Scattering Flowers

I found the Mass readings today intriguing.  We are all familiar with the verses that talk about how God chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, etc.  But today’s readings highlighted the idea that although God reaches out to the fool, he expects the fool to then become wise – it’s just that the wisdom God asks us fools to learn is not the wisdom of the world, it is a wisdom that seems foolish, but is not.

1st reading:  Proverbs 9:1-6  “Wisdom has built her house, she has set up her seven columns; she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table.  She has sent out her maidens; she calls from the heights out over the city:  ‘Let whoever is simple turn in here’; to the one who lacks understanding, she says, ‘Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed!  Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.”

recap – Wisdom has prepared a table of flesh and wine to eat.  She calls to the foolish to come to the table and eat of this flesh and drink of this wine so that they may have life.  Doesn’t that sound foolish?  To forsake foolishness, to gain wisdom, to gain life – you eat flesh and drink wine.  Interesting “metaphor.”

2nd reading:  Ephesians 5:15-20  “Brothers and sisters:  watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of the opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore, do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand what is the will of the Lord.  And do not get drunk on wine, in which lies debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and playing to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.”

recap – do not be foolish, be wise.  How?  be filled with the Spirit.  But the context involves wine, singing, giving thanks – what is that?  This is just my opinion and not based on any study, so take it for what it’s worth, but it sounds to me like they are talking about the Mass (and yes, of course they didn’t call it that then, but the form remains the same today as it was back then).  What happens in the Mass – singing, playing, giving thanks (Eucharist means thanksgiving and is usually translated that way in ancient church related documents, like the ECF’s).  Paul warns them not to get drunk on the wine, but to be filled with the Spirit!!!  Sounds to me like people were partaking just a wee too much of the precious blood when they drank from the cup.  They weren’t recognizing the body and blood of the Lord like Paul had warned the Corinthians (who were also imbibing a bit too much from the cup!).  Drinking the wine would fill them with the Spirit, with God himself in his son, Jesus Christ, but instead they were overindulging in their own senses.

Gospel reading:  John 6: 51-58  “Jesus said to the crowd: ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.’  The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’  Jesus said to them, ‘Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.  This is the bread that came down from  heaven.  Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

recap:  we again have gaining life and wisdom paralleled with eating flesh and drinking wine/blood, just like in Proverbs.  The Jews found Jesus’ words to be foolish.  They were nonsensical – how could he give his body as food?  I think it’s pretty significant that Jesus didn’t respond, my body is “like” food, my blood is “like” wine.  Instead he emphasized the literal nature of his words – my flesh is true food, my blood is true drink.  He didn’t explain away the foolish sound to his words, he increased the “foolishness.”  But this “foolishness” is actually wisdom.  Just like Wisdom, in Proverbs, who set a table with meat and wine and encouraged the foolish to eat and obtain wisdom and life, so also Jesus encourages us to come to the table and eat his flesh and drink his blood – to gain wisdom and life.  True wisdom, and true life.  Not like the Isrealites in the desert who ate and still died.  They were only given earthly life, the true bread from heaven gives eternal life.

God does not simply call the foolish, he calls the foolish to give up their foolish ways and become wise.  The paradox is that what he asks us to believe in order to gain true wisdom sounds like foolishness to those the world deems wise.

Does God ever ask anything easy?