Weekly Homily for 7/30/06: Food and Fellowship

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B
Our Lady of Grace
July 30, 2006

Food and Fellowship
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato


Commensality

Anthropologist, Gail Ramshaw has pointed out that the term “commensality” refers to the cultural norms that determine what one can eat and with whom one can eat. “Mensa” is the Latin word for table, so “com-mensa” means “to table with,” “to eat with.”

For example, the ancient Egyptians refused to eat with the Israelites. During the American civil rights protests, the laws that restricted who might eat together and where illustrated that people can be passionately concerned about who might share their table.

Gail Ramshaw says that this ancient fear of “contamination” by strangers or those of other races probably accounts for the current hesitance of some Christians to share the common Eucharistic Cup.

These original patterns or models of who eats what or who eats with whom stand up poorly when compared to the eating habits of Jesus.

Recall that in the world of Jesus, meals were not shared together casually or without profound significance.

Those who ate together were, by the very fact of being together, bound to one another and because in their sharing of food, a covenant of mutual friendship, caring, and obligation was established.


Feeding and More

Do you suppose that there were sinners in the crowd that day by the Sea of Galilee?

Weren’t some of those present ritually, if not morally, or even physically, unclean?

Note that women were present, as well as children. The healthy stood alongside the sick. The just with the unjust. The weak with the strong.

Yet, all, without a single exception, were fed.

However, Jesus in today’s feeding of the 5,000 is doing something very different. He is not simply fixing “food for the road” or “takeout rations for the many.”

Jesus is gathering with the hungry in the context of a shared meal, not only to feed and to be fed, but also to enter into covenant, that is, a formal, solemn, and binding agreement with all those present.

This eating together of Jesus, his disciples, and the crowds is really an announcement that, by their very sharing of bread, a new relationship is being established between him, the disciples, and all the hungry whom they are feeding.

And he is also setting the example for those who will follow him as disciples – that’s us.

So our task, as those followers of Jesus, is not simply to dole out bread, but more importantly to take, to gave thanks, to break, and to share our food together with anyone in need of any kind and as Jesus did, to thereby seal our relationship with them.

Yes, we are to offer others commitment as well as nourishment; we are to offer others fellowship as well as food.


And What of Our Meal?

This Eucharist today is a continuation of that feeding at the Sea of Galilee that serves as a model.

At one level the priest in the person of Jesus performs Christ’s four classic symbolic actions. With Jesus, the priest also takes, also give thanks, also breaks, and also gives bread, as did Jesus.

And as we participate in those sacred actions, we get to do the same as Jesus did in virtue of our becoming whom we have eaten.

We become bread for others …

As I take myself to my neighbor here at Mass and introduce myself to the person next to me in the pew;

As I give thanks myself by caring for my family and healing the hurts my actions may have caused;

As I break myself in asking forgiveness from a fellow worker or friends I no longer talk to;

And as I give of my talent and treasure to those in need by baking casseroles, bringing canned goods for our food pantries, or dropping a few dollars into the poor box each week.

Remember, the feeding of the 5,000, and every Eucharist since then are about food and fellowship, are about sustenance and relationships, are about nourishment and renewing the ways we interact with others.


Conclusion

If this Eucharist each Sunday is to have the impact of that feeding at the Sea of Galilee had we would leave Mass today more responsible for one another’s well being.

We would leave covenanted as friends and more than friends. We would have become brothers and sisters in the faith.

Let us not take what we eat or with whom we eat lightly.