I read recently that filming is going to begin next year
on the fifth Indiana Jones movie.
I guess everybody knows who Indiana Jones is,
the swashbuckling archaeologist,
who goes in search of artifacts
like the Ark of the Covenant.
Well there’s a scene in the third Indiana Jones movie, The Last Crusade,
that can speak to us today
as we celebrate Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ.
In The Last Crusade, Indiana Jones has spent the entire movie
searching for the Holy Grail,
the chalice that Jesus is supposed to have used at the Last Supper.
The Nazis are also searching for it,
because it’s rumored to grant immortality to whoever drinks from it,
and they want this powerful artifact for the war.
At the end of the movie,
Indiana Jones is the first one to reach the secret location
where the Grail has been protected throughout the centuries
by a guardian knight.
But when Indiana Jones gets there,
he discovers that the Grail is hiding
among dozens of chalices of various shapes and sizes.
Which one is the true Grail?
Before he has a chance to choose one,
his rival appears, a guy named Walter Donovan.
Donovan is wealthy and influential, and working with the Nazis,
but he doesn’t know much about archaeology.
So while he holds Indy at gunpoint
his assistant Elsa chooses the most beautiful and ornate
of all the chalices
for him to drink from.
“Oh yes,” Donovan says,
“it’s more beautiful than I’d ever imagined.
This is certainly the cup of the King of Kings.”
Eager to gain the gift of immortality,
he fills it with water and drinks from it.
Bad idea.
Instead of gaining immortality,
Donovan begins to age rapidly, older and older and older,
until he finally collapses into a heap of dust and is blown away in the wind.
The Guardian of the Grail says,
“He chose…poorly.”
And now it’s Indiana Jones’ turn,
and he begins to examine the chalices one by one.
From among all the gold and jewel-encrusted chalices that remain,
he selects a simple, dusty, earthenware cup.
“That’s the cup of a carpenter,” he says,
and then Indiana Jones drinks from it.
The Guardian says, “He…has chosen wisely.”
Indiana Jones has found the true Holy Grail.
The meaning is pretty clear.
God works through humble, ordinary things.
When Jesus chose the Twelve,
he did not go to the temple
and choose the most famous rabbis
or the most accomplished scholars.
He went to the workplace
and chose ordinary fishermen.
In today’s gospel,
when the Twelve approach Jesus about the large crowd being hungry,
he says “give them some food yourselves.”
Their simple, ordinary food of bread and fish are sufficient
when blessed by God:
“They all ate and were satisfied.”
Ordinary bread and fish.
Jesus himself comes not as a mighty warrior messiah or wealthy king,
but as a humble carpenter’s son.
God works through humble, ordinary things and people.
Fishermen, not pharisees.
Bread, not caviar.
The cup of a carpenter, not of a king.
On this Solemnity of Corpus Christi,
we are reminded
that in every Eucharist,
it is the simple gifts of the earth,
that the Spirit changes into the Body and Blood of Christ.
And not only ordinary things like bread, wine, and fish,
but also ordinary people like you and me.
God wants to take the ordinary, simple moments of our lives
and turn them into Eucharist for the world.
At every Eucharist,
we take what we have been given by God—
bread, wine, our life situations, our very selves.
We bring them all to this altar
and we do what Jesus did.
We bless God,