Thank God we’re back to the Gospel of Mark. Don’t get me
wrong. I’m not into gluten free Gospels but five weeks of bread, even from
heaven, is more than I can stomach. Okay, that might be a little over the top
for a lectionary based joke but I don’t think the lectionary needs five weeks
to deal with John chapter six. Be that as it may it turns out the Gospel lesson
for this week still has something to do with food and the rituals that surround
it. I find it noteworthy that things necessary for survival, the very act of eating
and drinking, take on additional layers of meaning. But maybe that is the
point. Things basic but necessary are always more than ordinary. Many of us are
far removed from the production of sustenance, let alone the lack of it, so
that we can grab a burger from In and Out (after waiting in a long line of
course) and think nothing of the sun and soil and rain and crops and cattle and
rancher and farmer and slaughter house and silo and purchaser and packager and shipper
and cook and wait staff that eventually put burger on bun with fries on the
side. Being disconnected with what goes in (the ordinary act of eating) is not
that different from being disconnected with what comes out. (LOL) I don’t mean to be crude, even though I think Jesus did. He
was far more pointed than our piety allows us to be. That’s because all our piety
tends to limit the mercy of God in the same way all our mercy tends to limit
the piety of God.
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