Come, have breakfast

Third Sunday of Easter

John 21:1-1  “Come, have breakfast.”

Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them and in like manner the bread.

Sounds familiar.  Like in the Road to Emmaus story, there is something essential about ‘mealing’ with the resurrected Christ.  And we…we humans…we get that because no matter how often we eat on the run, grab through the window, or let a bar suffice…we still understand that certain sacredness that accompanies any meal worthy to be called a meal.

I have to think that Jesus picked the meal as THE place to be remembered for the best of reasons.  That is why I wish we did a better job of speaking ‘meal’ as we celebrate Eucharist.  We have a table where few dare get close. And, DaVinci aside, I’ve never had a meal where everyone was on one side of the table. And typically the food is recognizable as nourishing. And I have never participated in preparing a meal while on my knees.

We are great about emphasizing sacredness and sacrifice.  But in all that emphasis we have lost the most vernacular; the most ordinary.  And that has been the key for me to translating the Eucharist into my being…into my life. My life, my image and likeness, is sacred.  The model I follow WILL invite sacrifice.  But it is the meal where I encounter, and taste, and see, the faith that tells me so.

“Come, have breakfast”