Jesus points out that there are consequences for those who “eat my flesh and drink my blood,” thus becoming one with him. One of these is that we will abide in him, and he will abide in us. To abide is to be at home. It is to dwell deeply, calmly, without endless straining and striving. Not to float mindlessly, ignoring life’s perils, but to be fully awake where we are, with whom we are, in the condition we are. To abide is to experience God not as an ephemeral mist but as the only sure foundation on which to build our lives.
Many of us have been taught to memorize scripts and act out roles rather than risk the high adventure of becoming love, eating and drinking the one who calls us to be more and more ourselves, in process. Like his early disciples, we are ill at ease with the intimacy Jesus calls us toward. Whoever lets me in, Jesus says, whoever lets me be absorbed and digested into every aspect of your life, will live. Many who followed him were turned off by what he said and went away, saying, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” Their teacher knows, however, that the teaching is not too difficult; what is difficult is learning what is beyond our understanding. We are afraid to appear foolish, afraid of unfamiliar ideas, afraid to learn a new language. We do not know how to abide or to be for others an abode.
Instead we keep restlessly longing for things we cannot fully describe. We feel a nagging hunger for what he wants to give us, for the real food of living meaningfully from our depths, yet we tend to turn away. Or we get trapped in the search itself, never sitting down to partake of the feast he already provides. Trying to feed ourselves only from the trough of our own understanding will leave us forever hungry. Jesus says, eat me, drink me. Let me in. Become living proof that right here among us, love abides.
