Jesus took and His taking and touching and teaching are integral to His way of being the icon of God that He is.
He took bread but there was an intriguing pattern of taking before that.

He took leave from His parents to study torah
He took the torah into His hands in Nazareth
He took James and John away from Zebadee
He took clay and mixed it with spit and created sight
He took a little girl’s hand and said Talithacumi
He took a whip into His hands and destroyed a sacrificial system
He took a coin into His hand and taught a lesson about stewardship – not of wealth so much as self
He took a little boy’s fish and bread
He took a drink of water from a Samaritan woman
He took Matthew from Caesar
He took Zacchaeus out of a tree
He took the bread – daily bread – the stuff of life – that sustains us, the bread of Passover, the bread of liberation, the bread made from the seed that fell on good soil

And he consecrated it as Passover
- bread – liberation bread –
- slavery to freedom bread
- bread so important that bits of it sewn into clothing were discovered in death camps
He took Passover bread, meaning-filled bread, and transformed it into His very body, adding presence to meaning
And again and again – always the taking is unlike so much of our taking – He takes and takes only to give and give with lavish and lingering generosity.
As we come to this liturgy we come knowing that it is not just bread that Jesus will take.
- Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood dwell in me and I in them
Jesus will take us.
- We become what we eat. We are in the image of God through creation. Presence again transforms a prior significance and we like the bread are taken, blessed, Given – transformed!
- We were made in the image of God: we become the Body of Christ.
- Jesus loves us and will not take us against our will.
This was my great lesson of the Presiding Bishop’s process.
I learned in that process how very hard it is to give yourself.
Over and over again, I would give myself to God’s purpose and God’s future only to take myself back!
Sometimes those of us who are ordained think as if we were called once – before seminary – said yes and now its over.
• Right Parish
• Right Match “We said an initial yes
• Right School system and now we are back
• Right Diocese in charge”
• Right Bishop
We left our nets, but we get to choose the parish!
I certainly thought that I had made my last discernment when I accepted this diocese's nomination. What I have learned this past year is that Jesus keeps on asking if we are willing to be taken – if we are in a perpetual stance to be the called: The taken:
• Like Aaron and Sarah
• Like Isaiah
• Like Zachaeus
• Like Florence of China – The first woman priest
• Like Kathryn Jefferts-Schori
The ongoing conversion of Eucharistic life if the conversion where Jesus asks us over and over again if we will choose to be “utterly taken.”
As I have reflected on Eucharistic Living I have consulted three guides.  My First Guide in Eucharistic living is the most ancient – Augustine of Hippo – in a treatise on the Eucharist he says “No one eats the flesh without adoring it – we should sin were we not to adore it.”
A second spiritual guide, George Herbert, says it is like this (I have changed one word – men to folk) – here he describes an attitude of adoration in his poem, “The Priesthood”:
But the Holy folk of God such vessels are,
as serve Him up, who all the world commands;
When God vouch safeth to become our fare,
Their hands convey Him, who conveys their hands.
O what pure things, most pure must those things be,
Who bring my God to me!
Wherefore I dare not, I, put forth my hand to hold the Ark,
although it seems to shake through the old sinners and new doctrines of our Lord.
Only, since God doth often vessels make of lovely matter for high uses meet,
I throw me at His feet.
There will I lie, until my Maker seek for some mean stuffe
thereon to show His skill: this is my time….
My second teacher: John Wesley, encouraged Methodist Christians to pray the following prayer every New Year’s Eve.
I am no longer my own, but Thine
Put me to what though wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by Thee or laid aside for Thee,
Exalted for Thee so brought low for Thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty
Let me have all things, let me have nothing
I freely and heartily give all things to Thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, though art mine and I am Thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven…Amen.

The key word to understand this zeal for self offering is adoration
We are to be like lovers -
Eucharistic living requires a large measure of adoration in order to present the self as gift – as ardor makes the lovers surrender – more like Joy than will – so adoration of Jesus allows us to trust the one who take all to himself.
As a steward trusted with the Eucharist life – the Lord who gives himself by taking Bread asks us if we can take being taken…Amen.