a single cabin on the boat with no desire to mix with others in case of finding themselves embarrassed or out of their depth.  On the first, second, third, fourth and fifth day they ate sandwiches.  From then on the sandwiches began to go bad and began to smell. By now they were all in a bad way.  They felt sick, hungry and deeply discouraged.  With a day or two left before reaching New York, one little lad begged his dad for a few pennies so he could go on the deck and buy some sweets.  The dad gave him a few pennies and off he went.  He didn’t return and after an hour the father was forced to go up on deck and search for him.  When he came up on the deck he was amazed to find rows and rows of tables surrounded by people eating a beautiful dinner.  There in the midst of them was his son, with a plate of turkey, ham, potatoes, and vegetables in front of him, together with a large beaker of Coke.  The father came up behind him and whispered, “Why did you do this?  You know rightly we cannot afford this.” The young lad’s eyes lit up as he replied, “Dad, we could have had this every day. This is all included with the tickets!”  We too often fail to appreciate and enjoy the heavenly food freely given to us by a loving God (Jack McArdle in And That’s the Gospel Truth!).

7) End-of-the-world anxiety: the majority of us have it. According to a U.S. News & World Report poll, nearly six in 10 Americans believe the world will end or be destroyed, and a third of those think it will happen within a few years or decades. In addition, this same poll found that 44 percent believe the world will face the Apocalypse, with true believers whisked off the planet in the Rapture and brought into Heaven. Almost half, 49 percent, said they believe there will be an Antichrist. Our “Post-Modern Age Culture” is coping with Armageddon. Do Christians buy into the doomsday mentality and its accompanying spirit of apathy and inevitability?  We can become so fixated on the Jesus who is to come that we do not see or hear the Jesus who is in the midst on the altar in the consecrated Bread as our Heavenly Bread or Jesus living in the unwanted, marginalized and the poor.

8) “And also with you.” A Bishop was presiding over the liturgy in a large Cathedral. He sensed that the microphone wasn’t working properly, and he was ready to begin the traditional “The Lord be with you,” after which the congregation routinely responded, “And also with you.” He tapped the mike several times, but heard nothing. Then, as he thought he was speaking into a dead mike, he said, “There’s something wrong with this blasted microphone.” And the people responded, “And also with you.” Is there something wrong with us? What’s our excuse for failing to make Christ alive today, in our family, our Church, our community, our country, our world? In the history of the Faith, we have never lacked for excuses.

9) The “Bread from Heaven” vs. the hamburger from Mc Donald’s: In 1968, McDonald’s operated about 1,000 restaurants. Today it has about 23,000 restaurants worldwide and opens roughly 2,000 new ones each year. An estimated one of every eight Americans has worked at McDonald’s. The company annually trains more new workers than the U.S. Army. McDonald’s is the nation’s largest purchaser of beef and potatoes. It is the second-largest purchaser of poultry. A whole new breed of chicken was developed to facilitate the production of McNuggets. The McDonald’s Corp. is the largest owner of retail property in the world. Indeed, the company earns the majority of its profits not from selling food but from collecting rent. McDonald’s spends more money on advertising and marketing, much of it targeted at children, than does any other brand. A survey of American schoolchildren found that 96 percent could identify Ronald McDonald. The only fictional character with a higher degree of recognition was Santa Claus. The impact of McDonald’s on the nation’s culture, economy and diet is hard to overstate. Its corporate symbol – the Golden Arches – is now more widely recognized than the Christian cross. [Eric Schlosser, “Fast-Food Nation: The True Cost of America’s Diet,” Rolling Stone Magazine (USA), Issue 794, September 3rd 1998.]

