PENTECOST 8

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: PENTECOST 8
PROPER: 13 B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: August 3, 2003


TEXT: John 6:24-35 – 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 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.” . . . . . . 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 by thirsty.”

See also Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15

ISSUE: In this passage from John’s Gospel account, the people appear to be most interested in Jesus as a miracle worker in terms of his feeding the multitude. They have a fascination with his providing them with an abundance of bread. Yet Jesus attempts to re-direct their understanding, that he is the Bread of Life. He is the way to God, and he is the way of love and his message is hope and healing for the world. His miracle is a sign of something far more nourishing and life giving, a food that never perishes which is from God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In the past several weeks we have been involved in a sequence of several stories that are peculiar to both Mark and John’s accounts of the Gospel. Jesus feeds the 5,000 peasant folk. The crowds and the disciples are dismissed; the crowds return home full, and disciples are to return across the lake while Jesus goes up the mountain to pray. However, he sees the disciples straining against an adverse wind; he walks out on the water, steps into the boat with them and the sea is calmed. In the combination of these miraculous stories, I can’t help but see a kind of fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures being played out. The 23rd Psalm in particular. The crowds follow Jesus into green pastures where they are seated, and receive a bounty whereby their cup runneth over or at least their twelve baskets with an abundance of food. Jesus is truly the shepherd of a flock of folk who are like sheep without a shepherd. The disciples and the disciples return home beside stilled waters, and a new day dawns.
As the new day dawns in John’s Gospel, the crowds once again are in pursuit of Jesus and his whereabouts. Jesus senses that the crowd is now pursuing him in the hope of participating in another miracle that will provide them with more food. Jesus points out to them that they are more interested in sign or miracle than they are in the meaning of what the sign and miracle meant. “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.” We do get the impression that the crowd is somewhat dimwitted or at the very least not getting the point. They even become argumentative. “What shall we do to perform works of God?” they ask. What will Jesus do to authenticate his ministry, which is what was expected of a true prophet? Even Moses in the wilderness provided manna in the wilderness for a desperately hungry Israelite people.
The people are referring to the Exodus story that we read as the first reading this morning from Exodus. A complaining frightened band of Israelites were in the wilderness following Moses, and became hungry for food. A miraculous event occurs, migrating quail too tired to fly any further and weakened by their journey land in the wilderness, and are able to be easily picked up and consumed for dinner that night. So too there is in the morning what is called manna, or “bread” from heaven. Some scholars think it was sap-like droppings from tamarisk trees, or the excretions of some kind of beetle, that was white and sweet, which evaporated in the heat of the sun. Whether is was a “miracle” or a natural occurrence, the story indicated that food, even though it may not have been gourmet, or like the leeks and melons of Egypt, it was sufficiently nourish, and quenched their hunger. Jesus makes it clear that it was not Moses who provided for them, and that the miracle authenticated Moses’ ministry. IT was God that provided the nourishment. It was from and of God. Jesus is making the clear point that it is through God that the bread in the green pasture came, and that the bread of life was came through Jesus and his teaching and his relationship with them. It was in their relationship with him that they were fed and freely given a spiritual food that would give them eternal quality of life. It is the call to be faithful, to believe in, and maintain a relationship with him.
The crowd responds, “Sir give us this bread always.” Jesus responds, “I AM the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never by thirsty.” Be reminded that “I AM” is the Hebrew name for God. God is the Bread of Life, and Jesus Christ is the Word of what God speaks and has to say to the world. The point is that embracing, having faith in Jesus Christ is the way to God, and being in relationship with him, is to be in relationship with God. We are inclined to think of faith as modern Americans as a mere intellectual pursuit. We, as Christians, believe Jesus was and/or is. We believe there is a God. For us it is an act of the mind. For the Gospel of John, to be faithful meant something more than an act of the mind. It meant to be in a relationship with Jesus Christ, with God. Faith meant loyalty, commitment, and solidarity with Jesus Christ. It meant that Jesus was the Lord of you and this new community. You didn’t just walk out on it, and you certainly didn’t take you faith commitment lightly.
