May only truth be
spoken and truth received. Amen.
“Jesus
said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be
hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” What a powerful
final verse to our reading today, the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, a time
where many of us will gather with family, eating to our hearts content. Turkey,
stuffing, gravy, pie, and, of course, bread.
For
thousands of years, bread has been the symbol of necessary food and the
sustenance of life. It is easy to understand why. It is nutritious, providing
carbohydrates, starch, and protein to the body. Bread is essential and it’s
more than just nutrition. It’s comfort. The texture, the weight, the taste, all
combine to make bread both the staff of life and the number one comfort food. And
yet, so many people lack access even to a small amount of bread. A little bit
of bread could be everything to someone who is hungry. It’s a staple in most
households, and yet we take it for granted that that loaf of bread will always
be available to us.
Based
on data from the 2023 Statistics Canada’s Canadian Income Survey, 10 million
Canadians, including about 2 million children, live in food-insecure homes. That’s
about 25% of our population wondering where their next loaf of bread will come
from. Those numbers have doubled in two years, and I fear that they aren’t
getting any better.
The
Bible is unambiguous about our duty as Christians to feed the hungry. In the
Hebrew Bible, God provides manna from heaven to feed the Israelites in the
wilderness (Exodus 16). The prophet Isaiah exhorts his listeners to respond to
God’s abundance with acts of justice and compassion, including sharing our food
with all who hunger and dismantling systems that produce hunger in the first
place (58:7). Perhaps most significant of all is Jesus’ instruction in Matthew
25 that how we treat people suffering from hunger, thirst, and other vulnerable
situations is how we treat Christ himself (31-46). As we sit down to our
dinners over the weekend, let us remember those who won’t have that same
opportunity and ponder what we, as Christians, can do to live up to our duty to
protect our neighbour.
Let
us ponder once again that final gospel verse, “Jesus said to them, “I am the
bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes
in me will never be thirsty.”
Every
culture has bread in one or many forms. There’s white bread, wheat bread,
pumpernickel, French, Italian, pita, tortilla, sour dough, and the list goes on
and on. Say the word “bread” and chances are some good image, or taste, or
smell, or texture is bound to pop up in our heads. All of those breads will
grow stale and inedible in a relatively short period of time. Even the manna
from heaven that fed the Hebrews in the wilderness was temporary.
But
Jesus came offering a new kind of bread, one that doesn’t go bad, one that
isn’t temporary, one that nourishes perpetually and lasts forever, one that
sustains relationships and bolsters hope. Jesus is pure love and compassion for
all people on the earth. Jesus is the source of life, the source of eternal
life, the source of the values of our daily lives, the pattern of love for our
daily lives. Jesus is never just regular old bread. Jesus is the bread of life.
As
we consume physical bread, it gives us nourishment and energy for our physical
lives. As we consume Jesus into our lives, his indwelling presence becomes the
source for compassionate energy without our lives. He becomes the nourishment
and energy for our spiritual, emotional, and moral lives. When we absorb Christ
into our daily lives, we take in the mind and heart of God who loves all people
as God's children. That is what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, what
it means to have the Spirit of Jesus living inside of you. It means to have the
heart and mind of God living inside of you. Jesus is the Bread of life and
whoever eats of Christ will never hunger again. When we eat and absorb Jesus’
words, spirit, and love into our lives, Jesus lives in us, and we will never
die.
The
basic food staple of the world is bread, and Jesus is the basic spiritual
staple of the world. There is a shortage of physical bread in this world of
ours, but there will never be a shortage of spiritual bread. God's nourishment
is not the old bread of life which fed some, but the new bread of life who
feeds all. The true bread is the bread of God that has now come down from
Heaven in the person of Jesus.
Jesus
points to bread beyond bread, to that gift from God which not only comes to the
world through Jesus but is in fact Jesus himself. The bread which endures to
eternal life is this relationship which has been made possible by the
incarnation of the Son. In fact, the bread which endures is the Son himself,
whom God gives for the world. As we absorb the spirit of Jesus Christ and his
love, justice, and compassion, these qualities live more fully in us.
While
we celebrate this weekend, let us not muddle our understand of thanks as
praising God for material possessions. Jesus’ greatest gift to us is not the
clothing, cars, computers, all the other physical gifts we earn or receive that
are temporary. As wonderful as all of that is, it is Him, His teachings, His
example, and His undying love that leads to eternal life…that is the greatest
gift.
If
we want eternal life, we must eat the food only God can give. We must believe
that Jesus was the One sent down from heaven, by God, to show us the way to
eternal life. This good news of Jesus’ life and teachings is enacted in the
Lord’s Supper – where bread and wine become our way of connecting again and
again with Christ, the Son of God. We are to then go live out that example and
that connection, and to be grateful for the gifts of nature and neighbour. So,
we are invited to come to Him, to study His word, follow His teaching, and put
our trust in Him.
We
are hungry for so many things in life. We are impatient in our hunger and want
to satisfy our perceived needs as quickly as we can. Yet so much of what we
hunger for doesn't last. When we eat food, we are hungry again. As we turn
toward Jesus in our hunger for life, we find forgiveness, we find hope, and we
find love. We are fed something that doesn't perish but rather something that
flourishes – if we nurture it. In our everyday lives, we have seen it: the gift
of bread, of mercy, of beauty, of healing. What can we possibly say, except
thank you? For all that is, for all that has been, for all that still will be,
O God our God, be above all and in all and through all, we give thanks for
providing us with the bread of life, your Son, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
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