10) “What is the Weigh-Down Diet?”  When people start hearing about the Weigh-Down Diet, they always want to know more details. Every person involved with WD would explain it differently, but the basic premises are the same. 1. God made your body, and your nutritional needs are different from anyone else’s. 2. God made your stomach a certain size, and when it becomes “stretched out” it is no longer a reliable source of how much food is enough. Therefore, one of the first goals of WD is to allow your stomach to return to its God-given shape and size. 3. God gave you hunger and thirst to indicate when your fuel levels are low. You should only eat and drink when your hunger and thirst mechanisms tell you it’s time. 4. When you determine you are truly hungry, eat whatever you desire, but only enough to be politely full. You will cut down the amount of food greatly as your stomach returns to normal size. 5. Learn to determine the difference between stomach hunger and head hunger. We eat for so many reasons other than nutrition. Some eat when tired, bored, nervous, excited, to please others, you name it. All that needs to STOP. 6. Go to the Lord for the strength to follow his way of eating. When you read His Word (BIBLE) and spend time with Him in prayer and fellowship, He will fill your needs and give you the ability to succeed. (http://home.jtan.com)

11) “I won the world championship. So what?” The night after winning the heavyweight boxing title from Jess Willard, the new champion Jack Dempsey woke up in his hotel room. It was two o’ clock in the morning. Suddenly he felt terribly empty inside. He said later, “Success didn’t taste the way I thought it would. I’d won the championship. So what?” That is why Jesus gives us this warning in today’s Gospel: “Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life.” [Fr. Mark Link, SJ, Illustrated Sunday Homilies.]

12) Landing a man on the moon is impossible: In history we find many famous people who made certain predictions which were proved wrong shortly after that. Lee De Forest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, said about  rockets: “To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth – all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances.” The New York Times wrote in 1936.  “A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” Now even the little children know the names of people who break records in space travel. Simon Newcomb remarked, “Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.” The Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk 18 months later. Why did such error happen? Because they were not able to think beyond. We see many examples in the Bible where people commit great mistakes by basing their judgments on human values and external standards. Samson’s strength was under judged by the enemies. Goliath judged David by human standards and failed to see God’s hand in him. The Queen of Sheba did not understand the Divine providence that Solomon enjoyed. In today’s Gospel we meet a group of people who were unable to think beyond. So, they judged things by human values and by external standards. Hence they could not understand how a village carpenter could be “Bread from Heaven” and God’s messenger.  (Fr. Bobby Jose).

13) Sitting down with a common aircraft man for tea:  T. E. Lawrence was a close personal friend of Thomas Hardy, the poet. When Lawrence was serving as an aircraft man in the Royal Air Force he used to visit Hardy in his uniform. One day his visit coincided with the visit of the Mayoress of Dorchester. She was very annoyed and remarked in French that in all her life she had not had to sit down with a common aircraft man for tea. Everyone was shocked.  It was a great insult to Lawrence. But Lawrence replied very politely, in French: “I beg your pardon, Madame, but can I be of any use as an interpreter, since Mrs. Hardy knows no French?” The snobbish woman had made a shattering mistake, as she had judged by externals. Jesus read the thoughts of his listeners who were judging him by human standards, and warned them that nobody could come to him unless sent by the Father. (Fr. Bobby Jose).

14) Marching caterpillars: You may know the famous story of Jean Henri Fabre, the French naturalist, and his processional caterpillars. He encountered some of these interesting creatures one day while walking in the woods. They were marching in a long unbroken line front to back, front to back. What would happen if he made a complete ring with these worms? Would they break their circle or not?  So, Fabre captured enough caterpillars to encircle the rim of a flowerpot. He linked them nose to posterior and started them walking in the closed circle. For days they turned like a perpetual merry-go-round. Although food was near at hand and accessible, the caterpillars starved to death on an endless march to nowhere. That seems to be the story of many people today. They are on a march that leads to nowhere. We need to stop for a moment and sit down in the presence of Jesus and receive him as the Bread of our spiritual life in order to give the ultimate aim and direction to our life’s journey. 

