Another week, another controversy.
This time, the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics the previous Friday. Social media erupted last Saturday morning with shock and anger over apparent and deliberate sacrilege shown toward a sacred image connected to our faith: that of the Last Supper.
If you missed it, it certainly could appear to the casual viewer (if no color commentary was provided) that a group of drag queens w mocking the Lord and his disciples at the Passover banquet in which our Lord gave us his Body and Blood for the first time. The resemblance to the DaVinci painting of the Last Supper is uncanny, especially with the halo around the head of "Jesus."
In the days that followed -- and with a questionable amount of delay time, considering the uproar -- the artistic director of the opening act as well as Olympic officials went on the defensive: it wasn't Jesus and the Last Supper at all, they claimed. It was a representation of the god Dionysus at his feast, a Greek god that is connected in some way to the Olympic games.
Most called ‘hogwash’ on that.
Said one commentator in a fit of outrage: "Paris, who would even know Dionysus? You mocked all of Christendom and what we hold true about Jesus. If you thought for a moment that your opening act would offend any other minority population, you wouldn't have dared to do it. But with Jesus, you ridicule."
There's probably some truth in that.
Someone asked me the other day if I'm upset over the mockery. "Father, we must denounce publicly," she said. "We must fight back. How dare they do this to our Lord and the Church."
Am I angry? Are you? Should we be collectively upset over the possible disrespect shown toward Christ and the faith we hold sacred?
The statement of Christ in today's Gospel from John -- the one in which the crowds track him down because they are hungry for more miraculous bread -- strikes me as a solution here. Jesus quite bluntly says to them: you are seeking me for all the wrong reasons. The crowd wanted more miracles. They were looking for easy bread. They wanted God to be the type of God they wanted Him to be: vengeful to the enemy; soft and cuddly toward them, the self-righteous ones.
I have been one of those righteous ones. I suspect I still am at times.
So, if I were honest, I too had a moment last week when I said: how dare the Olympics mock my Savior. How dare they use such actors to take this moment of Eucharist and make it into a drama worth ridiculing.
But then the words of Jesus came back again: what are you really looking for?
I wanted revenge. I wanted the Olympics organization to suffer by dropped viewership and disappearing corporate sponsors. But, quite frankly, that's easy bread.
What I should want -- and this is the heart of Jesus' message in this Gospel -- is the true understanding of Eucharist to reach all of us, which is this: If it was a mockery of the Last Supper, Jesus still would have shown up there. He would love those drag queens and the ones who made a show of his self-emptying love on Holy Thursday.
"Oh, but Father," you retort, "we must stand up for the Eucharist. Protect and defend."
That is true. We cannot allow our faith to be used for cheap entertainment. But, at the same time, we must stop and ask: what really is Eucharist? Why do we do this -- why gather around this sacred table both daily and Sunday and place ourselves before the One who makes himself our very Food for the journey? Why does He give himself to us in this way?
He does it because we are all sinners. None of us is worthy of Him, but His Sacrifice on the Cross makes us so.
He does it because we are lost. Because we hurt deeply. Because we don't know where to go.
He does it because our self-righteousness makes us forget to see that the ones we least want beside us at this table are the very ones Jesus would dine with.
Yes, he would call them to change their hearts and stop sinning. But -- and here's where it doesn't stay "easy bread" -- Jesus would still show up in love for them. For the drag queens. For the criminals and abusers. For the mockers and haters. For those who never think of God.
From that Passover banquet table and from the Cross, he cried out once for all time: "Forgive them, they know not what they do."
He said that about me. He said it about you. He said it about the ones who may have intentionally desired to mock Him at the Paris Olympics, and he said it about the ones ready with pitchforks, wanting to crucify the mockers.
What, then, is the true bread that comes down from heaven? What is this Eucharistic banquet supposed to be about?
It's about Christ’s forgiveness. Asking for it and offering it. It's about praying for the ones who throw shade on our Savior. It's wanting the drag queens and evil politicians and all the others whom we don't want beside us to fall in love with Jesus Christ and have a real relationship with Him.
Wanting this is not easy bread. In fact, wanting this is more in line with standing at the foot of the Cross, not out of self-righteousness but out of humility.
This Bread of Life that we receive at every Mass is the Lord who longs to feed us with mercy; the Lord who wants us to return to Him with all our hearts, minds and souls. It's the same Lord that wants us to want the very same for others, especially the mockers and haters and the ones who never think of God.
That's the Bread we should hunger for. That's the Bread of Life we receive. And, have no doubt: it certainly isn't easy bread.