CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE
Ephesians 4:25-5:2; John 6:35, 41-41
12th Sunday after Pentecost, August 11, 2024
Rev. Dr. Ritva H. Williams
Throughout the month of August we are exploring the “Bread of Life” discourse in chapter six of John’s Gospel. It begins with Jesus accepting a child’s gift of 5 loaves of barley bread and 2 processed fish, blessing and distributing them so that 5000 people have their bellies filled and there are 12 baskets of fragments leftover. Jesus’ conversation with the crowd the following day moves quickly from bread as a source of physical sustenance to bread as a sign of spiritual nourishment. Jesus invites the crowd to come, see, and trust in him as the bread of life that nourishes body, mind, heart, and soul. That is where our reading ended last Sunday, and where it begins again today, “I am the Bread of Life ….”
We immediately encounter some people complaining about Jesus. The gospel writer calls them ioudaioi, translated in the NRSV as “the Jews.” This is a problematic word choice for two reasons. Prior to second century CE, ioudaioi was not translated as the Jews. From the fourth century onward, Christians have manipulated passages like this to support anti-semitism. In order to avoid the latter, and promote the gospel writer’s originally intended meaning, we should translate ioudaioi as Judeans, residents of the territory of Judea. Together with the populations of Galilee, Samaria, Idumea, and Perea, Judeans regarded themselves as members of the house of Israel. The location of the temple in Jerusalem, the capital city of Judea, gave Judeans more economic, political and religious power than the other groups. Even though they all worshiped the same God and revered the teaching of Moses (first five books of the Bible), there were also differences, disagreements, and even conflict.
Jesus and his disciples were all Galileans. The community that grew up around the Beloved Disciple consisted primarily of Galileans and Samaritans. The tension between the Galilean Jesus and the Judeans that is evident to today’s gospel reading is rooted in these ancient realities. From our modern perspective, this is an argument within Judaism in which all the participants are Jews, one group of Jews promoting a “Judean” worldview in opposition to Jews promoting the particular “Galilean” worldview of Jesus, who is also a Jew. We see these kind of arguments within the diverse regional churches that make up the Lutheran World Federation, and the various denominations in our own country. And of course in political discourse.
The Judeans are offended because Jesus allegedly said, “I am the bread that comes down from heaven.” Now, Jesus didn’t actually say those words. What he said was that “the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven” (6:33). Later Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life’ (6:35). The Judeans conflate two separate sayings into one.
This may seem like hair splitting, but misunderstandings and disagreements often get started when people do this. Instead of taking the other person seriously, and trying to really hear and understand what they are saying, we listen just enough to latch onto a word or phrase that we can use as a launching pad for our own opinions or complaints.
In this case, the Judeans grumble that they know Jesus’ father, Joseph and his mother, ordinary people from Nazareth, so how can this guy claim to have come down from heaven? Although not spoken directly to Jesus, these comments are loud enough that Jesus hears and responds, “Stop grumbling among yourselves.” It’s basically a “stop talking and listen, Judeans, you are not on topic!”
It seems to me that everything Jesus says to the crowd and the Judeans is an effort to get them to understand that “humans do not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3). Human minds, hearts, and souls need nourishment too. Jesus invites the crowd to come, see, and believe in him as the bread of life. As we learned last Sunday to believe is to love, trust, rely, and depend on Christ as the life-giving bread that nourishes body, mind, heart, and soul.
Jesus goes on today indicating that coming to love and trust Christ is not a simple choice that we make. In fact, it is not something we can do even if we want to. “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father.” How might God draw us to Christ? Maybe God is sorta like a magnet. Better yet, imagine God as kinda like the USS Enterprise of Star Trek fame, emitting a tractor beam — the Holy Spirit — that latches onto the image of God embedded within our DNA and our souls. God doesn’t pull, tow, or drag us along, but rather empowers us to hear and to learn — to be taught — through this spiritual connection. The closer we are drawn into Christ, the deeper our love, trust, and reliance on Christ becomes, and the more we are changed and transformed incrementally into the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18)
Our reading from Ephesians gives us a glimpse of the kind of changes that we can expect as we eat, hear, learn from the Bread of Life . As we are drawn deeper into a relationship of love, trust and reliance on Christ, and so tethered to our mother ship, we can find ourselves empowered to
put aside all falsehood; speak truth to our neighbors, recognizing we are all members of God’s family
do not allow anger to become a cause for sin, but to seek resolution before sunset
seek honest labor and work, so we have something for ourselves AND to share with the needy
speak no evil, but rather to speak words of grace that build up the people around you
put away all bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling, and slander
be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgive one another as Christ forgive us
live in love as Christ loves us
Our families, workplaces, communities, country and planet desperately need a huge dose of these things. Just think how refreshing it would be if all of us behaved like is! The reality is that even those of us who would like to do these things, will do them perfectly or consistently. None of us can even embark on the journey of transformation by our own efforts. We need that tractor beam drawing us ever closer to the mother ship of Christ’s love which will hold us as long as it takes even into eternity. Christ invites us today and every day to eat the bread of life both literally and symbolically. Christ comes to us in the bread and wine of Holy Communion, and in the words of scripture and song, sermon and sharing with one another. We eat, we hear, we learn, we are taught, we are transformed.
Let me close with this poem called “Drawn” by Pastor Steve Garnaas-Holmes (August 7, 2024 at unfoldinglight.org)
No one comes to Christ
inspired by the carnival barkers of evangelism,
or scared sinless by the fear of hell,
or set free by peer pressure, even most sweet and kind.
They come because they are drawn:
because there is Christ, before them,
beckoning, irresistible.
We can't drive them to Jesus like a sheepdog,
or argue them close; but we can give them Christ,
give them love and forgiveness and encouragement.
There are ways—what are they? Look for them—
you can put in people's lives what they're hungry for,
as inviting as the smell of baking bread.
Bake the bread of love and offer it.
Open the door, and let the aroma of grace work its magic.
Amen. Amen. Make it so.
