11 Pentecost, Proper 13
John 6
4 Aug 2024
We now enter the season of bread and flesh. All the Gospel lessons through the end of August are centered on these two intertwined words.
Jesus has just gone to the Roman side of the Sea of Galilee and thumbed his nose at Caeser by feeding 5000 people with a few loaves and fishes in a place where supposedly everything belonged to the god Caeser and only he could bestow gifts. Jesus by his actions told people that God is God and Caeser is not.
Now he is back on the Jewish side of the lake and people follow him. What is it they want? What is it we want from Jesus? He has given them bread to fill their bellies, showing them that Caeser really gives them nothing. Roman gifts come with strings attached; they demand repayment in some form. Gifts from God, food from God, comes with no strings attached.
So, do the people who crossed the lake want more bread? Freedom from hunger is a glorious thing and if someone can provide that, they are indeed a god. Jesus however has other ideas. Having shown them, and us, that God can provide what we need to survive, he now wants people to see more. He tells them Moses did not give them bread from heaven; only God can do that, and Jesus has been sent to give us the true bread from heaven.
What is that true bread? After all these years I am not sure I have a convenient answer. I do believe that the bread of life is joy. Yes, we need the sort of bread that feeds our bodies and merely accepting Jesus does not bring us a full stomach, but it will bring us life in a more full and wonderful sense. Truly there is nothing we can give to God but ourselves, yet God is pleased when we bring our gifts to share.
The first of August was celebrated in Britain as Lammastide, when the first wheat was harvested and made into communion bread for a service of thanksgiving. This Sunday is the day closest to that traditional feast day and perhaps it is fitting we are talking about bread. We do not grow wheat, although I will point out that wheat can easily be grown in Iowa and could feed many people, whereas our corn only feeds our automobiles. But we know that what we grow is another reason to be thankful.
This year my own garden did terribly; were I dependent upon it for my food I would be very hungry by now. I cannot provide my own bread. More importantly, I cannot provide what will nourish my soul. For that I need Jesus; he teaches me how to obtain the bread of true life. I cannot give myself true life; I cannot obtain joy without the bread that Jesus gives or stated more clearly the bread that Jesus IS.
He is inviting us to enter into the kindom of God; we need to be nourished from without but more importantly from within. What we are invited to become is a lover, of God and of humanity and of all creation. This is how the bread of life feeds us. Jesus shows us opportunity and abundance where it is so easy for us only to see scarcity. It is much easier to point out what is wrong than to figure out how to make things right.
If we eat from the bread of life that Jesus offers, we know that life is open to us and that life is for all. We do not make it happen ourselves, but we become Jesus’ hands and feet in the world and that is how we make it happen. There is no reason for anyone to be physically hungry. There is no reason for anyone to fear for their lives. Humans create the evil that feeds hunger and violence and war. If we eat from the bread of life, then we know that we can rise up against violence and all forms of human oppression because that is what the god of love does to us and for us.
There is a Prayer for the People that expresses so well what it means for us to eat of the bread of life:
Ohh God., Your people are hungry for your presence. Teachers to put our trust in you. Let us not forget the wonders you have shown us. You are the bread of life. Your church is hungry for your presence. Your world is hungry for peace. Your world is hungry for relief from hardship. Your world is hungry for healing and compassion. Your world is hungry for comfort and eager for a new life. You are the bread of life.; give us the spread always.
That is what it means to embrace Jesus as the bread of life. We are fed with beauty, peace, healing, and compassion. This is the wheat; Jesus is the yeast, and we use the bread as fuel to make the world into a place where all are welcome, and all are fed.
Jesus is the bread of life and I urge you to eat your fill, even gorge yourselves, on that bread.
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