168 Dt 8: 2-3, 14b-16a; 1 Cor 10: 16-17; Jn 6:51-58

When I was a child, and even as a young adulthood, my favorite breakfast meal was pancakes. I loved to see butter melt on top of pancakes hot off the grill and then watch my mother pour warmed-up Vermont maple syrup over a stack of three or four pancakes.

I hope you’ve all had breakfast!

Later in life and after some education about nutrition, I realized that a stack of pancakes with maple syrup and butter did not make for a healthy breakfast, even with added strips of bacon, which often was the case in my young adult years. Aside from a lack of good nutrition, the pancakes filled me but did not satisfy my appetite. Soon after eating I’d be hungry again.

Years later, I found it difficult to adjust to the fiber-laced breakfast I now eat. But my new breakfast has been much better for my health and appetite.

At one time or another all of us have hungered for the tasty and attractive things in life, the things that maybe satisfy at first but then let us down later. Things that appear to be full of promise but after we’ve had them for a while we find they leave us feeling empty. Having an affair outside of marriage does that to people. Getting that bigger house or car you really didn’t need and couldn’t afford can leave you with buyer’s remorse, another form of emptiness. An addiction to alcohol, drugs or Internet pornography will almost always leave the user feeling empty.

What causes so much sadness is not having everything we want, but the sadness that comes when we get what we want. In Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book, When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough, he writes about the literary character, Faust, who trades his soul for unlimited power. Kushner writes that for Faust, “hell is the loneliness of having everything and knowing that it is still not enough.”

There are plenty of examples in literature and in real life of people who have everything, yet don’t find fulfillment. Psychiatrist’s files are filled with case histories of persons who managed to acquire everything they thought they needed to make them happy, but cannot find peace of mind. The feelings of emptiness and uneasiness haunt them as they live anxious lives.

Having all we want of the things of this world will not satisfy our deepest hunger for a peaceful heart. St. Augustine of Hippo put it this way, “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

God created us out of love and provided us with a way to find peace we long for. We find that peace in Christ. Jesus satisfies our deepest hunger, our spiritual hunger. Our for meaning, to know who we are, why we’re here on this earth, what we ought to do with our life and whether or not in the end all will be well.

To satisfy that hunger Jesus gave us himself, his real presence in his proclaimed word from the Gospels. He gives us himself as we find him in one another, especially in the poor. Above all, he gives himself in the Eucharist, which we celebrate today on this feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.

We do nothing to make this possible except to show up and believe. Jesus is the one who made it possible through his suffering, death and resurrection. He’s the one who selected you and me to be here today when he said, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will last.” Jn 15:16

The Bible tells us that we’re not only chosen by Jesus but that we “are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God’s own.” 1 Peter 2: 9 We, the people of God’s own, have been selected to receive God’s only Son this morning as we receive the Eucharist. There are many wealthy, powerful, successful and famous people who will not receive this greatest of all privileges today because they have refused to be open to receive Christ into their lives.

Yet, to satisfy ourselves with the spiritual protein of the body and blood of Jesus is not the purpose of the Eucharist, any more than the purpose of a healthy breakfast is simply to promote physical health. The purpose of a healthy breakfast is to provide fuel to get us to our destination and sustain us in our work.

The purpose of the Eucharist, beyond spiritual food and union with Christ and his Church, is to nourish our spirit so that we can go forth to do God’s work here on earth. One way to do God’s work is to offer the compassion of Christ to the people in our lives.  An example of what I mean is the compassion shown by a hospital nurse to a man who had given up on life.

The thin and withered man lay in his hospital bed, exhausted and weak after a bone marrow transplant for leukemia.

A nurse tiptoes in and says, “Mr. Jensen, I’m your nurse, Hannah.” He barely nods. Hanna checks his vital signs. “Would you like some soup?” He shakes his head from side to side, “I just want to sleep.” Hannah comes back later with medication. He takes it and sinks back against the pillow. Hannah offers him a newspaper but he isn’t interested. Feeling defeated and concerned, Hannah leaves. She goes to the nurses’ kitchen to pour herself a cup of tea. Then she gets an idea. She grabs the large teapot, and places it on a tray with some toast and two cups. Then she heads for Mr. Jensen’s room. “Would I be disturbing you if I have my tea here in your room?” Hannah asks. “I’d like to watch the news, if that’s okay with you.”

“Not at all,” Mr. Jensen says, but he is clearly taken aback. Hannah puts on the television then pours herself a cup of tea.

“I brought an extra cup, if you’d like some.” “Maybe I’ll have half a cup.”

Jensen and Hannah watch the news in silence, until he nods off. As she gets up to go, he awakens and asks, “Are you in tomorrow?” “I am, and I’ll have tea with you again tomorrow, if you’d like.” “I’d like that.”

The next night Mr. Jensen has two cups of tea and a piece of toast—his first food in a month. The third night he and Hannah talk about their families, their hometowns, their lives outside the hospital. The fourth night, he gets out of bed and sits in a chair.

A few days later, Hannah finds Mr. Jensen’s room empty. He had recovered enough to go home to recuperate.

Some time later Hannah is downtown shopping when she hears a familiar voice. “Hannah, it’s so good to see you!” says Mr. Jensen, as he sweeps her up in a big hug. “This is Hannah,” he says, introducing his wife. “She saved my life with a cup of tea.”

The cup of tea Hanna offers out of care and compassion models the vision of Jesus for the sacrament of Eucharist. Nourished and sustained by the bread of life we receive, we are sent to become nourishment and sustenance for others.

There are hungry and anxious hearts all around us. Those that mourn the loss of a loved one; those in need of a job; those desperate for wise counsel; those that are angry and bitter over a divorce; those in poor health; those worried about how to pay their bills; those who are afraid to get out of bed in the morning.

We all know such people in need.

Jesus wants us to feed them. Not just with the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist but also with our real presence of care and compassion by reaching out to them and by taking a risk, if necessary, as did Nurse Hannah with Mr. Jensen. Who knows what punishment Nurse Hannah might have received for sitting down to watch television and sip tea in a patient’s room. Surely, her action was not a part of hospital policy.

Someone once said this about those who risk nothing: “The greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. Those that risk nothing, do nothing and have nothing. They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love or live. Chained by their certitudes, they are slaves that have given up their freedom. Only a person who risks is free.” –Anonymous

The life Jesus provides for us at the table of the Eucharist is not pancakes and sweet maple syrup. It is life-sustaining food for the soul, which, Jesus tells us, “has come down from heaven.” Jn 6:33 This food from heaven prepares us for heaven after we leave our brief life on earth, but it also prepares us to find heaven here today as we show the compassion and care of Christ to those in need.

Today, Jesus invites each of us to not only receive his real presence but also to be his real presence to someone in need, even that might requires us, to step outside our comfort zone and take a risk.

For your homework this week, I invite you to take a risk, if necessary, to help someone in need. As you do so, that person may discover the real presence of Christ in you.

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