The Eucharistic Life
Ignatius of Loyola called ingratitude “the cause, beginning, and origin of all evils and sins.” The quote is from a letter dated March 18, 1542.
Originally, Adam and Eve entered into the “it was good,” the טֹ֖וב of God’s creation. “All that he had made” was gift, and our first parents were to receive and live eucharistically (thankfully) in response and relationship to their gracious God. The very first recorded words a human ever spoke were Adam’s words in Genesis 2.23 "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." These are eucharistic words. In praising Eve, Adam is praising Eve’s maker. In delighting and receiving her as a gift, Adam is worshipping the Giver.
Alexander Schmemann in For the Life of the World, “The fruit of that one tree, whatever else it may signify, was unlike every other fruit in the garden: it was not offered as a gift to men. Not given, not blessed by God, it was food whose eating was condemned to be communion with itself alone, and not with God.” (Schmemann, 16). In eating this food, we leave the world God made, and set out, led by our hunger, to a world we make. “For ‘the wages of sin is death.’ The life man chose was only the appearance of life. God showed him that he himself had decided to eat bread in a way that would simply return him to the ground from which both he and the bread had been taken: ‘For dust thou art and into dust shalt thou return.’ Man lost the eucharistic life, he lost the life of life itself, the power to transform it into Life. He ceased to be the priest of the world and became its slave.” (Schmemann, 17).
After taking the food that had not been taken, blessed, and given to Adam, his very next words are, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." - Genesis 3:12. These are anti-eucharistic words. In blaming Eve, Adam blames her maker. He will not grace and live by faith. In taking what was not given, and making his own life where there was not blessing, he rejects grace and the God who gives. The eucharist of creation is driven from Adam’s heart. He will live in a world of his own making. He will toil on the cursed ground instead of being a priest in the world God has made.
His old battle is my battle, and your’s too. We have all hungered to make our own world. To create our own identity, our own kingdom. Think of your hungers. Hunger for approval. Hunger for intimacy. Hunger for escape. Hunger for justice. Hunger for conquest. As those legitimate hungers have led us to eat illegitimate food. These hungers have not led us to the garden, but to the wilderness. They have not led us to health, but to sickness and death. We would not live in God’s kingdom, so he came to ours. To our wilderness where he was tempted by the same damn serpent with food, but said, “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” In other words, I’m hungry, really hungry, but not for your food. My food is to do the will of the One who sent me. He came to our dysfunctional families and cities and he didn’t waste any time revealing the will of the One who sent him, “Repent, the Kingdom of God is in your midst.”
As simple as our fall was into the anti-eucharistic life on our own terms in our own world, with food not blessed—not given to us, so our salvation would be simple. On that dark night he was betrayed, he took bread, made Eucharist, and gave it to his disciples. They want food? I’ll give them food. I’ll be their food. I’ll be their drink. Take and eat, this is my body. Take and drink, this is the new testament in my blood.
Eucharistic living is a sign of creation’s restoration. Eucharist is God’s way of, literally, changing your brain, your heart, your marriage or other relationships, your neighborhood, your view of your vocation, your world, the world. “Let us give thanks (eucharist) to the Lord our God. It is right to give him thanks (eucharist) and praise.” Indeed.
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