Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, rcl yr b, 2021
St. John’s Stay-at-Home
JOHN 6:24-35
The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world. John 6:33
Can you feel the tension in today’s Gospel between Jesus and the crowd? To his credit, he names the point of contention at the very beginning of their dialogue. He says, “You are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” The miracle of the loaves and fishes was, what we term today, a free lunch. “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” we usually say to ourselves when we receive an unexpected or spontaneous invitation as someone’s guest. There will undoubtedly be some transaction proposed, some information sought, or some social obligation created as the consequence if we accept.
In this case, though, we would be wrong: the grace of God, in which nothing is expected in return, took the form of the crowd who had followed Jesus, hungering for his teaching concerning faith in God, learning from him, and then receiving food for their empty stomachs without the customary hook. Just as it would be for us today, something like this was extraordinary, presumably something the people had never experienced before. Why wouldn’t they pursue Jesus? In a sense, they had received a taste of heaven.
Jesus, however, is a teacher, not a baker or a chef. And given the fact that yesterday’s crowd has returned, he tries to pick up where he left off before they sat down to the meal they all enjoyed – enjoyed too much, he would probably say. And so, the conversation begins from two quite different perspectives: hence, the tension in the dialogue.
The people, however, are not quite as dull as Jesus implied earlier in suggesting that they were just interested in another free lunch. They know he is a teacher, not a baker or a chef, and so they ask questions of him as their teacher, questions appropriate for their life of discipleship: “How can they perform the works of God? What signs will he give them that will aid their faith? [and] How does what happened yesterday when all were fed compare with the manna their ancestors received wandering with Moses in the wilderness?”
In describing the manna, the people use the term “bread from heaven,” providing Jesus with a phrase he can take and infuse with new meaning for them – and specifically, that he and his message of God’s grace and love, God’s justice and peace, God’s welcome and embrace, God’s mercy and forgiveness, God’s faithfulness even through death, are “the true bread from heaven that gives life to the world.”
This is a challenging lesson he gives them. First of all, he wants them to reinterpret the word “bread” as something much greater than a staple in their diet; but he is also asking them to move beyond orthodox teaching to recognize that in him and in his ministry of healing, teaching and preaching, the divine is present; God has come near. In case they miss the point, he ends the lesson saying, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” – incorporating all the levels of understanding and discernment both he and the crowd had brought to each other that day.
John the Evangelist, in whose gospel we learn of Jesus as the bread of life, is unique among the four gospel-writers. Through Matthew, Mark, and Luke we come to know Jesus as Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, as Saviour, rabbi, Master, friend, son of Mary and Joseph; Matthew even traces Jesus’ lineage through Joseph all the way back to King David of today’s First Reading. But throughout his gospel, John assembles magnificent images that develop both our understanding of Jesus and the mystery of Jesus.
In John’s gospel, Jesus is not only the Bread of Life, he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, he is the Light of the World, the Door, the Good Shepherd, the Resurrection and the Life, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the True Vine. Matthew, Mark, and Luke draw us close to Jesus through the power of story. John is a storyteller too, but it is the imagery of John’s gospel and his insight into the meaning of Jesus’ life and mission as expressed through images such as “bread” that surprise and astonish us into a deeper appreciation of who Jesus is for us and for others.
For many people, bread is a comfort food. One of my fondest memories from childhood was visiting my friend David on the day his mother baked bread for the week. She always gave us each a slice, still warm. And, of course, the aroma coming through the screen door of her kitchen was wonderful on baking day.
My guess is that it is the same for many – that bread is comfort food. Our friend Chuck Erion posted a photo this week on Facebook of 10 loaves of what appeared to be three or four different varieties he had baked, all in one day. Another Facebook post from Preston and Karen revealed that they’re certainly not slumming it on their camping vacation: Karen made cinnamon buns in her cast iron skillet on Tuesday of this week. And my high school friend, Henry, back in Waterloo, recuperating at home from a serious back operation and forced to keep his activities to a minimum for several weeks, admitted that he, too, had baked bread for his family on Thursday. My feeling is that, at least for Chuck, Karen, and Henry, the comfort derived from bread extends beyond enjoying its aroma and eating it; that preparing it, delighting in the magic of watching it rise, and then baking it successfully is also something they love.
The image of Jesus as the Bread of Life is, by association, a comfortable image. But bread and the image of Jesus as the Bread of Life also have the power to make us uncomfortable when we consider, as the Feeding of the Five Thousand reminds us, that we are not alone; that bread is to be shared; that there are people in our world, people just beyond our door, who not only need bread as a comfort food, but also need Jesus, mediated through the gospel love and gospel justice that has been entrusted to Jesus’ followers to share; that there are people just beyond our door who are hungry and thirsty for all those things the crowd in Galilee and Capernaum beheld in Jesus – grace and love, justice and peace, welcome and embrace, mercy and forgiveness, friendship and faithfulness. All of these things, when we practise them, when we embody them, when we share them, are “the true bread from heaven that gives life to the world.”
Last week the newly-formed Stewardship Working Group gathered for (if you can believe it) an in-person meeting here at the church. It was an excellent meeting because everyone present truly loves and cares about this parish, and is sincerely interested in helping all our congregants see ourselves as a church in mission, as a people who have been called by the living Word of God to share the bread that is Jesus and the gospel, not only among ourselves, but with all people who are hungry – those people just beyond our door that I mentioned before. And yes, I do mean the people who are literally just beyond the church doors who find welcome and sanctuary at the picnic table on our lawn, and, I hope, find hospitality when we spend time with them to share stories and make connections between their community and our church community. But “the people beyond our door” also refers to the wider community that hungers for all the expressions of our love that sharing our gifts represents. When we give to the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund, we share our bread globally. When Preston went before City Council and advocated for a Consumption and Treatment Services Site in Kitchener, we shared our bread with all the people in Kitchener-Waterloo. When we open our church building and foster partnerships with local not-for-profit organizations such as the Community Kitchen Co-operative, we share our bread with Food Not Bombs, A Better Tent City, and several other projects under way that will benefit new Canadians, and local Indigenous and racialized communities. When we hang a huge climate justice banner on the Duke Street side of our church building, we share our bread by raising the consciousness of anyone passing through our neighbourhood that we all participate in either destroying or restoring the sacred balance of the natural world. When we open our doors for worship, welcoming and seeking to incorporate into our congregation anyone who gathers, both those who are known to us and those who are newcomers, we share our bread.
Earlier I mentioned some people who find meaning and pleasure in baking bread. When I think about it, though, there’s another dimension I missed – love! When we bake and share a loaf of bread or a pan of cinnamon spirals, when we receive a slice or a bun, love is present. In, with and under that warm water, sugar, dry yeast, salt, oil, and flour, in and through the measuring, combining, mixing, kneading, waiting, and baking, at the slicing or in the breaking apart is love – gracious, extravagant, taste-of-heaven love.
In our hands, Jesus, the true bread from heaven that gives life to the world, is nothing less than gracious, extravagant, taste-of-heaven love.
The Rev. James F. Brown
1 August 2021