Proper 13B 2nd August 2015.
John 6:24-35 “I am the bread of life”
“I am the Bread of Life”. A sermon for the Sunday after the Three Choirs
Festival.
Last Sunday you had the Dean preaching with the aid of the timpani and you
experienced a full orchestral eucharist. Today you have the Reader and
Merbecke. What a come down! Last week we were in the heights. Today is as
basic and ordinary as it gets in the Cathedral. However this situation is
reflected in today’s Gospel and so we should be able to enter into the passage
all the better. In the gospel last week Jesus fed 5000 people from 5 loaves and
two fish. He walked on the lake and, when he got into the boat with the
disciples, it was immediately transported to land. Dramatic stuff that deserved
a drum roll from the Dean’s drummer. These were events, like the 300th
Anniversary of the Three choirs festival, that would remain in the memories of
those who experienced them and be recounted to their children and
grandchildren and even be recorded in all four gospels.
Today we have Jesus declaring himself to be the bread of life; ordinary,
everyday bread. He does not say he is the caviar of life as we might expect
from one who is God incarnate, not caviar, but bread, not Festival Eucharist,
but Merbecke.
However, bread, ordinary simple bread, is what we need every day. Caviar
would not satisfy us as a staple food. We may enjoy it as a treat but we don’t
want it every day. By calling himself the bread of life Jesus is telling us how
essential he is in our daily living. Few days go by when I eat no bread at all and
at home I bake at least two loaves or a number of rolls a week to keep us
satisfied. We have a great deal of choice about food these days but in Jesus
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Proper 13B 2nd August 2015.
John 6:24-35 “I am the bread of life”
time bread was the chief food of Israel. It was the all-important commodity of
the ancient Near East, and the price of grain was an infallible index to
economic conditions at any given time. The rich used wheat flour and the poor
barley flour. [I also read that spelt flour was used. I recently discovered spelt
flour and may I digress to tell you that it makes a delicious crumbly loaf that
toasts beautifully.] So important was bread that the word for bread came to
signify solid food of any kind. Bread then, for Jesus’ hearers was an even more
important part of daily life than it is for us and so they should have been able
to grasp that he was saying that he was as essential for their daily spiritual life
as bread was for their physical life.
The people who chased after Jesus because they had experienced or heard
about the abundant provision of food the previous day completely missed the
point. Jesus told them “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not
because you saw the signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” They
were following the lead of their stomachs not their hearts. They were clearly
not totally impressed by the meal for 5000 as they still asked for a sign and
refer to their ancestors eating manna in the wilderness. Were they thinking
that Jesus fed a large crowd one meal on one day while Moses fed a whole
nation for 40 years? Were they thinking that Jesus gave them ordinary bread
while Moses gave them manna? Had manna become the most delicious food in
the world in their fantasies about the past? Add to this a Jewish expectation
that when the Messiah came he would give people manna once more, and we
see that there was much that might arouse speculation. Jesus had done
something wonderful in supplying bread. But could he go on from there and
produce manna?
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Proper 13B 2nd August 2015.
John 6:24-35 “I am the bread of life”
They had got things all wrong. Firstly Moses did not supply the manna, God
did. Secondly the manna was but a physical icon of a spiritual reality. Jesus
was not claiming to be the manna giver they were looking for. He was claiming
to be the manna itself. Thirdly the giving of the manna was in the past and was
over “It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven” says Jesus. Gave
is past tense. It happened a long time ago. However sustenance from God is
ongoing and a present reality as Jesus adds “it is my Father who gives you the
true bread from heaven”. Gives is present tense. God gives it and goes on
giving it. Jesus emphasis on God giving this heavenly sustenance freely is
important. The people had asked “What must we do to perform the works of
God?”. Like people everywhere, even today, they thought that we must have
to do something in order to be sustained by God. The radical message of Jesus
was that you don’t have to do anything to be sustained by God other than
believe that Jesus is God’s provision of sustenance for you. Jesus told them
“Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will
never be thirsty”. This amazing message cuts to the root of our belief that we
must be able to do something to satisfy God. The fact is that we can’t do
anything to satisfy God and the good news is that He doesn’t want us to. He
just wants us to depend on Jesus and receive him as God’s heavenly food.
I am the bread of life is the first of seven such sayings in John’s gospel. In many
of them Jesus likens himself to everyday things such as bread, a door, a
shepherd, a vine. This suggests to me that it is in everyday events that he
wants us to find him. As we eat our bread each day it can speak to us of Jesus.
As we open a door we can think of him. Living in Herefordshire as we do we
have an above average chance of seeing sheep regularly and can be reminded
of the Good Shepherd when we do. By these simple metaphors Jesus is telling
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Proper 13B 2nd August 2015.
John 6:24-35 “I am the bread of life”
us that, while he may be found in high spots like the Festival Eucharist, he is
also in the less exciting but more normal run of daily life, and truths about him
can been seen there if we have eyes to see them.
When preaching on the bread of life in a eucharistic service it would be a fault
to not refer to the bread which we are about to receive. I do not believe that
this passage is actually eucharistic in its main intent but nevertheless Jesus has
left us with yet another simple sign of his presence and support for us in this
world in the form of every day bread and wine. It is for us to see him in them
as we receive them today and to go on looking out for him in the basic things
of life throughout the week.
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