17th Sunday: Sin began with a bad family meal; Salvation begins with a good family meal

The Latin root for the word religion is ‘religio’ which is rooted in ‘religare,’ which means “to bind”. Religion is the way that we are bound to the object of religion. In our case, that is God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
 
Religion and Scripture
Religion for us is rooted in the story of scripture which explains our relationship with God. The scriptures start with the story of a really bad family meal. Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When they had finished consuming, they turned on each other in blame and shame. That rippled out into their kids and all the families and peoples that followed. Ancient Israel, saw that the basic human problem started in some primordial split that is now present in every human being throughout the world. Adam and Eve’s son killed his brother. Noah’s son humiliated his father. Abraham and Isaac have two sons by different women. Each son fights the other. Jacob has twelve sons by four different women. They fight all the time also. King David had hundreds of wives and concubines, but it was not enough. He wanted someone else’ wife, Bathsheeba. 
 
In scripture, we meet God on a mountain
If the story of scripture says that all human sin is rooted in a bad family meal, the cure for sin is rooted in a good family meal. That is the story of the gospel today. John’s story of the loaves and fishes is our understanding of the mass. Jesus begins the meal by gathering people around him on a mountain. If a piece of fruit is the symbol of the fall of Adam and Eve, the mountain is the symbol of being in God’s presence. Remember, God met Moses and the people on a mountain in Sinai. God was worshipped on mountains. The Temple in Jerusalem was built on Mt. Zion. Isaiah the prophet said that at the end God would gather all people to himself on Mt. Zion. Jesus was transfigured on Mt. Tabor. In today’s gospel, Jesus gathered people for the meal of loaves and fishes on a mountain.
 
The Liturgy of the Word
Jesus starts by sitting down and teaching. At mass, the meal is preceded by listening to the word of God. Today, we read from the history of Israel in 2 Kings. In that story the prophet Elisha fed 100 people with a couple of barley loaves. Elisha insisted, "Give it to the people to eat."
For thus says the LORD,
'They shall eat and there shall be some left over." 2 Kgs. 4. Long before Elisha, God fed Moses and the people with manna. There are lots of stories where God feeds and provides for his people. When we are taught at mass we know that we have the obligation to feed others. But the meaning of all this is contained in what Jesus says about food, when he was tempted by the Devil in the desert he replied, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Mt. 4:4  God taught Adam and Eve before they ate. Their failure to listen spoiled their enjoyment of the meal, their family and their enjoyment of all of creation. We are reminded that life is not happy just because we have filled our bellies. So, we listen and we all learn as we think about God’s word during the Liturgy of the Word.
 
The Liturgy of the Eucharist
After Jesus has finished teaching the disciples said to him “It is late and the people should be sent away so that they can get something to eat.” Jesus responded “You give them something to eat.” We know that we can’t feed every hunger in the world. It is beyond us. So the disciple say, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?" Philip added, "Two hundred days' wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little."
 That is when Andrew, Peter’s brother, said, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?"
Jesus responded “See to it that they all recline.” That is how ancient banquets were held with the guest laying down on couches on their left side and eating with their right hand. Now you know this is more than a picnic.
 
The prophet Isaiah said that at the end, God would gather the peoples on Mt. Zion.
 

6 “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine— the best of meats and the finest of wines.
7 On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations;
8 he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.” Is. 25:6-8:

 
The Mass
The purpose of our religion is to tell the story of God and his people. Our community is important because we pass this story on from generation to generation. In this story, God teaches his people and then he feeds them. We can choose to be fed by God or not. Why is Mass important as a religious duty?
 
Mass is more than a re-enactment of historical events. We attend mass to respond to God’ invitation. We do more than just listen to a story. At mass we participate in the reality of God gathering his people.  This is how God reaches out into the world to gather us all in. God teaches us in the Liturgy of the Word and then God feeds us in the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

The story of scripture begins with a bad family meal and ends with a good family meal. The bad meal brings division into the most fundamental and profound human relationship, the family. At a bad meal, everyone takes care of themselves. The good meal gathers everyone, despite their differences, at God’s feet where we are taught and fed. What matters about religion is that it actually does attach or bind us to God by helping us to heal the wounds and division of sin in our families and in the world. 

My favorite story about the Eucharist

 
Flannery O’Connor and the Eucharist
The writer Flannery O’Connor told this story on herself in a collection of her letters published after her death: 

"I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater. (She just wrote that book, “A Charmed Life.”) She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual. We went at eight and at one, I hadn’t opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say. . . . Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them.

Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the most portable person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.

That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable."

From Flannery's collected letters, The Habit of Being