What do You Mean?

We all ask the question “What do you mean?” every now and again. We might be at work with a nutty boss who is disorganized or just well crazy, we might not understand our spouse when he or she says something that just sounds so off, or it could be the question I have been asking the Sweet Potato over and over when he cry’s. Sometimes the answer is forthcoming sometimes it just a mystery……

Jesus gave people in Capernaum a real head scratcher of a gift. Most were less than grateful. “Who is this guy?” they asked. “What on earth is he talking about with the eating flesh and drinking blood?”

What made Jesus’ gift so befuddling was that there was no category for what he was offering. People in Capernaum were familiar with the ancient story of Moses and the manna coming down from heaven. That was what they knew to expect. Instead, Jesus upended that expectation, saying bread alone was not enough. To truly live, they must now abide in Jesus and Jesus in them. 

The communal aspect of this invitation means that God’s relationship with the world is not one directional. In other words, God does not send bread alone from heaven in order to give life. Rather, God discloses a radical gift of love in the human figure of Jesus. This love goes in and out, and in all directions.

If we accept that radical message of love, and acknowledge that we are in Christ, and he is in us, then we realize that we are all intrinsically bound up with one another. All of a sudden, we comprehend our connection with everyone. Every person is connected with me. I am connected with every person. And Christ is in all of us.

This is a slippery thing for me to hold on to. People do not always look like or behave in ways I want to be connected to. The same can be said about me. Yet that is the invitation that Christ offers us. Love. Love anyway. Love in spite of. That is the sacred gift presented to us day after day after day. 

Today, my prayer is that we gratefully accept Christ’s gift of love, that we abide with him and he with us, and that we remember that we are all connected.

John 6:52-59

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my Flesh and drink my Blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my Flesh is true food and my Blood is true drink.

“Those who eat my Flesh and drink my Blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.