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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