15) Don’t doubt God’s Word: The night fell heavy in the heights of the mountains and the man could not see anything. All was black — zero visibility, and the moon and the stars were covered by the clouds. As he was climbing only a few feet away from the top of the mountain, he slipped and fell in to the air, falling at great speed. He could only see black spots as he went down, and the terrible sensation of being sucked by gravity. He kept falling and in the moments of great fear all the good and bad episodes of his life came to his mind. He was thinking now about how close death was getting, when all of a sudden, he felt the rope tied to his waist pull him very hard. His body was hanging in the air. Only the rope was holding him and in that moment of stillness he had no other choice but to scream: “Help me God”. All of a sudden a deep voice coming from the sky answered, “What do you want Me to do?” “Save me God”. “Do you really think I can save you?” “Of course, I believe You can.” “Then cut the rope tied to your waist.” There was a moment of silence and the man decided to hold on to the rope with all his strength. The rescue team tells the next day that a climber was found dead and frozen – his body hanging from a rope, his hands holding tight to it, only one foot away from the ground. Lesson from the story: And we? How attached are we to our rope? Will we let go??? Don’t ever doubt the Words of God. We should never say that He has forgotten us or abandoned us. (Anonymous; quoted by Fr. Botelho).  

16) “We Sell Bread.” The German theologian Helmut Thielicke told of a hungry man passing a store with a sign in the window, “We Sell Bread.” He entered the store, put some money on the counter, and said, “I would like to buy some bread.” The women behind the counter replied, “We don’t sell bread.” “The sign in the window says that you do,” the hungry man said. The woman explained, “We make signs here like the one in the window that says, ‘We Sell Bread.’” But, as Thielicke concludes, a hungry man can’t eat signs. Life sometimes fools us too. Bread isn’t always found where it seems to be. Today’s Gospel lesson picks up where we left off last week in John 6. Like the crowds looking for something else or that man looking in the wrong store, we often miss the point when God offers us enduring life in Jesus. (Michael J. Heggen in The Bread of Life; quoted by Fr. Kayala).

17) Clothed in Human Flesh: Next to the Bible, my favorite book is Harper Lee’s award-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. I love both the book and the movie. The main character, the one who tells the story, is a little girl named Jean Louise Finch, who goes by the name of Scout. Her father, Atticus Finch, is the town’s lawyer and a man of deep principles and integrity. I always wanted to grow up and be like Atticus Finch. One day, Scout came home from school and told her father about some problems she was having with the teacher and several other students. In an effort to help her get along better with others, Atticus gave her this advice: “First of all, if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” That’s exactly what Jesus did. Clothed in human flesh, Jesus felt pain as we feel pain. He suffered as we suffer. He even experienced death. Jesus climbed into our skin and walked around in it. (Billy D. Strayhorn, Beyond Skin Deep).

18) A Reminder of Our True Home: The influence that food can have on us appears in a Chinese story originally told by Linda Fang. She presented this story at the Smithsonian Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C., March 19, 1988.  At the foot of a great mountain in China lived a father and his three sons. They were a simple and loving family. The father noticed that travelers came from afar eager to climb the dangerous mountain. But not one of them ever returned! The three sons heard stories about the mountain, how it was made all of gold and silver at the top. Despite their father’s warnings, they could not resist venturing up the mountain. Along the way, under a tree, sat a beggar, but the sons did not speak to him or give him anything. They ignored him. One by one, the sons disappeared up the mountain, the first to a house of rich food, the second to a house of fine wine, the third to a house of gambling. Each became a slave to his desire and forgot his home. Meanwhile, their father became heartsick. He missed them terribly. “Danger aside,” he said, “I must find my sons.”  Once he scaled the mountain, the father found that indeed the rocks were gold, the streams silver. But he hardly noticed. He only wanted to reach his sons, to help them remember the life of love they once knew. On the way down, having failed to find them, the father noticed the beggar under the tree and asked for his advice.  “The mountain will give your sons back,” said the beggar, “only if you bring something from home to cause them to remember the love of their family.”  The father raced home, brought back a bowl full of rice, and gave the beggar some as a thank-you for his wisdom. He then found his sons, one at a time, and carefully placed a grain of rice on the tongue of each of them. At that moment, the sons recognized their foolhardiness. Their real life was now apparent to them. They returned home with their father, and as one loving family lived happily ever after. — Today we gather in this Church to receive a reminder of home, a taste of food that will help us remember who we are. I mean the Bread of Life, our Father’s gift to us. This is the food of God’s kingdom and reminds us that this kingdom is our true home.  (Charles Hoffacker in Food from Home; quoted by Fr. Tony Kayala). L/18