John 6:35, 41-51
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.
6:30
a.m. the alarm went off for the first time. Thud.
I’d whack the snooze button. A
snooze… or three…or four later, I would flop out of bed and drag myself
through
the morning routine. Wakened ever so
slightly, I’d half trip down the stretch of dirt road to work. Wearily unlock the door. Yawn. Swing it
wide. Stumble off toward my work
station.
About half way across the store it
would hit me. I would stop.
I would breathe more deeply. Draw
it further in. Savor it.
The smell would fill the store on those early
mornings. Warm. Earthy.
Yeasty. Rich.
<>When my nostrils filled with that glorious smell, bit
by
bit, my other senses would start to rally, too.
The fog of my early morning mind would clear.
My eyes would open a bit further. My
feet would start moving, too. On their own
they would drag me across the
store toward the source of that beautiful, beautiful smell.
And there it would be: the morning
offering. Surrounded by my friends and
co-workers who
had made it. Sometimes it was white,
sometimes it was brown, sometimes rye or sourdough.
Some mornings it was a flowing braid of
different recipes. It was always rich
and fresh and hot and oh so delicious and soul satisfying.
Each morning I couldn’t wait to taste
it. I would feel it warm my hands as I
tore it apart and finally got to eat it.
<>There is something about the experience of freshly
baked bread
that lodges itself firmly inside your imagination.
Like freshly cut grass, or your favorite in-season
fruit, those experiences just stays in your senses forever. They seem to burrow into your very self
somehow. While my last encounter like
this with bread happened over half of my life ago, it is as rich in my
memory
as if it happened this morning, right outside in the foyer.
In our modern lives, especially
around a city, we tend to be
further removed from such basic and sense filling experiences. If we are lucky, our bread might come out of a
bread machine. Usually it isn’t really
fresh
at all. Usually it is wrapped up,
pre-sliced and stacked haphazardly on a market shelf.
It might take some time to figure what the
color actually is through the tinted bag.
Often, you have to search for the loaf below the array of
nutritional
information, slogans and logos that cover bread bags.
Then once you find the loaf, you have to wait
the whole trip home before you can touch it or smell your inevitably
cold
loaf. It is an increasingly rare treat
mixing and kneading bread at home and baking it in your own oven. Something far removed from the usual rhythm
of our daily life.
<>The Jews in Jesus’ earthly lifetime knew bread
intimately. They knew it before it was
bread or even dough. They knew it as
seeds:
held in storage, during planting, and when they first poked up through
the soil. They shielded them from too much
heat. They saved water—precious, life
sustaining
water—to make sure the seeds got enough to grow. When
they harvested the grain they milled it,
mixed it and kneaded it, finally baking and eating it. The smells and
tastes
and textures of bread were part of the usual rhythm of their daily life. Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan and
archaeologist
Jonathan Reed have this to say about the diet of fairly well-to-do
Palestinian Jews
in the time of Jesus:
They ate
their meals not on plates,
but on bread, onto which they ladled olive oil, lentils, beans or
vegetables in
stew form, sharing olives and perhaps a bit of cheese or fruit. Fish, salted, dried, or grilled on a spit,
was sometimes available. Wine…supplied a
portion of the daily caloric intake and took the edge off a hard day’s
work.
<>Their bread was not only a central staple; it was their
platter as well! It was a source of
nutrition which literally and physically supported their other staples. Not just food, but also the means to eat it:
the backbone and foundation of their diet.
In poorer places, such as Jesus’ home town of Nazareth, where
there were sometimes fewer available
foods, bread played an even larger role in the place of daily meals. Bread was an inestimably important part of
life.
Small wonder then that when the
Israelites received the
miracle of manna in their wilderness wanderings that Moses called it
“bread.” They needed a familiar and
tangible name for
this newfound curiosity. The Bible
describes the first appearance of manna like this:
<>When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of
the
wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground.
When the
Israelites saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’ For they did
not
know what it was. Moses said to them, ‘It is the bread that the Lord
has given you to eat.
They had no context for this funny
stuff that was scattered
all over the ground. Moses provided that
context by naming it “bread.” Bread
they could understand. You eat bread and
it nourishes and sustains you, and your family, and your tribe and your
people. Naming something new “bread”
helped describe
its purpose and use. It let them know
what it is for and that it is something they needed and wanted. Eventually, memories of the gift of manna were
so treasured, and Moses was so revered by the wandering Israelites,
that it
became a part of later Jewish expectation that God would provide manna
through
the Messiah just as had been done through Moses.
<>Which is just what Jesus was offering when he said: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to
me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be
thirsty.” Jesus was offering manna,
bread from heaven. But in a way that
shocked
many who heard it; even members of Jesus’ disciples.
John writes that “(b)ecause of this many of
his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.”
Why? What
was the big
deal? The chief problem lay in the way Jesus said it.
Jesus did not say “I am sort of like
the bread come down
from heaven.” No. He
did not say “You know, you could think
about me as if I were the bread of life if that would work for you as a
spiritual metaphor.” No.
