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.
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