Bread, bread, and more bread. The entire sixth chapter of John is fueled by carbs. This is the third week in John 6 and we still have three more weeks to go. There is a short interlude of Jesus walking on water. That reminds us of the water discussion with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in chapter 4, so I guess we are on a bread and water diet, which for John has far more to do with theology than nutrition.
For those of us who have brains that thrive on trivia, we will quickly call up recollections of Exodus. Moses struck the rock in the weary wilderness and water gushed forth and manna miraculously appeared day after day, excepting Sabbaths, for forty years. The Israelites couldn’t figure the manna out and called it “What’s this?” The disciples and the crowd can’t figure Jesus out.
Both the collective memory reference to the Exodus tradition as well the present time conversation with Jesus are based on the same theme: God’s desire and power to sustain us. That may sound simplistic but our human tendency – dare I call it an aspect of that nagging reality named original sin – is to deconstruct the image in such ways that it becomes meaningless. Is the bread white or whole grain? Is it gluten-free? Is it sourdough or yeast bread? Is the flour from genetically modified grain?
Then we take this to the next level. Rather than partake of the bread we become purveyors of bread. We set up shops for selling bread. We have all manner of bread: pita, boules, pumpernickels, naan, challah, baguettes, peasant, sandwich, soda, rye, herbed – you name it we offer it at the “Church Bakery.”
“We’re running a bakery?” you ask. “That isn’t what we do as the church.” Yes, it is. We package and give out the bread of life. We package it in all manner of programs for young and old, for newbies and veterans, for cradle Christians and converts. We put the bread of life into classes for this or that. We slice it, we cube it, we toast it, we dry it to make bread crumbs. We coat it with butter and honey and jelly. We get so wrapped up in the presentation that we lose sight of the bread – THE bread, Jesus our Savior.
Recent polls have shown that the fastest growing portion of the American religious scene is the category “None.” A lot of analysis and follow up research has been done. A significant number of the “Nones” would define themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” They believe in a higher power. They believe in God. The trappings of traditional religion, be it Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, or Evangelical, drive them away from the church. They see the church as “religious but not spiritual.” They see the church missing the whole point about the bread.
When Jesus points his hearers back to the Exodus, he turns the discussion into another of his “how much more” analogies.
“This could be read as a ‘You have heard it said’ text. You have heard about the manna in the wilderness, but I tell you about the bread from heaven. You have heard about the rescue from Pharaoh, but I tell you about rescue from death. In other words: ‘You think the miracle of the manna was something? Well, you ain't seen nothing yet.’ ”(1)The disciples, the crowd, you and I, are called to go the distance to the “how-much-more” that Jesus places in front of us. The history of the relationship of God has been one of God’s drawing men and women to God and enabling them to trust God enough so that they would reach farther, step farther, believe more deeply, love more intently, worship more sincerely.
At the beginning of the Gospel of John the first disciples had to stop following John the Baptist in order to follow Jesus. In this portion of the “Bread of Life” discourse, Jesus’ contemporaries – practicing Jews – are being asked to leave their religion centered on the Torah and synagogue in order to become part of the Jesus community, to give up being religious an become spiritual. To follow Jesus means giving up one’s old religion – even Judaism! In the accounts of the other three gospels the first disciples gave up their vocation of fishing. It’s likely that the fishermen were not the most pious or religious individuals to start with. Jesus spoke and they were drawn to him. They gave up net and boat, family and business. Such courage and determination presents us with a question: What are we giving up in order to follow Jesus? What do we need to give up to better follow Jesus?
“No one can come to me unless they are drawn to me by the Father who sent me.” So what draws us to Jesus? The crowd wanted bread. They wanted Jesus to give them bread. They looked to him as a bakery. After all, “Isn’t this Jesus, Joseph’s son, whose mother and father we know?”
Being drawn by God is like a fish being hauled in a net to shore. That’s uncomfortable, because we don’t want to be dragged to where we don’t want to go. We would rather pick and choose, to bite the hook or not. There is no choice about the net. Fishermen in Jesus’ day used nets, not hooks.
So there is no choice in being drawn. Without it we go nowhere. A semi-trailer needs the Kenworth truck dragging it, a farm implement needs the John Deere tractor pulling it. God hooks up to us and pulls us to Jesus, where Jesus promises to raise us up on the last day. Without the power of the semi, the trailer goes nowhere. Without the power of God, we are helpless to come to Jesus.
Brian Stoffregen tells of hearing a former Muslim speak about his conversion to Christianity. One of the major things that attracted him to Christianity was that it is so absurd. A God who is born and then dies. Salvation that begins by declaring that you can do nothing to save yourself. It either had to be true or the people proclaiming and believing it were crazy. Why does anyone believe this stuff? It’s a miracle from God that any of us believe it.(2)
There are many reasons why people don’t believe in Jesus Christ, why people are not involved in a Christian church, why members don’t regularly attend their church. Instead of wringing our hands, why not be amazed that there are so many people who continue to believe and are regular in their church attendance and involvement in spite of all the forces that work against an active faith and church participation. That’s the real miracle! Why are people in church in the middle of August? Can we bold enough to say that God has drawn them to that place of worship, to that place where they can be taught, and hear and learn from God’s Word? They are religious and spiritual. They have been drawn beyond where they would go on their own. God has drawn them to that place so that they might die, so that they might provide life for others. Could that be a parable of our Christian faith and life?
On one hand, the image being a trailer attached to God’s Kenworth can rub us independent, free-willed people the wrong way. On the other hand, there can be great confidence in that picture. It means that God is in charge of taking us down the road of life. It means that God is in charge of our eternal existence. It means that we can be confident that where God is going, we will certainly follow.
“Having eternal life” is mentioned four times in chapter 6, including once in today’s reading. In every case, the verb is in the present tense.
Simply defined, “eternal life” is living in relationship with God. If we define “eternal” as “never ending,” it is a relationship which begins now through seeing and believing, through eating and drinking (all present tense verbs), and it is a relationship that never ends. Death does not end our relationship with God. The relationship begins now and continues forever. It is our eternal life.
Jesus calls – draws – us out of mere religion and places us in a relationship with himself, with the Father, and with the Spirit. That relationship is true spirituality. Jesus offers himself as something much better and more powerful than the manna the ancestors received in the wilderness. We don’t rely on what God did for our faith ancestors (or even what our ancestors might have done for God) in the past. We need to be aware of what God is doing in the present:
“This is the bread that comes down from heaven.” (v. 50)These verses proclaim that for us who believe we have to give God all the credit. God brought us to Jesus. God gave us our faith in Jesus. God gives us eternal life now. Jesus will raise us up on the last day. In Jesus we can be more than religious, we can be spiritual.
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” (v. 51)
May it be so. Amen.
(1) Jill Duffield, “Looking into the Lectionary: 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time (August 9),” The Presbyterian Outlook info@pres-outlook.org, downloaded August 4, 2015.
(2) Brian Stoffregen, “Gospel Notes for Next Sunday,” Proper 14 B / Lectionary 19 B: John 6:35, 41-51. http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=51bd49db6caae596e13e44534&id=f2f89e7110&e=e9babc8d38
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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