Mystery of the Meal - Redeemer Episcopal Church

 John 6:35, 41-51

35 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.

41 Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

God of everlasting life, help us to embrace the mystery of the meal you have set before us, and the goodness of your son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

We are on our third Sunday of Jesus talking about bread. And we will be talking about it for another three weeks after this too. If you have heard me preach more than twice, you may have noticed that the meal that we share at this table is my favorite thing in the world. It’s my favorite thing to preach about, talk about at parties, lead faith formation classes on, and it is especially my favorite thing that we share together as a community. I love the Holy Eucharist. So a couple of Sundays talking about bread is right up my alley. 

On campus, I talk about the Eucharist a lot too— But mostly in the context of the meals that we eat together. Every single week, we get together for what we call Food for Thought, which is centered around a shared meal. My students think I’m just really enthusiastic about food because I DO feed them every chance I get. 

At the end of the last semester, I invited all of our students out to a restaurant to celebrate making it through the year. It was the only time we were able to meet in person together the entire year. All my students came and many of them brought friends that I had never met before. I ushered them all up to the line to order their food and told the cashier, “I’ll pay for all of it at the end.” My students who know me, knew this was a totally normal thing for me to do, but the new students were flabbergasted. Why would I pay for their meal? Well, that’s just how we do things here. 

My students really do just think I’m a food enthusiast. And I do like eating, obviously. And, of course, this is the reality of ministry with young adults— we are always hungry. And much of the time, students are wondering where they are going to get their next meal. But I think it also tells us something theologically, that our ministry is based around a shared meal— our bodies matter. Being fed is important. Sharing a meal together is holy. And hospitality is sacred.  

In these stories of Jesus talking to the crowds about bread, moves further and further away from the physical bread with which he fed the crowds and becomes more and more theological, and more and more scandalous in what he is telling them.  

But I think it’s important to remember that Jesus DID start with the people’s physical hunger. He didn’t ignore their bodies and tell them that they were encountering the bread of heaven. No, he attended to their physical hunger and fed them with an abundance— so much so that there was more than enough left over. He had to satisfy their physical hunger, so that they might be able to tune in to the hunger in their hearts. They began to understand that they were not hungry for bread and fish any longer, but for Jesus’ teaching, so he began teaching them about who he is and what his life would mean for them and for the entire world. 

This morning, Jesus’ teaching takes a turn when he makes some heavenly claims— “I am the bread of life that came from heaven.” And the crowd seems to have a real issue with this. 

“You’re Joseph and Mary’s son! You’re from this town— we know where you came from and it wasn’t heaven!” 

They felt like they knew Jesus, or at the very least, they knew his parents. And because they were so familiar with him and his story, it made it hard for them to believe that he was extraordinary. Of course he couldn’t have come from God— we know he grew up with normal parents in our normal town. 

Now when the crowd begins to grumble, Jesus has the ability to do what most of us would do in this situation. He could backtrack and make his claims a little less offensive. Claim that he misspoke and that he didn’t mean that he’s ACTUALLY from heaven. He could try to make his claims a little more palatable for the crowd so that they might be able to understand it better. 

But instead he makes his claims even more scandalous, even more offensive. He doubles down and says that not only is he the bread from heaven, but that people will eat of this bread, they will come to him, and they will have eternal life. 

Their physical hunger was satisfied, but their longing for Christ had only just begun.

Jesus’ words here bring to question what it means for the crowd to follow him. Jesus wants to make it clear that walking with him is no peaceful stroll. In fact, he says, it will cost him his life. 

But it is impossible for the crowd to even understand Jesus’ origins. So how will they understand his journey and his destination at the cross? It doesn’t make any sense that Jesus will have to die in order to provide life for the world. They only understand him as ordinary Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph. They don’t know him as who he who truly was, and is, and is to come. 

“The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Those words simply don’t make sense to the crowd. I’m not sure they make much sense to us. Of course, we do have the advantage of knowing the rest of the story— and about two thousand years of people talking about the rest of the story. But perhaps that is the reason we keep telling this story, the reason it has endured for 2000 years, why we keep coming back to church each week to hear it again— because we don’t totally understand it but something in it captures us. 

I think, perhaps, this is why Holy Eucharist is so compelling to me. Because God takes something that is so familiar to us— bread and wine— and it is the body and blood of our Lord… and this simple meal is the beginning of eternal life for us. It is the foretaste of what is to come for us as we continue walking this path with Jesus. We come to this table every week with the expectation that God will be present here, and yet we are surprised and confused every time. What God does at this meal doesn’t make any sense at all. And yet… it is. 

Jesus’ claims that he is the bread from heaven… his claim that the bread he will give for the life of the world is his flesh… they don’t make sense. And yet the people will continue to follow him, continue to long for his teaching. They will follow him all the way until his death on a cross. And then they still won’t understand. But they will continue to chase after this mystery, as we do now. Only to be satisfying by what first kept them wanting more. The ordinary bread that is not just ordinary bread. The wine that is not just ordinary wine. The bread from heaven, here at this table, in this holy community. Amen. 

Give & Forgive, Get & Forget - Redeemer Episcopal Church

 John 6:24-35

So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
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.


This sermon is going to be a lot better if you listen to it rather than read it. But even then, it's not my favorite sermon. But here it is. Listen to it here. 


