This morning’s homily (20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 19. 2018).  The readings were Proverbs 9:1-6, Psalm 34, Ephesians 5:15-20, and John 6:51-58.

I came of age waking up to Terri Hemmert every weekday morning on WXRT, and I still listen to her program, Breakfast with the Beatles, on the way to church on Sunday mornings now. She and another WXRT voice, the Regular Guy, used to run great stories on April 1, great spoofs, April Fool stuff. One year they said there was a wonderful new restaurant that had just opened up on the North Side somewhere, serving great comfort food. I think they gave an address that was just a vacant lot in Uptown, to fool people into going to look for this new spot to eat. The name of the restaurant was “Here, Eat Dis.” You have to hear that in the quintessential Chicago accent of the Regular Guy, the one who reviews new movies saying, “Dis is Goin’ to da Show, and I’m just a regular guy.” He gave this fabulous review of the food at this totally made up place to eat, and they named the place, “Here, Eat Dis.”

I remembered that story when I read today’s readings. I pictured Jesus pointing to himself, as in all the artwork of the Sacred Heart, saying “This is the bread of life.” Eat this, drink this; get this into you. Like Wisdom in the first reading: My table is set. Come eat this! Good food! We have lots of wine; come have some! Then the psalm, “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” Here, eat this!

St. Paul’s second reading is more sober, but he says to us, “try to understand.” And that’s good advice. Try to understand that Christ is the bread of life; try to understand that he nourishes the life of the community. He is feeding us when we celebrate each other’s successes, and when we mourn our losses together. Community is the life that Jesus constantly invites us into. We look to each other for help and support in times of need; we rally ‘round each other for the people who need to be picked up. Jesus expresses it with food, something that brings us together. Bread is the symbol he uses, because it’s essential. Bread is not a dietary supplement. Bread is not an appetizer or a dessert or an entre; bread is a staple.

Bread doesn’t happen without dying and rising. You’ve all heard this one, right? “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground …” The grain gives up its life, so there can be a harvest of wheat. Bread bakers introduce yeast to the dough, and there’s a rising.

Jesus says here, “My flesh is true food.” I think he’s saying this is reality; it’s the truth about the universe; it’s the truth about your life. Instead of saying “Cogitate on that,” which would work for those of us who are stuck in our own heads, and that includes me, he says to use our guts: Gnaw on this, chew on it, savor it, make it part of you. It will nourish and sustain you.

Jesus was always eating and drinking with sinners. Because he wants to eat with us, and wants to feed us all, we are all equal in dignity. We all eat of the same divine food, and Jesus is still here with us now, still eating with sinners just as he did 2000 years ago.

We have in the Eucharist the sign of his presence. The essential thing about our sacraments is that they are signs and they also are real. So yes, Jesus is really present in the consecrated elements that we receive in holy communion. Christ is really present in the priest presiding at the altar, and in you and in the people sitting next to you and across the aisle, and God help me, even in me, trying to reflect on all of this. I can really use an occasion to know Jesus not just in my head but in my stomach.  Once I can do that, I think I can get him in my heart too. The fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, right?  It makes me thankful that as my turn to preach came up on the calendar, it’s all about food: That’s what I’m best at, eating, and connecting with other people over food and drink.

Heidi Stevens wrote in last Sunday’s Tribune that we are all hard-wired for community, for connecting to others. Those nerds at Harvard who invented Facebook were onto something, even if they didn’t understand what genie they were letting out of the lamp. It’s in us to connect with each other, to find the things that bring us together. We don’t leave anybody behind in a crisis. We don’t leave anybody out in a celebration.

Who else here has blocked a high school classmate on social media some time in the last year, because the political stuff just became too unbearable? That’s an emblem of what we are up against, because the point of the Eucharist is to make us all one. By that, I don’t for a minute suggest that unity means the end of differences of opinion or the elimination of disagreements.  But even as we navigate those choppy seas, the first thing we need to do is to recognize the life of Christ in the other person. Jesus died and rose, out of love for that person, that person I disagree with. In ten minutes we’re going to participate in a living memorial of that reality, and then we’re going to acknowledge out loud that we’re not worthy of it. And then we’re going to share in it anyway, because Love is not about worthiness. Love is about feeding each other, about eating with other sinners, all of us trying to get better, together.

My daughter Grace has a food highlight reel in her head; she remembers all the best things she ever ate, where it happened, who she was with. Jesus wants us to remember the food he gives us, and that means to recognize the Real Presence of God, and not just here in this worship space but everywhere we go.

As each of us comes to the altar and receives the Eucharist, we become tabernacles, not ornate gold boxes, but imperfect earthen vessels. We carry the Real Presence inside us as we return to our places in the church, but more importantly, we carry the Real Presence of Christ as we return to our weekly struggles out there in the big world. Become what you receive. Here, eat this, and remember this food when we meet people who are of a different race or religion; remember this food when meeting people of a different opinion, a different nationality or orientation, remember this food, and see in them the real presence of Christ, the mystery that connects us all and makes us all one.