The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch
John 6:25-35
Everyone called her Chocolatina. That is Tina, the character in the book Chocolatina, who loved to eat…well, chocolate! Breakfast was “Choco Crunchies,” lunch was accompanied by chocolate milk, and the fruit salad for dessert at dinner had to be adjusted by several dollops of chocolate syrup. Chocolatina was fine with her food choice. One day as she listens to the sour health teacher remonstrate once again that “you are what you eat,” she wished it was true. That night a strange thing happened…yes when Tina woke up she discovered that she was indeed made out of chocolate! It was hardly the paradise she imagined. Her day was difficult as she could only move stiffly and a bit funny as her friends had to carry her in from recess because her feet had melted to the pavement. But her day turned somewhat frightening as one absent minded friend and then one malicious health teacher each tried to take a bite out of her.
You are what you eat. So what will you end up being today? Turkey? Cranberry sauce? Pumpkin pie? Or perhaps you will end up being something different like some friends of mine who always have thanksgiving lasagna. Beyond being amusing, this adage tells us something about a deeply held conviction. We believe that we reflect, and even embody, what we take in. Thus we say that someone who is complaining or whining has been eating sour grapes. Or when one of our companions is out of sorts, we might wonder what they had for breakfast. There is some evidence to support this. We know what a sugar high can do to a toddler at bedtime and why we all want naps after our thanksgiving turkey. We know that when we don’t eat properly, we don’t function properly.
So what is the right food for our souls? What fills us, satisfies us? For what can we be thankful? Today is a feast day—clearly. It is not listed as such in the church calendar, but it is a celebration that involves food. But we take in more than holiday food today. We will be feasting on expectations, family traditions, and…other people. Today is a feast that involves family and friends, in their presence or their absence. Today we embody relationships. What will you fill yourself up with today? Will it satisfy you? I think that a discipline of thankfulness, if you will, is one way that we pay attention to our spiritual intake. Would we rather fill ourselves with grievances or gratitude? Now we do not have control over what people hand us, but we can exercise some control over our intentions. We don’t have to react like toddlers—putting everything into our mouths. We have some choice about what we consume not only today, but everyday.
So as you encounter folks today, you can dwell on how annoying your brother is, or on how grateful you are for the kind smile of the teenager at the grocery store check-out. You can cry over the pie/turkey/table decorations that didn’t come out they way you planned, or you can delight in the gorgeous fall leaves that dance around you and rejoice in the Lord. You can lose yourself in what is lost to you today, or you can discover that you have some support you hadn’t noticed. You will have to fill in your own blanks!
Jesus filled a large crowd of people with some bread and fish; perhaps as many as 5000 people with just five loaves and there were leftovers. When the crowd realized that Jesus had left the building, they went looking for him. They wanted more. But more what? Bread? The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life not just to one or two but to the world. Jesus tells the seekers of fulfillment, “I am the bread of life.” It is Jesus who in giving up his life gives life to the world. To partake of Jesus is to partake in this gospel cycle of death for life, emptiness for fullness. We are here on Thanksgiving Day to share in a sacred meal of our tradition. We eat the Body of Christ, the bread of heaven. We drink the Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation. We call this Eucharist, which in Greek means, “thanksgiving.”
Whether we know it or not, we come here today to practice a discipline of gratitude. We do this with one another, because it is always easier to exercise with others! We choose to put this in our mouth. We choose to embody Christ. We choose to be here today because in some way or other we have a glimpse of the mystery of what truly satisfies us. In some way or other, we know in our souls that the reversal that Jesus offers is what gives us life. In some way or other we grasp why the first shall be last and the last shall be first, that if we gain our life we will lose it and if we lose our life we will gain it, that to be baptized into the life of Christ is to be baptized into his death as well and if into a death like Christ’s then the resurrection too. It is our work to empty ourselves when we are full in order that we can hunger for God again. It is our work to fill those who are empty, so that they may know the satisfaction of being full.
With what will you fill yourself today?
Copyright © 2007 Anne E. Kitch
