箴言9:1-6 厄弗所人書5:15-20 若望福音6:51-58We heard a simple but profound story in the first reading. We need to allow our imagination to picture it. There is a large banquet table which is set out with the finest food and wine. Around it are gathered a group of people from all walks of life, young and old, poor and rich, educated and uneducated. The host for the meal is Lady Wisdom. Of course, a meal was not just about food and drink; it was also about conversation. At this meal, Lady Wisdom leads the conversation. The people listen to her, but they also watch what she does. And they begin to learn about wisdom: they learn about right and wrong, truth and falsehood; they learn about the hospitality of God and the mercy of God. They also learn about the traps that others may set to try to catch them out. They probably learn that it is often hard to judge the difference between wisdom and folly. Gradually, as these people learn wisdom they also learn right judgement. I guess one way to describe this meal is to see it as a school for wisdom.
This story of Lady Wisdom’s banquet is offered to us today as a backdrop for hearing Jesus’ words in the gospel. You’ll remember that we heard a few weeks ago about his actions with the loaves and fish, and the feeding of the multitudes. Since hearing that story we have been listening for several weeks as Jesus teaches about the bread of life. It is as though we have been sitting around his meal table listening to his words of wisdom. If we remain attentive then we too will grow in wisdom and right judgement.
It has been interesting to see each week that there have always been some who have struggled to grasp what he has been saying. They complained about what he said, because what he was saying did not conform to what they were expecting to hear. But Jesus challenged them to grasp the truth of what he was saying, to understand it properly and not to distort it. Today he tells them that he will give them his flesh to eat and his blood to drink. They were so scandalised that they failed to hear the truth of his teaching. We need to remember that the religious world of these people, and the Law they followed, meant that they should have recognised that Jesus was not advocating breaking the Law by drinking blood, but that he was referring to the shedding of his blood and the piercing of his flesh in death. They failed to recognise that he was speaking about the depth of his own love for the world – a love so deep and so strong that he was prepared to die for them. Here was a truth about God and about himself that he was teaching them around this meal table, but which they did not want to receive.
For those who did listen to him, and were open to learning from him, he gave the next lesson that would help them grow in wisdom. He invited them to eat his flesh and drink his blood. This invitation meant two things. First, it was a reminder that if they do eat his flesh and drink his blood they will receive the new life, the eternal life that is his gift to the whole world. To eat his flesh and drink his blood is to be infused with life – his life so generously given up in death. Eternal life is life that is lived in the freedom that characterised his own life.
The second meaning of this invitation is that to eat and drink is to be invited to be participants in his own act of self-giving love. In other words, they are to be witnesses to his life, which won salvation for the world. Here is another learning about wisdom. Wisdom is not just about receiving something from God; it is also about becoming a participant in the mission of God. If they receive this promise of eternal life by eating and drinking, they should also embrace it here and now, and show the world what eternal life looks like.
As we gather today and each Sunday we become participants who assemble around Wisdom’s banquet table. Jesus is Wisdom in flesh and blood; he is Wisdom as he comes to us in sacrament. We have an opportunity to learn from him by listening to what he says, by watching what he does, and by imitating him in his actions. In short it means being always ready to allow our imagination to be captured by the great vision proclaimed by Jesus in the gospel. It means being courageous enough to try to live with that deep sense of self-giving love that characterised his life. It means being confident enough to show this wisdom to the world by the way we live.
I believe this message has a particular application to the youth of our community. You are used to so many school contexts, some which are no doubt more appealing than others. Here today you are asked to think of yourselves as being invited to sit at wisdom’s table and to be part of her school. Gathered around this table you can hear both a promise and an invitation. The promise is that you will live life to the fullest. The challenge is to give the world around you a glimpse of the eternal life promised by Jesus.
Fr. Gerard Kelly
