Br. Curtis Almquist

Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15

Back when I was seven years old I had this wonderful opportunity to attend a symphony orchestra concert for my very first time. I was with my second-grade classmates from school, and we paraded into a vast orchestra hall and settled ourselves into seats that were way too big for any of us. By luck of the draw, I got to sit next to Mrs. Sievers, our teacher. At some point during the concert she leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, “Do you hear it?” Wide eyed, I whispered, “What?!” And she said, “Do you hear the oboe?” I shook my head. I didn’t know what an oboe was. And then, with her hand gently moving in the air, she began to trace the music line being played by a solo oboe. And I heard it for the first time. “Yes!” I whispered. I remember spying out the oboe section, locating the amazing sound coming from this solo oboist amidst a great company of musicians. I have no memory what music the orchestra was playing that day; however I will never forget my discovery: the mesmerizing, alluring sound of the oboe. What had initially been an orchestral company of sound was now identified and personified in this solo oboist, and that made all the difference.

So it is with manna. In our readings from the Book of Exodus and the Psalms, we hear of this food that came down from heaven during the forty years the Israelites wandered in the desert. Manna was described as a flaky bread, as fine as hoarfrost. We read it was like coriander seed, and the taste was like wafers made with honey or cakes baked with oil.[i] The popular etymology for the name “manna” comes from the Hebrew, “What is it?” Manna: “What is it?”: the question the Israelites are reported to have asked one another when they first found manna blanketing the ground.[ii]

Jesus now puts a name to manna. He says, “I am the bread that comes down from heaven.” “I am the bread of life.”[iii] From the earliest days following Christ’s resurrection, the church has put a name to this “bread from heaven,” and the name is “Jesus”: Jesus’ real presence in this “bread from heaven,” the Sacrament of Holy Communion, the body and blood of Christ such as we serve from this altar today.

But there is more. We do indeed receive this bread from heaven here at the altar as we extend our needy hands: Christ’s real presence in bread and wine, his body and his blood. But there is more, yet another way the church has recognized Jesus’ real presence. When we are baptized, we are “baptized into Christ.” That is the language of Saint Paul.[iv] We are “baptized into Christ.” Saint Paul describes his own experience: “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”[v] We, individually, become this living sacrament, the Body of Christ.[vi]  Today from the altar we will repeat the paradoxical words of Saint Augustine from the fourth century: “Behold what you are.” What are you? You are the Body of Christ. You embody Christ. “Behold what you are.” “May we become what we receive.” [vii] What do we receive? The Body of Christ. We become what we receive. We embody Christ.

This is certainly a mystery, not because it is implausible, but because it is so inexplicable. You might find it inaccessible. It is one thing to receive Christ in Holy Communion; it is another thing to embody Christ. If this seems inaccessible, there is reason. And it’s probably because you are less than perfect. Because you learned somewhere, perhaps as a child, that to be loved you always had to get it right. Yet you are less than perfect. There may be something about you that is broken, or inadequate, or prone to failure, perhaps hypocritical or unacceptable. On a bad day you are your own worst enemy. It may seem an impossible stretch to embrace a belief that we – that you – embody Christ, who loves you. You might even say to yourself, “If you only knew…” But Christ does know.

Over the years I have had some of my own versions of this kind of secret self-rejection, sometimes self-loathing. But this is where the bad news turns into what Jesus calls the good news. Where we are powerless to save ourselves, we meet Christ our savior yanking us out of our own hell. Christ does not come to us in an exalted way because we are perfect and fabulous. It’s exactly the opposite. In becoming human, Christ has taken upon himself our wretchedness and our misery, our poverty, and our sins….[viii] “Christ became poor for our sake.”[ix] That’s Saint Paul’s description: “Christ became poor for our sake.” Christ identifies with our own poverty, what we most resent or reject in ourselves.

Jesus becomes “the true bread of heaven.” In our baptism, Christ embodies us. Embodies you. If any part of you resists the truth of Christ’s embodying you, his making a loving home within you, here’s two things that might help:

Behold what you are.

May we become what we receive.

[i] Exodus 16:14, 15, 31.

[ii] Numbers 11:7-8.

[iii] John 6:22-59.

[iv] Quoting Saint Paul in Galatians 3:27.

[v] Galatians 2:20.

[vi] Saint Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:27: “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

[vii] Saint Augustine (354-430) in his Sermon 57: “On the Holy Eucharist.” Augustine was a Christian theologian, philosopher, and Bishop of Hippo, modern-day Algiers, in what was then Roman North Africa.

[viii] Inspired by Thomas Merton, OCSO (1915-1968) in his The Monastic Journey.

[ix] 2 Corinthians 8:9.

[x] “The Hound of Heaven,” a poem by Francis Thompson (1859-1907).