In our history, we Christians have missed the mark on carrying out much (most?) of what Jesus tried to teach. In the name of Christ, a shameful number of men went crusading to destroy unbelievers. The Council of Trent found it necessary to prohibit such egregious abuses of the Eucharist as paying priest celebrants according to how long they could hold up the host for the people to adore.

In the U.S., some Christians saw it as their duty to carry out outlandish "proofs" that allowed them to put "witches" to death. In the name of freedom of religion, we have privatized our faith to the point that many feel free of responsibility to the common good, believing that all God desires is that we will each save our soul.

Worst of all, we have found ways to justify all of this by citing Scripture — selectively.

St. Paul warned the Ephesians about this kind of distorted theology, saying: "Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons, but as wise ... do not continue in ignorance." He said, "the days are evil." 

Each of the deformations of Christianity mentioned above came from self-serving interpretations of Scripture, interpretations that employed fear and magic as well as bigoted exercises of power over others.

Today, our first reading introduces Lady Wisdom, a figure often identified with the Holy Spirit or Christ. She is making an offer to all who can hear. Interestingly, "hearing" does not refer to sound waves but to an attitude: "Let whoever is simple, turn in here ... forsake foolishness that you may live."

She offers, "Come, eat of my food and drink," the food that nourishes understanding. Of course, her prerequisite of simplicity means that people who come to her table want to move beyond their current thinking!

Lady Wisdom's offer is a prelude to Jesus' invitation to partake of the living bread: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life."

Taking his words as cannibalistic, his listeners entirely (purposely?) misinterpreted the comparison he made between his invitation to them and his relationship with the Father. Jesus stated it clearly, "Just as the living Father sent me, and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me."

Jesus was inviting them into a relationship of real mutuality with him, one that mirrored his relationship with the Father. They couldn't understand this because, as we saw last week, they wouldn't accept the idea that Jesus came from the Father.

Jesus says, "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in [her/him.]"

Obviously, this refers to much more than what we send to our stomachs. To take someone in like food is to allow that person to come to life in us. Christ invites us to give him a dwelling place in our heart, mind and psyche. As we do so, we begin to allow all that we are and do to find its source and purpose in him.

This takes us far beyond the physical act of eating. This is an open invitation to the mysticism of living through, with and in him. This banquet is too much to take in all at once. 

How are we to know if we are following Paul's advice to seek the will of God rather than interpreting like the Crusaders? Wisdom told us that the "simple" would enjoy her banquet. The simple, like the poor in spirit, not only accept, but rejoice in the awareness that they have much to learn.

The word most repeated in Wisdom and Jesus' teaching is life. In John, life is an unrestricted term. Jesus came for the life of the world. Anything done in him creates life for all. People who create or enhance life will find themselves caught up in an unlimited spiral of energy: Giving life gives them life and they are drawn into the eternal life of God.

Sometimes we accept a spirituality that reflects the situation of a beggar dressed in rags and starving, all the while sitting obliviously on a pot of gold. We settle for what poor theology and materialistic society present, failing to take in what we are really being offered.

Jesus' ministry was not about miracles done and delivered. Everything he did was a sign pointing toward what was much greater than our limited or limiting comprehension.

Instead of accepting inadequate interpretations of the Gospel, Christ invites us into an ongoing, mystical spiral of tasting and seeing the goodness of the Lord. We eat his body and drink his blood when we allow him to live in us to the point that we will keep sharing his life forever.

"Where did that come from?"

"Who does she think she is?"

We make those and more creative, sometimes less polite, comments when somebody throws us off balance. We wander around our little worlds with expectations, conscious and unconscious, that are our own scripts for others to act out. It can be quite upsetting when they don't fit the roles we've assigned them.

Reading today's Gospel, did it strike you as odd that Jesus' critics were upset because he said that he had come down from heaven but didn't seem at all bothered by his calling himself bread?

Of course, in John's Gospel, Jesus also called himself living water, the light of the world, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the image of God, the true vine, and the way, the truth and the life (John 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15). He had great expectations for his vocation.

In today's selection from John 6, we see a problem of clashing expectations. Jesus' compatriots and kin may have been thrilled with what he did, but when he declared that he had come from heaven, that was too much. They knew exactly where he had come from. Even if they admired Joseph and Mary, they didn't consider them heavenly emissaries who had brought a son to Earth. 

They knew enough about life to know what to expect from one another.

The underlying conflict between Jesus and his audience was that he wanted to open their minds and hearts to more than what they already had and knew, but they felt safe and secure with life as it was: "Why fix it if it's not broken?" The roles they expected to play out in their own lives were as constrained as those they put on others: "It is what it is."

They were a bit like Elijah in the incident described in our first reading. Elijah, the target of an assassination plot, had decided to flee and then to give up. "This is enough, Lord, let me die here and now, before they catch up with me!"

But God had greater hopes for him and sent an angel to wake him up and give him food from heaven. Elijah appreciated that and still wanted to let it all come to an end, then and there. But the pesky angel woke him up again, telling him to eat more because he had a long road ahead of him.

This time, he couldn't refuse and went to where God would reveal Self to him. (1 Kings 19:11-15).

It's significant that the angel's job was to wake up Elijah and give him food. It's another way of saying that God's messenger prodded him toward a larger vision of things and promised he could find the strength to move beyond his hopelessness – walking 40 days to get there.

We often think of hopelessness as despair or depression. It's also complacency and a lack of vision. This might be a way of explaining what St. Paul is saying to the Ephesians when he says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God." 

The Holy Spirit calls us into a future beyond our expectations and imagination, no matter that we might prefer our own secure, if not always comfortable, ruts. Accepting Paul's call to be forgiving requires an attitude of openness to the future, a willingness to break free of memories and expectations that only replicate the past in new clothes.

Jesus says that we can't come to him unless the Father draws us and that "everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him, comes to me." Listening to him, allowing him to draw us into new perspectives is what it means to be "taught by God."

Our Creator/Father is the God of the future far more than the past. "Your ancestors ate manna . . . I am the living bread." The Word become flesh is God's invitation into a new and eternal future.

Last week's liturgy invited us to feel our deepest hungers and to ask how Christ wants to satisfy them. This week's liturgy warns us that our expectations may be the greatest obstacle keeping us from knowing what God keeps offering us. The Gospel intends to throw us off balance. We can resist and hold on to what we think we know, or we can risk our equilibrium and be taught by God.