There has been a theme connecting the Gospels we have been hearing over the last few weeks, that of bread:  the manna from heaven that God provided for the people on their journey to the promised land. The feeding of the five thousand, and last week, Jesus’s statement “I AM the bread of life”. All of these stories are clearly linked to the Eucharist and have been preparing us for a deeper understanding of what that means. 

We often think of the Eucharist as originating with the Last Supper, but the early Church also put a great deal of emphasis on Jesus eating with his disciples in Galilee, and, after the resurrection, on his returning to eat meals with his friends. One of my personal favorites is in John 21: 1-25 where Jesus has breakfast on the beach with his disciples, cooking some of the fish they have caught over a charcoal fire, and breaking bread with them. In different ways each of these meals anticipates the sacrament of Holy Communion. 

This morning’s Gospel gives us a chance to reflect on how we are formed and shaped by the Eucharist. Our true identity is that we are God’s Beloved, yet it takes a lifetime to live into the truth of our belovedness, to make it real in everything we say and do, so that over time, we become more aware of this identity, not as an abstract concept but in a very real, concrete way, we know ourselves to be the beloved of God, we become more fully who we really are. 

St. Augustine preached a sermon on the Eucharist in which he reflected that “one of the deep truths of Christian faith: [is] through our participation in the sacraments (particularly baptism and Eucharist), we are transformed into the Body of Christ, given for the world.”  

The point is that every time we receive the Eucharist, we are transformed — or should be transformed — a little more fully into the Body of Christ, so that the divine love that made us and that flows through us can become more fully expressed in the world. How are we formed by the Eucharist?  The priest and author Henri Nouwen says, that the words “taken,” “blessed,” “broken,” and “given” summarize our lives as Christians because, as Christians, we are called to become bread for the world: bread that is taken, blessed, broken, and given. 

What does it mean to say that we are “taken”? To be “taken” by God is to be chosen, to be precious to God. As Henri puts it, “Long before any human being saw us, we are seen by God’s loving eyes. Long before anyone heard us cry or laugh, we are heard by our God who is all ears for us. Long before any person spoke to us in this world, we are spoken to by the voice of eternal love.”https://revivingcreation.org/behold-what-you-are-become-what-you-receive/  Claiming and reclaiming our belovedness is the great spiritual task of our lives, for in a competitive, power-hungry, manipulative world, it is all too easy to forget that God has taken us, God has chosen us and gives us as life for the world. 

Knowing that we have been taken by God, that we have been chosen, is the first thing we need to claim as in the words of St. Augustine:  We “behold what we are and become what we receive”. The second is to recognize that we are “blessed.” The word “blessing” comes from the Latin word, benedicere, which literally means to speak well of someone, to say good things about someone. We all have a deep need for affirmation, to know that we are valued not just because of something we did or because we have a particular talent, but simply because we are. 

Henri tells a wonderful story about the power of blessing in his community. For the last ten years of his life, this renowned spiritual teacher and author who had taught at world-class universities lived as a chaplain at the L’Arche Daybreak community in Toronto, a community for people who are mentally and physically disabled. Henri describes how one day a handicapped member of the community, Janet, asked him for a blessing. Henri was distracted, and rather automatically traced the sign of the cross on her forehead. Janet protested, “No, I want a real blessing!” Henri realized how unthinkingly he had responded to her request and he promised that at the next prayer service, he would give her a real blessing. After the service was over, when about thirty people were sitting in a circle on the floor, Henri announced, “Janet has asked me for a special blessing.” Henri said “Janet, I want you to know that you are God’s Beloved Daughter. You are precious in God’s eyes. Your beautiful smile, your kindness to the people in your house, and all the good things you do show what a beautiful human being you are. I know you feel a little low these days and that there is some sadness in your heart, but I want you to remember who you are: a very special person, deeply loved by God and all the people who are here with you.” As he said these words, Janet raised her head and looked at him, and from her broad smile, Henri knew that she had really heard and received the blessing.  

We are all hungry for blessing! And we are blessed, for God is always speaking a word of blessing in our hearts. When we know ourselves as blessed, we can’t help but speak good things to other people, and about other people, and call forth their beauty and truth. As Henri says, “No one is brought to life through curses, gossip, accusations, or blaming… As the blessed ones, we can walk through this world and offer blessings. It doesn’t require much effort. It flows naturally from our hearts.”  

We are chosen and blessed. And we are broken, too. Everyone in this room is broken. We all have places of loneliness or fear, places of disappointment, shame, or grief. Accepting and befriending our brokenness is part of the long journey of entrusting our whole selves to the care of God, so that, as St. Paul puts it, we know that “whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s”. And it is important to place our brokenness in the light of God’s blessing, to experience it within the context of God’s love. When we know ourselves as God’s Beloved, we experience our suffering differently, as a way to enter a deeper communion with a loving God who, in Christ, allowed himself to be broken. 

So we are chosen, blessed, and broken — to be given. “Our greatest fulfillment lies in giving ourselves to others,” writes Henri. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life.  

Being followers of Jesus means doing what Christians have done for centuries. -  putting their bodies on the line for others or, as John put it, living and spending their lives, gifts and energy in the service of others.  By living that in our part of the world, we become food, nourishment and encouragement for others. This is the challenge which St Teresa of Avila puts to us so clearly:  

Christ has no body now but yours, 
No hands, no feet on earth but yours. 
Yours are the eyes through which He looks 
Compassion on this world. 
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good. 
Yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world, 
Yours are the hands, 
Yours are the feet, 
Yours are the eyes, 
You are His body. 
Christ has no body now on earth but yours. 

Or, as Augustine says to us as we participate in the Eucharist and receive the Body of Christ: “Behold who you are, become what you receive” – the body of Christ, given for others.  Amen.

 

 

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