What is your favorite energy food/snack?
- You’ve spent all day at Bellerive, chasing the PGA golfers around in the hot sun.
- You just finished your 5K run, or you 10 mile bike ride or whatever your exercise regimen is.
- It is now 1a.m. in the morning and that paper/project is due by 9am, and you have miles to go.
These are times your body says: I NEED SOMETHING! I need some energy to sustain me, to take care of me. I need something to replace the electrolytes or restore the energy that has been sapped form me. Gatorade or Monster Energy drink or Protein bars can be great things in those moments. A little something to get your body through the down moments.
But aren’t there also times when we need a different kind of energy, a different kind of strength, a different ‘help’ to get through. When we are sad, or burdened; the days after we lost a friend or a parent to cancer; the times when we changed jobs or moved to a different city – out souls cry out “help.” For some, this is episodic in nature – a tough day here, a rough patch there. For others, as we know from our Faith In Action series on mental health, they know that experience as a chronic condition – a sadness and weariness that does not go away. Their brains simply do not produce the needed chemicals for balance and wellness that other brains do. Whether episodic or chronic, there are times when the soul cries out “help!”
We hear about Elijah in the first reading, having one of those kinds of moments. He is ready to throw in the towel, ready to give up completely. (And this, just after his biggest success – the high noon showdown against the prophets of Baal.) He lies down under the tree, hoping to not wake up again. But then, an angel appears to him and twice bids him to get up and eat, or else the journey will be too long. And, strengthened by that food, he does just that.
Jesus could have been ready to give up in today’s gospel – as people start murmuring, as they start to complain. They start to push back against his teaching. Yet, rather than throw in the towel and give up despair, he DEEPENS his teaching.
“Let me tell you about a different kind of energy drink, a different kind of food that you can eat. ‘This is MY BODY. THIS IS MY BLOOD.’ Here is all that you will ever need on this journey of faith.” This is the living bread – this pattern of sacrificial and self emptying love. And if you eat of this bread, if you take upon yourself the pattern of life you find here, you will never die.
And here is a truth about this food. It does not work like a traditional energy bar or drink. It does not flood our systems with caffeine and protein, making us instantly alert and ready to rumble. Nor does it magically take away our struggling and suffering. What it does do, though, is infinitely more astounding. It unites us to the heart of the creator and savior of the universe. Not protein or caffeine, but DIVINITY – that is what we consume. And that is what by grace we become. St. Augustine said so simply: We become what we receive.
And in our struggles, in our sufferings, in the hard days and rough patches and daily grind and deep weariness-es, our Savior carries our load with us. He carries our load with us. The one who eats this bread will never die. Certainly we shall pass away, we shall leave this planet. But our life, already caught up with the Savior’s life, will never die.
This week, as often as you eat or drink your favorite energy food/ beverage, and as you feel its effects on your body in its moment of need, let it remind you that there is a different transformation going on, a different energy that is flowing through your body. Take Jesus at his word. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This [point to altar] communion is the only energy bar that we will ever need.