Grace, peace, and
mercy are yours from the Triune God. Amen.
Is
there anything quite as wonderful as the smell of freshly baked bread? The
ingredients are so simple – yeast, flour, eggs, butter, water, salt – but the
smell when it comes out of the oven is heavenly. And what could be better than
eating fresh hot bread? Eating bread easy but baking bread is a difficult skill
to master. Variances in flour type, in water temperature, and in the humidity
outside can all affect the outcome of a loaf. Bakers commit their entire lives
to perfecting that perfect loaf of bread. When I first moved here, I bought all
the ingredients to make bread, thinking it would be cheaper that buying bread.
I still have yet to gather the courage to try!
Bread
is both incredibly simple and infinitely complex. Terms like “daily bread” and
“bread winner” and “breaking bread” are so woven into our vernacular that we
forget they refer to actual, literal loaves that nourish us and that taste
delicious too. So simple, so earthly, the extraordinary taste of fresh bread
that provides the ordinary staple in the diet of so many people. Eating bread
can be both a profoundly earthly and profoundly heavenly experience. That taste
is exponentially greater when eaten while in the company of others and deeply
felt when it is absent.
Throughout
the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel, Jesus has been saying that he is the
bread of life; that he provides the only food which truly nourishes; that he
gives us his own self, his own flesh and blood, to sustain us on our journey;
and that we are actually to eat his flesh and blood in order to abide in him. These
are, indeed, hard words, hard to hear, hard to understand, hard to believe. Earlier
in the chapter, Jesus feeds five thousand plus, and compares this windfall to
the manna the Israelites had received centuries before when they wandered the
wilderness. Manna was God’s way of looking after the people of Israel. They
received the blessing every day until they finally reached the land of promise.
Then Jesus has a very long monologue about bread of life, which starts out
nicely but ends with the command to eat his body and drink his blood.
It’s
frightening and messy. To think that we should have life at the expense of
another human being. These words are tantamount to cannibalism as Jesus’
followers reason it, and completely unacceptable in any reasonable, moral
system of thinking. What Jesus was asking was a stark breaking of the Law. His
listeners are offended by Jesus’ audacity. He is declaring himself to be manna,
the “bread of life”. Just as manna gave life in the wilderness, so also Jesus
gives life.
Although
the crowd was initially enthusiastic about the idea of Jesus as one like Moses
who could provide this miraculous bread, they reject the identification of
Jesus with manna. They are rejecting him for who he is: the true bread from
heaven whose death he claims will be grounds for establishing “eternal life”
for them. And they begin to walk away. They begin to desert him. These aren’t
people who have just joined him for the day. These were not mere hangers-on and
band-waggoners who walked away. Note that John calls these folks not simply
"the crowds," as in earlier passages, but rather
"disciples." They were real followers who had probably been around
for a while.
The
people in today's reading who now desert Jesus are precisely those who had, in
fact, believed in Jesus, those who had followed him and had given up much to do
so. But his words became too muddled and too offensive for most of his
followers. It got hard, they got tired of waiting for everything Jesus said
would happen to happen, they didn’t like what he was preaching, so they left. They
gave up and went home. A chapter that started with a huge crowd, ended with
only twelve still willing to stick around, and even then, one of them is
destined to betray him. The community that has been gathering around Jesus is beginning
to break.
In
the original manna story, the people’s response to God’s salvation is mixed.
Although they initially herald the triumph of God in the Exodus, Israel
immediately begins to grumble or complain against God and Moses in the
wilderness. They do not trust God to take care of them. Similarly, the group
following Jesus initially receives the miraculous food and heralds Jesus as a
prophet. But they also begin to grumble against Jesus following his teaching
about the manna. The faith that the disciples had put into Jesus is waning and
their trust in him is fading.
The
picture John draws for us in today's Gospel is not a pretty one, but it's a
pretty realistic portrait of disbelief, of disciples then and now for whom the
life of faith has become too hard. But the picture also includes courage and
faith. Jesus turned to his twelve, his closest group, and said, “well I guess
you want to go, too?” Peter responds, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the
words of eternal life.”
Peter’s
response to Jesus is not a word of despair or a statement that they will have
to settle for Jesus because there is nothing else. Peter and the others who
remain have been given the gift of knowing that Jesus is the one who can give
genuine life. It’s not that they weren’t plagued with doubt and fear. They
suffered at times from a lack of courage, and they, too, eventually deserted
Jesus – and at the very time he needed them the most. The difference was that
they knew where to look when things got hard. They trusted that they could look
to Jesus and lean on him.
The
words of eternal life are not always simple or easy to hear. The words of
eternal life remind us that life is not always plain; solutions to our problems
are not straightforward. It is exactly because the words of eternal life ring
true that we cannot leave. Where would we go? Who else will tell us the truth
about life? Who else has lived the truth about life so fully?
John’s
gospel begins with: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.” For Christians, there is something about the Word that
we cannot seem to find anywhere else. The gospel words of eternal life go
straight to the soul. Each week, through listening to the Word, we're offered
again and again the Word of eternal life. We're offered the chance to be
encountered by Jesus and his living Word.
Through
the speaking and hearing of the Word, Jesus' real presence is made manifest in
our world, and we are pointed to the one place amid all the tumult and upset of
this world and life we share that we can look to and know for sure that we will
find God in Christ there for us. And through the breaking of the bread, we are
able to tangibly experience Jesus’ presence.
When
Jesus taught us to pray for “our daily bread,” he was teaching us that God
wants us to depend on God for our everyday needs. “Daily bread” refers not just
to food but to all that which we need for basic comfort and well-being:
clothing, shelter, and other things necessary to support and continue our
lives. When Jesus calls himself “the bread of life”, he is reminding us that he
is something that we need in our everyday lives so that we have comfort and
well-being.
I
mentioned the feeding of the 5000 earlier. In that story, Jesus has provided
physical food but uses that food to teach that he can provide spiritual food as
well. He wants those who are listening to him to not just eat some bread and
fish and then go home to hunger again. He wants them to develop a spiritual
hunger and thirst that only he can fill. And where does he fill that spiritual
hunger and thirst? Right here, at the communion table while in communion with
others. Think of all the places you have taken communion, and the people whom
you have taken communion alongside – people still living that you don’t see
anymore, people who have died and seen only by God, people in this room, maybe
even people whom you never met. Imagine all the places in which God has
experienced this Eucharistic meal right alongside of you.
The
communion that Jesus speaks of, describing himself as living bread, is
something that has woven itself deeply into our life story. Jesus is the bread
that came down from heaven, whose presence sustains us in every place and
situation in which we find ourselves. It is in returning, again and again, for
Jesus’ presence in Word and the sacrament of the Eucharist that we are
conformed more and more to be like Jesus.
And
in those times in life when challenges arise and we are not sure we have what
it takes, we return again to be sustained by Jesus’ presence. And if we begin
to feel unworthy of God’s love, we know that we can always return to the altar
to confess and receive forgiveness. Then through Christ’s presence in the
sacrament, we are once again fed for the coming week.
Jesus
said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. …
This is the bread that came down from heaven … the one who eats this bread will
live forever.” In the bread of life, our souls are blessed and nourished. In
the bread of life, nothing is lost, not even our brokenness. In the bread of
life, we are raised to eternal life. And that is good news, indeed.
Amen.
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