Cheeseburgers in Paradise | August 9, 2015 Gospel Reflection

August 9, 2015

Hunger hurts. Physical hunger can feel like your insides are eating themselves. It consumes your mind, it makes you cranky, and it can drive you crazy. Remember those classic cartoons of the skinny guy on a desert island with his tattered cut offs and his thought bubbles would turn into a dancing turkey dinner? Have you ever been “hangry” before? We need calories to be in our right minds. We need nourishment to thrive. Isn’t spiritual hunger the same? It can feel like your soul is caving in on itself and when your soul is “hangry,”  you can lose sight of reality and our thought bubbles paint pictures of false images that we think will take away the pain. Hunger hurts.

Elijah, in the first reading, was soul hungry and his thought bubble tried to tell him that death would take the pain away. Have you ever prayed for death? I have, and it is the number one sign that a soul is malnourished. So an angel literally poked Elijah awake and immediately feeds him like a good Italian grandmother. He needed to be fortified to face reality. I love how the same angel physically touches Elijah both times he awakens him. Sometimes we just need to be held and spoon fed when we are in a place of despair. This reading from 1 Kings is a sweet account of God nurturing us in our darkest times with a simple touch (like a kiss or a hug or brushing away our tears or holding hands or caressing our face), and a basic meal. Sometimes the solutions to our problems are as simple as that.

Then we fast forward to the gospel and Jesus announces one more time that He is the Bread of Life. We all understand hunger and so Jesus in His brilliance uses something that everyone, gentile, Jew, non-believer, infant, and adult can relate to.  The essence of life to the Jews is located in the soul. Therefore, Jesus declares, “I am the Bread of your Soul,” and this is when they start to chatter. It seems that we are not so different from our ancient brothers and sisters. Don’t we find that sensational issues, statements, quotes, tweets, etc. immediately kick up the gossip in us? I know that I am guilty of this and it bums me out that I identify with their murmuring, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven?’” What do these statements indicate? Spiritual hunger. Hunger clouds our ability to see beyond the surface. Cheeseburgers dance jigs before our hungry eyes and the smell of French fries takes away our willpower. Sin charms us into believing that things that look like food actually are real food.

Jesus goes on to say, stop your speculating because the bread that I am is fortified by the Great I Am. This is not ordinary food, this IS life. Physical starvation is a reality throughout most of the world and unfortunately, spiritual starvation is too. We can’t survive on fake food, we need fortification, and we can’t survive on anything that does not  come from the one who made us. The only way to receive that kind of nourishment is in the Eucharist. The Bread of Life calls us to the table to eat and one day the cheeseburgers that dance jigs will be in paradise.

Reading 1 1 KGS 19:4-8

Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert,
until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it. 
He prayed for death saying:
“This is enough, O LORD! 
Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” 
He lay down and fell asleep under the broom tree,
but then an angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat. 
Elijah looked and there at his head was a hearth cake
and a jug of water. 
After he ate and drank, he lay down again,
but the angel of the LORD came back a second time,
touched him, and ordered,
“Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” 
He got up, ate, and drank;
then strengthened by that food,
he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.

Responsorial Psalm PS 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

R. (9a) Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall be ever in my mouth.
Let my soul glory in the LORD;
the lowly will hear me and be glad.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Glorify the LORD with me,
Let us together extol his name.
I sought the LORD, and he answered me
And delivered me from all my fears.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Look to him that you may be radiant with joy.
And your faces may not blush with shame.
When the afflicted man called out, the LORD heard,
And from all his distress he saved him.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
The angel of the LORD encamps
around those who fear him and delivers them.
Taste and see how good the LORD is;
blessed the man who takes refuge in him.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

Reading 2 EPH 4:30—5:2

Brothers and sisters:
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,
with which you were sealed for the day of redemption. 
All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling
must be removed from you, along with all malice. 
And be kind to one another, compassionate,
forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.

So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love,
as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us
as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.

Alleluia JN 6:51

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven, says the Lord;
whoever eats this bread will live forever.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel JN 6:41-51

The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said,
“I am the bread that came down from heaven, ”
and they said,
“Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? 
Do we not know his father and mother? 
Then how can he say,
‘I have come down from heaven’?” 
Jesus answered and said to them,
“Stop murmuring among yourselves. 
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him,
and I will raise him on the last day. 
It is written in the prophets:
They shall all be taught by God.
Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. 
Not that anyone has seen the Father
except the one who is from God;
he has seen the Father. 
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes has eternal life. 
I am the bread of life. 
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat it and not die. 
I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”