Because there are no Publix, Harris Teeter, or Kroger grocery stories within several hundred miles of here, I do most of my shopping at Trader Joe’s. It may be the only store where I’m routinely asked, “did you find everything you wanted in your visit today?” I almost invariably answer, “yes.” And, truth be told, the local Trader Joe’s store usually has everything I want to buy.
But there are times when I want to respond with something other than yes. “Actually, I was really looking for the pumpkin rolls that you only seem to carry in the fall. I would really love it if you carried those all-year round. Oh, and sometimes you have lasagna noodles, but sometimes you don’t. Could you look into that? And the spicy trail mix that makes such a great snack, well, I haven’t seen that in a while.”
I’m just as much a product of our consumer culture as the next person, and this consumerism has only gotten worse since the COVID-19 pandemic. “Could you alter the camera angle on the livestream just a bit,” someone types in the Facebook comments section. “And while you’re at it, the volume is kind of low.” “I’m never going to that restaurant again because they downsized their portions during the pandemic.” “I simply can’t go to church there because they moved the service thirty minutes later, and the sound system is horrible.” Perhaps I exaggerate, but you get the picture, I’m sure.
And maybe as a reaction to our consumer culture, I’ve found myself with a greater appreciation for farm-to-table restaurants, where the menu changes according to the season, rather like Trader Joe’s. You get what’s fresh and available. Seldom will you be bored, and almost always you will be surprised. You might have really wanted the meatloaf, but it’s summer, so you’re more likely to find a lighter dish on the menu.
I enjoy being surprised at Trader Joe’s or a farm-to-table restaurant, even if I’m also disappointed when I can’t get what I want. There’s something beneficial to me in such disappointment and in the accompanying surprise of available options. I don’t really need the pumpkin rolls. I can survive quite well without them, and something else can adequately serve as a substitute. The grocery store—and more importantly, the world—doesn’t revolve around my wants, needs, and desires. Complaining does no good. It’s better for my soul to accept gratefully what is available to me. It’s good for me.
But complaining, mumbling, and grumbling is the usual response in John’s Gospel when Jesus announces what’s good for those he came to love and save. They’re unable to recognize what’s good for them, and what’s good for them is Jesus, the bread of life. Just who does he think he is by suggesting that he is God? And how grotesque it is to speak of eating his flesh! To contemplate drinking his blood would have been utterly offensive to Jews for whom blood was the locus of life in a living animal and therefore forbidden to be consumed.
We need to go back all the way to the Books of Exodus and Numbers, to discover the roots of St. John’s Bread of Life discourse, which we’ve heard today. Do you remember what happened? As soon as God delivered the Israelites from bondage in Egypt and brought them out into freedom, they began to complain and grumble. “Why have you brought us out of slavery to allow us to starve in the desert? And there’s no water to drink.” The Israelites whined about the garlic, cucumbers, leeks, melons, and onions to eat back in Egypt. “It would have been so much better if they were back there!” God’s provision in the land of freedom wasn’t good enough for them, because it wasn’t what they wanted. To them, it wasn’t enough.
When the Lord sent manna to sate the people’s hunger, we’re told that he did so because he heard their grumblings. But when the people saw the manna, they said, “What is it?” You could almost see their upper lips curl in distaste at this strange, fine, flaky substance on the ground. The amazing thing is that when they ate it, nobody had too much or too little. Everyone had just what they needed, no more, no less. They had what was good for them.
And still, God’s people couldn’t follow his instructions. “Waste nothing,” he said. But they did waste the gift, and the manna left over stank to high heaven and became riddled with maggots. God told them to store up everything they needed for the sabbath, and still some disobeyed him by searching for food on the sabbath. The people just couldn’t do things on God’s terms. They had to do things as they wanted.
It turns out that our modern consumer culture isn’t so modern. There’s something in our DNA as humans—pride, sin, selfishness—that makes it very difficult for us to do what we don’t want to do or feel like doing. And oddly enough, sometimes what we don’t want to do is precisely what’s good for us. So, when God provided manna for the Israelites in the wilderness, he quite deliberately didn’t give them what they wanted or asked for. He gave them what they needed, no more, no less. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. God gave them what was ultimately good for them.
The feast of Corpus Christi is a celebration of the supreme gift that God has given us, the gift of the Body and Blood of his Son Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the Mass. God has given us precisely what’s good for us. And as St. John reminds us, in consuming the Body and Blood of our Lord, we find eternal life, right here, right now. In doing so, we shall live forever.
In the Eucharist, God has given us not necessarily what we asked for or what we expected or even what we wanted, but it certainly is what we need. It’s what’s good for us. We should eat this gift of Jesus’s very flesh and blood always and frequently. The Eucharistic gift is no spiritual menu catered to our whims and desires. It’s a menu that is everlasting, constant, and always intended for our good. No matter what we’ve done and no matter how recalcitrant and ungrateful we may be, God’s gift of himself in the sacramental feast is always extended to us out of his infinite mercy and compassion.
But we are a complaining people, aren’t we? We live in an age where there’s never enough. Why, then, would we expect a bit of bread and wine to give us eternal life? How could that ever be enough? It’s far easier to complain and fail to be grateful. It’s far easier to see scarcity where there’s hidden abundance. It’s far easier to control a gift on demand rather than receive it according to the giver’s time. It’s far easier to grumble and favor certainty over mystery.
The Eucharist is God’s loving answer to our ingratitude. It’s God’s assurance that there’s always enough in a world that thinks there’s never enough. In the Eucharist, God gives us what we can’t control and what we can only receive. The Eucharist is exactly what’s good for us in God’s inverted world, where faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains and where every hair on our head is counted and where even the one lost sheep out of the hundred is searched for and found.
To have eternal life is to live as if what we have and who we are is enough in the eyes of God. Eternal life means living as if the impossible is possible and as if five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish can feed 5,000 people. Eternal life means that in coming here week after week and feasting on Christ we will never be hungry again.
So, eat the bread and drink the cup in good times and bad. Partake of the feast when you feel like it and especially when you don’t. Feast on it when you’re struggling with your faith and also when you’re certain about it. Share this sacred meal when you’re happy and particularly when you’re sad. Receive the gift, even if you didn’t ask for it, even if the wafer is small and tastes like cardboard. Drink the cup, even if it seems like it’s unsanitary and the wine is cheap. “Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus said. Receive this gift, it's good for you. And when you do, you shall live forever.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Feast of Corpus Christi
June 2, 2024