Sunday’s Readings: Proverbs 9:1-6; Psalms 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58
…From Your Pastor’s Desk
Woman-Wisdom
When people move into a new house or complete a restoration, they often have a little celebration to which they invite their friends. Once the house is to their satisfaction, they open it to others and provide refreshments. This is called a ’housewarming party’ – a good feast in the presence of others to be properly launched. Something similar is happening in today’s Scriptures. They ALL speak of eating!
And, in what I find fascinating – we have this woman by the name of Wisdom. She builds herself a house, clearly a very elegant home with no less than seven pillars. She throws a feast of fine wine and good meat and sends out her servants into the streets to gather people to her table.
In that reading the building of a house, the making of a feast, the invitation to come and eat and drink, is an imaginative way of speaking about God as the wise host who invites all of humanity to learn from His wisdom. It is interesting that God is portrayed as a woman in this reading, Woman-Wisdom.
That image of Woman-Wisdom who says, ‘Come and eat of my bread, drink the wine I have prepared’ finds an echo in the figure of Jesus in the gospel who declares, ‘I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever.’ Like Woman-Wisdom Jesus invites us to come and eat of His bread.
We invite people to our home and put food and drink before them and we invite them to eat and drink. Jesus invites us to His table and He puts himself before us as food and drink and invites us to eat and drink. In language that is very daring Jesus declares himself to be our food and drink, the one who can satisfy our deepest hungers and thirsts, our hunger and thirst for life. Jesus declares in that gospel, ‘anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.’
We come to the Eucharist to draw life from the risen Lord to draw God’s life from him, God’s love. We are then sent from the Eucharist to be channels of that life, of that love, for each other. We come to the Eucharist hungering and thirsting for life, for authentic life, the life of God, the love of God, and we are sent out from the Eucharist as life givers, as agents of God’s life and love within our homes, our society, our world.
So, let us follow the lead of Woman-Wisdom and share the abundance of God’s gifts, including the Gifts of God’s mercy, peace, love, joy, patience, generosity, and all other gifts of the Spirit – especially to those in most need.
Father Ron