How many times have I mention that in the 1st century Middle Eastern Culture and even today, your family was everything. Walk out on your family and you were a dead duck. Remember the prodigal son who walks out on his family; he ends up in the pigsty. His only salvation is to get back to his family. Jesus was considered deviant at the time, because he had abandoned his family, but he established a community based on the premise that they were the children of God; God is Father, and with Christ his followers were sons and daughters. Loyalty, commitment, and solidarity of community with God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ was essential, and that’s what faith was and meant. Perhaps we should regroup today in our understanding of faithfulness. In John’s Gospel account, maintaining faithfulness was his community’s salvation, and ours today. Solidarity with the Bread of Life, with God, is the stuff of our preservation uncertainties of the world. That’s all we need, and you are spiritually full up and running over.
Today we are not particularly faithful in that sense of solidarity with God, with Jesus Christ and the family of God. We are very individualistic. We saw this some years ago, when the church changed the Prayer Book. “If they change the Prayer Book,” some people said, “I will leave the church!” And they did. “If they, the national church, give money to black civil rights groups, I’ll leave the church!” And they did. “If they ordain women to the priesthood, I’ll leave the church!” And they did. Now it’s:
“If they give consent to a practicing homosexual man to be consecrated bishop, I’ll leave the church.”
“If they give consent to same-sex unions, I’ll leave the Church.”
Leaving the church to start another branch is also a way of breaking-up, as in anger breaking something up to scare another person, or to inappropriately express anger.
What of our relationship with Jesus Christ, our commitment to him, and our solidarity with him, with the Father? What of our relationships with one another our fellows, and the people we have shared Eucharist with for years, sitting next to them in the pews Sunday after Sunday? What of our relationship with them and all the times we’ve shared coffee and doughnuts (the other sacrament) at Hospitality Hour week after week after week. What of the homosexual clergy and laity that for centuries have pledged their loyalty, solidarity, commitment to God, to Jesus Christ, to the family of God’s people down through the centuries? What of the secret sins people hide, in spite of their longing to remain in the community of God? Should we excommunicate people on the basis of activities of their private lives, when they desire a loyal relationship with Jesus Christ?
Interestingly enough, Jesus mingled with all types of folk, calling them to faith in God. Unity, loyalty, devotion, solidarity with that mission seems to be at the heart of our own faithful journey, leaving judgment with and to the Father.
Some of you today, or even during this sermon are probably already wondering what you will have for supper tonight. Did you remember to get one thing or another out of the freezer this morning? Remember that around the world there are millions of people who have another question: I wonder if I will eat at all today? We Americans are a very affluent, and sometimes a very self-righteous people. We are stuffed on our affluence. Sometimes that keeps us from worrying much about our relationship, faith, and solidarity with God. Yet, notice that it is finally being revealed that while we are bountifully nourished, we by and large are mal-nourish. The large majority of us (No pun intended there) are too large. The word is obese. And that obesity is killing us with heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and sluggishness. We diet, we exercise, and yet the pounds persist. Both old and young folk alike are too fat, the man in the pulpit as well. We are material gluttons. We love all you can eat buffets, big Macs, big gulps, whoppers; we love holiday sales of all kinds, and TV cable service that provides 250 channels, and every novel fad thing. How many telephones in your house, VCR’s, TV sets. Life can get so abundant and oh so cluttered. But all this stuff is not what gives us healthy lives, meaningful, full lives. If anything, too much of everything is to our detriment. Our present day world reminds me a little bit of a coffee commercial that appeared on TV awhile back. It shows a large cruise ship, and the steward announces that some wonder coffee is being served on the port side of the ship. Then, you see the cruise liner tilt over to the side as if the ship is about to sink. The ship is out of balance; it could capsize! We do have to be careful that we keep our lives balanced. We could be actually drowning in our obesity and affluence. We need the spiritual side of life as well. We need the spiritual bread that comes from God through Jesus Christ. It is the bread of love and forgiveness. It is the bread of acceptance, patience, understanding, and being non-judgmental. It is the bread that nourishes us for service and kindness, and involvement in the needs of other. It is the bread you give away sacrificially, and sometimes when you aren’t really sure it is the best thing in your opinion to do.
We do get so anxious, and Jesus said look around you. The lilies of the field don’t operate spinning wheels, but they are every bit as grand as Solomon in all his glory. The birds don’t gather into barns but are fed enough. Seek the food that lasts and fills the spirit, and maintain your loyalty, your relationship, and your commitment to the family of God. There are still a lot of storms and what we see as adverse winds, but Jesus Christ in time stills the waters.