FOOD THAT ENDURES & BECOMES

Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35

11th Sunday after Pentecost, August 4, 2024

Rev. Dr. Ritva  H. Williams

The feeding of the 5000, last week’s gospel reading, is the opening scene of the longest chapter in John’s Gospel. It sets the stage for a many-layered discussion between Jesus, his disciples, and people in the crowd about bread —  real bread and and the things it symbolizes (e.g. daily bread, how we earn our bread, do we earn enough bread to buy the things we need/want)

Jesus introduced the topic as he looked out over the multitude and asked Philip “where are we to buy bread.” Philip’s responded, “six months wages wouldn’t be enough dough to buy bread for all these people.” A little boy with five loaves of barley bread and two fish, stepped up as if to say,  “we don’t need to buy bread, we already have bread right here.” When Jesus took the child’s gift, blessed it, and distributed it there was enough and more than enough. For people whose lives were defined by scarcity and hunger, this amazing abundance must have felt like a moment of heaven on earth. No wonder they wanted to make Jesus their king. 

But Jesus, refused to be a king of bread and circuses, and slipped away deeper into the mountains.  Under cover of darkness, Jesus walked across the sea, alongside the boat bearing his disciples home to Capernaum. That is where we meet Jesus this morning, as the crowd finds him and the discussion about bread continues. 

As the crowd wonders when Jesus arrived, Jesus observes, “you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves” (6:26). You ate and were full, but you didn’t see the sign.  Signs always point away from themselves to something or somewhere else. Although we call the feeding of the multitude a miracle, Jesus says its a sign. In other words, it wasn’t bread that fills tummies, but a different kind of bread. 

So what did the crowd miss? Philip, the voice of scarcity, shutting down the possibility of buying bread anywhere due to lack of ‘dough’ in contrast to the child’s innocent offer of the meager abundance in his basket. Jesus didn’t bring barley bread from heaven. The bread was already there — common, everyday, poor people’s food. Bread made of grain brought forth by the earth, harvested by hardworking human hands, ground into flour and baked into loaves by village women. The child’s offering of this earthly bread, made in trust and faith, inspired and produced an extraordinary abundance. There’s a lesson to be learned there about how our mindsets can affect the outcomes of our ventures. 

Jesus urges the crowd to stop working for food that spoils and focus their energies on food that lasts a lifetime and more (6:27). This is a meaning of life issue: do we live to work or do we work to live?  French philosopher, Simone Weil once wrote, “Workers need poetry more than bread. They need that their life should be a poem. They need some light from eternity.” Perhaps, poetry is a form of bread that can last a lifetime. Perhaps a community picnic on a mountainside could be bread that lasts a lifetime, a glimmer of light from eternity for people living at the edge of survival.  So too, bedtime stories and snuggles, family dinners and vacations, pool parties and game nights, music and theatre, literature and art, sports and camping, and so forth. 

When the crowd wants to know what they have to do to perform God’s works, Jesus turns the tables on them. “This is God’s work that you may believe in the one whom God sent.” It’s not about us doing God’s work (we’re not God after all) and claiming some prize, but about recognizing and accepting that God is at work in us. This is the heart of the good news: the gift of God’s image is embedded in our DNA by our Creator. God’s image within each of us  nurtured and nourished by the Creator Spirit. God’s image within each, manifesting itself as faith, hope and love for God and neighbor.

The crowd asks for a sign like the manna their ancestors ate in the wilderness, as scripture teaches, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” Jesus re-interprets this quote for them, pointing out that the “he” is not Moses but God, who not only gave manna in the long distant past but even now gives the true bread from heaven. The crowd asks to receive this bread always, and Jesus replies, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (6:35). 

To borrow the words of Pastor Steve Garnaas-Holmes,

When Jesus says to believe in him, he doesn’t mean to hold a certain opinion of him, or think certain things about him … He’s inviting us to rely on him, to depend on him, to entrust ourselves to his love. It’s relational. The word believe is rooted in German … belieben, which means to love. It’s what we give our heart to … What we love and trust (Theological Dictionary at unfoldinglight.org)

The gospel reading moves from people filling their bellies with bread, to Jesus urging people to work for bread that lasts a lifetime, to Christ’s self-identification as the bread of life and the invitation to believe — to love, trust, rely, and depend on this life-giving bread.

Our reading from Ephesians celebrates our shared life as Christ-believers gathered in one body by one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God who is Creator of all, above all, yet present through all and in all, without exception. Christ-Believers are people of love, drawn from all nations and races, all genders and sexual orientations, all ages and sizes, all economic, legal and social statuses. In Christ our diversity is not only affirmed but celebrated in the diversity of gifts Christ bestows on us: leadership and organization, administration and accounting, public speaking and preaching, teaching and coaching, making music and managing technology, welcoming and greeting newcomers, cooking and caring, praying and giving thanks. God gives a variety of gifts so that we can equip each other in building up the body of Christ as a community of shared love and trust. Rooted in this shared trust we are empowered to grow up and lead of life that reflects Christ’s love. Maturity of faith manifests itself in humility which refuses to see oneself as superior to others, in gentle acceptance and patience with one another, in lifting each other up instead of tearing each other down, and in being cooperative rather than competitive or combative. 

Just in case you are tempted to dismiss this vision of harmony and unity as an impossible dream, because like me you have missed the mark on humility, patience, acceptance, lifting each other or cooperating, find comfort in these words from Martin Luther (Luther’s Works 32, p. 24, 1958, Augsburg)

This life … is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but its actively going on. This is not the goal but it is the right road. At present everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.” 

  “I am the Bread of Life” by Malcolm Guite (July 11, 2015 at malcolmguite.wordpress.com)

Where to get bread? An ever-pressing question 

That trembles on the lips of anxious mothers,

Bread for their families, bread for all these others;

A whole world on the margin of exhaustion.

And where that hunger has been satisfied

Where to get bread? The question still returns

In our abundance something starves and yearns

We crave fulfillment, crave and are denied.

 And then comes One who speaks into our needs

Who opens out the secret hopes we cherish

Whose presence calls our hidden hearts to flourish

Whose words unfold in us like living seeds

Come to me, broken, hungry, incomplete,

I Am the Bread of Life, break Me and eat.