do you also wish to go away?

A reflection of some great depth, worth reading the lot.

"At the center of Christian worship is, and always has been, a meal – the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, the times coalesce: at the moment of communion, salvation history and future hope meet in the holy now. Those who take this meal, who eat this flesh and drink this blood, take in a meal at once like and unlike the meals of their ancestors. It is bread, it is wine, yet it is somehow so much more, for as Christ himself says, it is also eternal life. At the center of Christian worship is this meal, and this meal is the future hope of eternal life.

Yet at the center of common human experience is not now, nor has it ever been, anything remotely like eternal life. For much of the world, human life is short and brutish, ugly and bleak. In a worldwide family fractured over religious, political, economic, and racial lines, humankind’s ecumenism is rooted in our shared experience of death, of suffering, of pain. These are our common heritage, our familiar burden.

And this presents a problem for any who would eat and drink – and truly believe in – this holy meal. For in this meal, a dissonance of what is hoped for is juxtaposed most discordantly with what is. At that moment of unbearable juxtaposition, a question is leveled by our gospel reading: “Do you also wish to go away?” Perhaps – for this teaching is difficult; who can accept it? When the question is asked, the temptation to answer with a heartbroken “Yes,” can at times be quite great. ..."

http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/blog/2012/08/the-eucharist-and-the-hollow-place/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-eucharist-and-the-hollow-place