Difficult Words Haiku

Eat my flesh, he says,

as if it’s a normal thing;

this deep mystery.

Living forever;

the reward for believers.

Is there something more?

The spirit makes life,

he told those who would listen.

The flesh, conversely.

His difficult words

drove many away. Not me;

there is no other.

The fisherman spoke

for us all. Your words are life:

where else can we go?

© Ken Rookes 2015

I am the bread of life

 

We take these words

and fashion them into a ritual.
A ritual meal of great beauty,
layered and filled with meaning
and mystery; which is almost certainly
what the writer had in mind.
Flesh is made bread.
 
The wheat is ground,
mixed, kneaded,
and baked in an oven. It emerges,
crusty and smelling of friendship.
So we tear the loaves in two,
break off pieces,
and share them.
 
And somehow, in this bread
and in the wine that accompanies it,
we take into the essence of our selves
the words the Teacher spoke,
the compassion, grace, and love he enacted.
Along with the power of his giving,
his sacrifice.
 
And somehow,
in this invitation to gather
at his table,
we are also invited to see with his eyes
and to behold the kingdom;
a world that may yet be transformed
by justice, hope and peace.
 
Somehow.
And in these fragments,
small, humble, broken,
we receive this man;
not to mention
his outrage
and his tears.
 

 

© Ken Rookes 2015

Feeding the multitudes. Allabout us?

"This passage is echoing the Eucharist because the Eucharist leads to the feeding of the multitudes for Christians.  We are literally to make table in the midst of the community and feed people.  This uniquely Christia n understanding of mission is tied into the Gospel. We are to feed their minds and their bodies. And, we are to do it out in the world.  

The church can be so very narcissistic sometimes, thinking that it is all about us! The reality is this is all about the world and our call to be agents of feeding in it.  We are the new Eucharistic symbol that is to literally feed people.

To flip this around means that we are completely out of sync with the narrative story and in some ways let off the hook for doing the right thing in the midst of a very private gathering and failing our mission as Christians."

http://hitchhikingthebible.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/proper-12bordinary-17bpentecost-9.html

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

But among you are some who do not believe

He was being kind.

Even among those who so eagerly sing

his songs, wear

his shining silver jewellery, don

his tee-shirts, and who grumble

self-righteously that the fabric of society

has been irreparably torn;

there are many of us

who will not allow ourselves to believe.

We do not eat the body;

the blood we do not drink.

The precisely cubed crumb of bread,

the broken wafer,

the fragment torn from a loaf;

the silver chalice,

the cup of wine,

the tiny glass of grape juice,

hygienically prepared, red and sweet;

these safe things we will consume

in neat and reassuring patterns.

We fear the bread that is his words,

irregular, wild and costly;

having nibbled at the edge

we shall leave it our plates.

The cup of his outpouring;

we sipped cautiously, tasted its bitter draught

and determinedly placed it to one side.

His difficult words invite us to dine upon him,

to take life deep within our own;

and allow his being to be woven into ours.

Thus we receive his generous life,

crimson with sorrow, love and weeping.

Take courage; eat and drink, he whispers

once more.

© Ken Rookes 2012

So it is we eat

So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you,

 unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man

 and drink his blood, you have no life in you. John 6:53 

So it is we eat

of the body bread

and sip on grape-juice blood;

gathered old and young around the table,

praying earnestly

and trusting in gracious promises

that the life of our Lord might be found in us.

So it is I eat

longing to be filled;

knowing here is strength

for an uncomfortable journey

and the Cervantes-impossible quest

that awaits those foolish enough to believe

that the darkness has been overcome

and red life abounds sufficient for all.

So it is I eat

and drink of mysterious life

alone at tables of uncertainty

and in places of doubt,

when questions overwhelm

and all I am left with is the story of a man

bleeding with stretched-out arms

suspended in embrace, whispering in promise

that his life will be found in me.