God of miracles, open our eyes to the ways you are working in this world. Provide for us the bread of everlasting life, through the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Last week we heard the story of Jesus sitting the crowds down and feeding them, despite starting the story with not actually having enough food for everyone. By anyone’s standards, it was a miracle, it was a “sign” from God, that Jesus was the real deal. And surprising no one, even more people began following Jesus— literally following him around everywhere. That’s where the story picks up this morning. Jesus and his disciples had left after feeding them and the crowd goes looking for him. 

Once the crowd catches us to them, Jesus quickly says that the people are not following him for the right reasons. They are following him because they were fed by the bread and the fish. Now, I don’t really blame them for that. Think about it— imagine following a leader that could always provide enough food for you and your family. Even today, I’m thinking about how much grocery money that would save me every week. In that time, if you weren’t the richest of the rich folks in town, your entire life was pretty much preoccupied with making sure you had the resources to feed yourself and your family. So the allure of someone being able to provide that to you— for free— would be quite strong. 

So the crowd catches up to Jesus and the scene then goes back and forth between Jesus and the crowd, with the crowd asking questions and Jesus giving cryptic insight into his work and purpose in the world. 

It’s obvious that the crowd isn’t really understanding anything that Jesus is saying. They keep asking the wrong questions. Even the very first question “when did you come here?” isn’t the right question. But when Jesus says that the work of God is to believe in him who God has sent, the crowd really doubles down on their nonsense and silly questions. 

“If we’re going to believe, you’ll have to give us a sign— what kind of work are you going to perform? Give us a miracle, Jesus! Prove that you’re the one who God sent.” Just yesterday they witnessed and benefitted from the miracle of more than enough food for the whole crowd and today they ask, “well, what else ya got?” God gives and forgives, while God’s people get and forget. 

We heard another story this morning that is a warning of what happens when we forget about what God is doing in the world. Nathan is sent to set David straight after what he has done to Uriah and Uriah’s wife Bathsheba. Nathan reminds David of all the things God has done for him: anointing him king over Israel, rescuing him from the hand of Saul, giving him a house and wives, and the whole kingdom. I give and forgive, God says. 

But none of that was good enough for David and he was jealous for his soldier’s wife and even sent his soldier to die so that he could have Bathsheba for himself. David got and forgot what God had given him. 

How often do we do this in our lives? We start bargaining— “okay, God if you really want me to keep believing, then I’m going to need a miracle or a sign that you’re still around!” And usually it has to do with our resources, not our faith. We want to get this job promotion or win the bid on this house, we want to be just a little more financially secure or a bit healthier. Show us a miracle, a sign that you are definitely real, and we will definitely come back to church, God. 
We completely forget about the ways God is showing up in our own lives or we point to the ways God has showed up in other people’s lives— THEY seem to have it easy, why can’t God give me THAT? How often do we get and forget? 

We’re not really any different than the crowd in this story, and perhaps we aren’t too far removed from David either. We receive blessings upon blessings, God continues to show up because God is continually faithful to us. And yet, we only understand the language of “more.” 
The crowd witnesses and incredible miracle and then holds out their hands for more signs, more miracles, more proof. And if this weren’t an offensive suggestion to Jesus in the first place. The crowd then says, “well, MOSES gave the people manna from heaven. Can you do that?”

It’s a bit ironic that they would point to Moses and the manna in the wilderness because God sent manna because the people were so ungrateful after God delivered them out of slavery. God had just done this big huge, amazing thing in leading the people out of the hands of the Egyptians and they forgot so quickly. Just like this crowd— they were given enough food to eat their fill with so much left over, yet they look to Jesus ungratefully and say “well, what kind of miracle can you do for us?” God gives and forgives. And God’s people get and forget. 

The crowd is too focused on the past and what God has done before for other people, that they miss what God is doing right now and the miracles and signs they are witnessing right in front of them. If they had been able to focus on the present, on what they were witnessing in the person of Jesus, they’d have seen that Jesus wasn’t like Moses providing the manna at all— he WAS the manna, sent from heaven, to be nourishment and give ever-lasting life. 

Oftentimes, we can get caught up in the past. I know I keep hearing myself say things like, “before the pandemic” and the phrase “pre-pandemic” is repeated in conversations all day long. I long for it, I know you long for it too. It’s difficult to even remember sometimes— I think about how casually I’d shake someone’s hand or reach out for a hug when greeting someone. 
And there are bigger losses too— the way I could just jump on a plane with my kids to visit family, sharing fellowship with my students and being present with people when they are sick. We might look back fondly on that time before the pandemic, but we also must look at what God is doing now— entrusting us to be kind to one another, to protect one another, and care deeply for one another. We have the opportunity to pay attention to the blessings that God is providing for us today, instead of dwelling in the past. 

Churches particularly like to dwell in the past, don’t we? We LOVE to point to that time when our congregation was large and the pew where filled with people. But God is doing some incredible things RIGHT NOW in this community and we can pay attention to that, rejoice in that. The sustenance that God is providing, the miracle that we are seeing today looks like the food pantry that continues to thrive, the campus ministry that has adapted and continues to minister in different ways to our community. We can take notice of things like the Sacred Ground program, and know that God is at work here, leading us into the future of God’s kingdom. And, perhaps, one of the most important things God is doing right now, is leading us toward our next bishop. But we have to be paying attention.

This morning, as we eat the body and blood of Jesus at this table, be reminded of how God has provided for us. Notice what a miracle this is, a miracle that we have the privilege to witness and benefit from every single week. 

When we tune our ears to Jesus and we begin seeing God’s provisions as miracles, we will see that God gives and forgives. Over and over again, day after day, out of God’s abundant generosity and love for us. Now let us not get and forget. Amen.