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” Jesus
said, “I am the living bread that came
down from heaven.”
<>“I am…” said Jesus, intentionally and knowingly making
a
statement about his nature. “I am…” said
Jesus, quoting from Exodus. Exodus: the
central Jewish holy book of liberation. Exodus:
where Moses asked God how to proclaim God’s name to the Israelites who
were to
be freed from Pharaoh. “Tell them I am has sent me to you” God told
Moses. “I am” says Jesus.
Jesus speaks as God here!
Not just as a prophet, not just as Messiah, and not just as
the son of
God, but as God. This is a recurring
theme in John’s Gospel. On six other
occasions Jesus reveals himself as God using “I am” statements. He says “I am the light of the world,”
“Before Abraham was, I am,” “I am the good shepherd,” “I am the
resurrection
and the life,” “I am the way and the truth and the life,” and “I am the
true
vine.”
Three of these “I am” statements
relate to Jesus’ mission
and place in history. The other three
reveal God’s presence in every day things which people would know just
as well
and intimately as bread.
<>“I am the light of the world…” When night fell, light
took
time to kindle and care for. Oil lamps
were made locally, each with their particular shape, replete with
peculiar smells
and textures. They brought a feeling of
safety amid the inky night.
“I am the good shepherd…”
Jesus preached primarily to poor villagers.
Caring for sheep was another part of the
rhythm of their life. A lost sheep meant
lost clothing for the coming year. Knowing
the sheep well, caring for them and keeping them healthy was essential
to your
own survival and comfort.
<>“I am the true vine…”
Day laborers would often work in vineyards.
They knew the vines by touch and smell.
Everyone in the village saw them growing.
Days were rare when they did not taste of the
fruit of the vine, which provided sustenance and a source for
celebration.
I wonder what “I am” statements
Jesus would offer us today? While I have
lighted oil lamps, I haven’t made
bread apart from pizza dough. I have
neither tended sheep, nor cared for vines.
The rhythms of our lives are different now.
But we still know things intimately. We
still know things with our senses.
<>I hear Jesus say “I am music.” When
I get a moment to play guitar, Jesus is
with me. In the feel of the strings and
wood. In the sounds. In
the air of my lungs as I sing stories of
being human, whether broken, rejoicing or seeking redemption and in the
hymns
we sing here together.
I hear Jesus say “I am your world.” All human needs are met in our shared home
along with the needs of animals, plants and other life forms. Jesus, the Bread of Life, is the food of all
things living, whether animal or plant; ocean or tree.
This earth was given to all life as a garden
of plenty, and it can be again with our help.
I hear Jesus say “I am your human
family.” When we sit in grief with those
we know and
care for, Jesus sits with us. When we
celebrate marriages and births, and observe the passing of life and our
shared
holidays, we enter more deeply into each others lives.
We become wrapped up in one another’s
experiences; part of each other’s sense memories.
<>When we reach out to the members of our human family
who are
in need, Jesus reaches with us.
Once a month a group of volunteers
from Old South make their
way to Saint John
the Evangelist’s Church to participate in Sunday’s Bread.
There a meal is prepared and served for any
who would come to eat. Many are
homeless, some are working poor. Each of
them needs that meal one way or another.
For those who are most needy, that food--that bread—must
seem like it has
come right down from heaven. Most come
regularly. They get to know Sunday’s
Bread
intimately. Going there becomes part of
the rhythm of their lives. I hear Jesus
say “I am here,” when we go there.
<>Jesus wants us to come to him. Not
merely on Sunday mornings and
holidays. Not only when we are dressed
well and in a prayerful state of mind.
Not just when we think we need to, either.
Jesus wants a more intimate connection with
us than that. Jesus wants to be our
bread. Not the plastic wrapped,
preservative laden bread baked God-knows-where and driven to the modern
local
store. But real and fresh bread. Warm.
Earthy. Yeasty.
Rich and soul satisfying. The
bread that stops us in our tracks as we
stumble semi-conscious through life. The
bread that draws our attention and wakes our senses which our feet walk
toward
on their own. The bread we knead with
our hands and bake in our ovens, whose beautiful, beautiful smell
captures our
senses, burrows into our memories. The
bread that is not side dish, or after thought in our lives, but the
very
platter that bears our sustenance and celebration.
Our everything, our central staple, our all
in all.
This is the good news of the Gospel
today: Jesus lurks in
the intimate. In familiar and simple
things. He wants us to know him and to
know us in the fabric of our daily lives.
The gift of intimately knowing God is always ready for us to
accept. It is held out when we help those
of our
human family who are in need. It is held
out when we share in the sorrows and joys, trials and celebrations of
our
friends and fellow parishioners. It is
held out in the endless blessings of this good green earth, and when we
care
for it. Every single loaf of bread is a
sign of God’s abundance and love and plenty.
All we have to do is reach out and
taste and see that God is
good.
Amen.
Excavating
Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts, John Dominic Crossan & Jonathan L. Reed,
Pg.96.
John 8:12, 8:58, 10:11, 11:25, 14:6,
15:1
