18th Sunday of Ordinary Time - July 31, 2021

John 6:24-35

I have a realtor friend, who is very successful…in fact one of the top in the industry in residential sales.  I asked him once, what is your secret.  He shared several things he does to make successful sales, but then he said, come to my car and let me show you the number one thing that has made more sales than anything I have ever used…..
We went to his trunk and he popped it open….pulled out three Teflon coated bread pans, and three cheese cloth towels…this is my number one secret…when ever I am going to have an open house…go buy frozen bread dough the night before….I put them out in the pans and let them raise…then take them to the showing the next day….immediately before the showing I bake a loaf of bread….the smell of the fresh baked bread as people walk in the door seems to give folks the idea that yes….this is home…this should be OUR home…
I think most of us would admit…there is just something about fresh baked bread….the smell seems to soothe the soul as much as a wonderful piece of music calms us, or a poem inspires us…
I actually think Jesus was onto something, using bread as the metaphor, or the symbol of his life and his love.
Bread, warm, moist, fresh from the oven…it’s so sweet, so tasty and so amazingly awesome it makes our mouth water…

And yet, it holds within itself an ironic juxtaposition…an intimate balance between the awesome taste, texture, and aroma and the heat and grinding and dissolving that it took to get there…which we rarely consider when we are enjoying that awesome piece of fresh baked bread.
I often wonder if we don’t think that the Spiritual Life is like Eucharist, or like this bread…warm, smooth, tasty, aromatic…and yet we forget that there is another side to this reality…that the grains of wheat, each with their own individuality, with their own giftedness, with their own size and shape, had to be ground up, mixed together….that it had to have the chance to ferment with water and yeast, to disintegrate even further, to raise, and then to be baked in high heat.  It had to undergo suffering before it could become its new self, that inspires, that soothes, that brings joy and comfort.
Did you know that in an average one pound loaf of bread there is approximately 11,111 grains of wheat, and on the average 1/8 to 3/16 of a teaspoon of dirt?
You see my friends bread is a perfect metaphor, or a perfect symbol of the Spiritual Life…there is no escaping the harsh reality that we have to suffer somewhat in this life.  We have to be ground up, milled together, mixed in with each other, even with the dirt that we carry in our lives, and together we allow the water and the yeast (God’s love and grace) to transform us, to turn us into something that needs one more step, one more last suffering, the fire of God’s love…to turn us into the amazing bread of life that Jesus invites us to be for the world.

That may well be the challenge we face in our world and in our lives today… to walk in this world, not trying to avoid the pain, and suffering that are inevitable. 
Not trying to rid ourselves of every last speck of dirt, to be sparkly white, but rather, to let the grains of our lives rub up against and with one another. 
To accept the fact that suffering, is a part of our journey,
That dirt is a part of our lives,
And that together, if we allow it, we can become, what we have been called to be,
The very Body of Christ, the bread of life…
It is said that St. Augustine would often distribute the Eucharist using these words:  “receive what you are, the Body of Christ”
That is I believe our task…to take the suffering of this world and transform it, by our lives into something that is holy.