Old South Sermons:

Bread of Life
 
by Rev. Elizabeth Myer Boulton,
Minister of Discipleship

John 6: 32-35

Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father/Mother who gives you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”  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 be thirsty.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Listen to this sermon

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After college and before Divinity School, I lived and worked as a Global Mission Intern in Port-au-Prince, Haiti for the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

I don’t know if you know much about Haiti

If you don’t, you should come back in two weeks and hear Margaret Trost speak

She’ll tell you about the grinding poverty, about how Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and some folks say the world

She’ll tell you about the heat, about the hunger, about the beauty, about the hope

They say everything in Haiti is broken except for the spirit of the people

I worked there for the better part of a year and a half

It seems funny in retrospect

Haitians don’t have any money to buy food

They’re rioting over rice, can you even imagine?

They are so hungry there and while I was there, in the first six months I gained 15 pounds

I remember being so insecure about my body and about the fact that I was gaining weight in that land of want

I remember walking into work one day and all the women were there

And they were giggling and they came over to my desk and they pinched me and they poked me and they embraced me and they said, “Garde ou, ou gros…”

“Garde li, li gros…”

Look at her she’s fat, look at her, she’s fat

“Ou reme Haiti en pil, ou gros…”

You love Haiti a lot, you’re fat

I was so mortified and they were so proud because they had been feeding me

I was mortified

They were full of joy because I was getting fat and they were the cause and to be fat in Haiti, in that country of want was to be full, to want for nothing to be brimming with life and life more abundant

She had just started college…

She had just started college and one morning, she woke up, put on her coat, walked a few blocks to the grocery store, and bought a tub cottage cheese and a pack of rice cakes

She’d never bought cottage cheese before, never bought rice cakes before but for some reason she felt compelled to do it

She knew it was a diet food and she felt compelled to be on a diet and for the next three days, she ate nothing but rice cakes and cottage cheese

What ensued was three years of struggling with anorexia

What ensued was three years of meticulously controlling everything that when into her body

For three years this is what she ate – one plain bagel for breakfast, toasted and dry, one container of yogurt for lunch, coffee flavored, and one apple and a small cube of cheese for dinner

For three years this is what she ate and for three years there was this hunger, this deep, deep hunger

She dropped below ninety pounds

Her knees grew wider than her hips

She dropped below ninety pounds and for three years her family said nothing

For three years, knees wider than her hips, and her family said nothing

One spring she went home and she was bound and determined to show her mother her body

She just wanted her mother to look, to see her hunger and so, when she found herself in the same room as her mother, she made a point of changing her clothes

She pulled off her shirt and she took off her pants

She stood there, a little too long, she wanted her mother to look at her and to say something, she wanted her mother to see her deep hunger – to be loved, to be accepted, to be cared for

So she stood there in front of her mother and don’t you know her mother said nothing – she said nothing and looked away[1]

Right before this morning’s passage of scripture a large crowd is following Jesus because of how he healed the sick

They are following him and listening to him speak and it starts to get dark and so he sits them down on a patch of bright green grass and he takes five loaves and two fish and he gives thanks and he breaks them and everyone eats and everyone is satisfied

Then the disciples get on a boat and start to head back to Capernaum and the sea became rough and the scripture tells us that they were about three or four miles out at sea and they saw Jesus walking on the water and he says to them, “Do not be afraid, I am.”

And they wanted to take him into the boat, but just then the reached the other side

And so did the crowds because they were searching for Jesus and when they find him they said to him, “Give us another sign!  Show us another miracle!  Do something like Moses did – remember?  He gave our ancestors bread from heaven to eat and to be satisfied.”

“Very truly, I tell you,” said Jesus.  “It wasn’t Moses who gave you bread from heaven.  It fell straight out of the heart of God and God is still giving away this bread and this bread gives life to the world”

And the crowds say to him, “Please sir, give us this bread always!”

And Jesus looks through the crowd and he finds that woman whose knees are wider than her hips, he finds her and he looks at her and he will not look away and he says to her, “I am the bread of life.  I am manna straight out of the heart of God.  If you come to me, you will never be hungry.  If you believe in me you will never thirst.”

Now, you know as well as I know, there are a thousand ways to be hungry

You know as well as I know, there are as many different ways to be hungry as there are people in this place

There’s that hunger for love, that hunger for acceptance – parental acceptance, “Why can’t you just love who I am? Why can’t you just love this one who I love?”

There are so many kinds of hunger, aren’t there?

There’s that hunger for more, more money, more clothes, bigger house, better job, better body

There’s that hunger for forgiveness, after all the lying and the stealing and the infidelity, that deep hunger to be forgiven…

There are so many kinds of hunger, aren’t there?

But underneath them all, when you get right down to it, when you get right down to the bottom of the bottom of the hunger, isn’t it always a hunger for God

A hunger to stand face to face with God, a hunger for God not to look away, a hunger to hear those words, “I love you!  You are my beloved!  You are my delight!  You are the love of my life!  In you I am well pleased!  For you, to be with you, I am coming into the world!”

Friends, this is the good news of the gospel on World Communion Sunday

After he feed us on that bright green grass, after he walked across the water back to Capernaum, after we got into our own boats and caught up to him, after wrongly demanding miracles and signs, Jesus looks at all of and he will not look away

God looks at all of and she will not look away and she says to each of us, “I am the bread of life…”

I am manna come down out of heaven

I am Emmanuel, God with you and this is what I have come to say, “I love you…”

You are my beloved

You are the love of my life

In you I am so well pleased with you

And not just in you but in my children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and not just in Haiti but in the wilderness of Darfur, and not just in Darfur but in the streets and alleys of Jersalem, I love my children there Israli and Palistinian alike…

Can’t you see, I’ve prepared a feast for you?

Come to this table and never be hungry again

Drink from this cup and never be thirsty again

Friends, this is the good news of the gospel on World Communion Sunday

God is here!

The bread of life is here!

Come and feast! 

Come and drink and be satisfied and when you return to your seat, after you sit down and before we begin the final hymn, if you listen closely you’ll here her, the sweet Spirit of God, giggling to herself, so proud of children, “Garde li, li gros!”

Look at you!  You’re fat and full and satisfied and healthy and full to the brim with life eternal…

Friends, may this always be so, yesterday, today and tomorrow!

Amen.

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[1] Caroline Knapp’s story from, “Appetites: Why Women Want.”

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