Before we get too far into this weird and wonderful passage about the claim of Jesus that he is the bread that gives life, I’d like to remind you where this fits with the narrative of John’s gospel that we have been exploring over the last several weeks. John’s gospel starts with the claim that Jesus is the word… the command… the Creative Spirit of God enfleshed and made present as a light in the darkness for all to see and believe and become known as children of God.
As we moved into this season of Epiphany – which means enlightenment: literally a season celebrating the way Jesus makes the presence of God more obvious to us – we moved from the candlelight of Christmas and the call to join our lights together to make our demonstration of the light of Christ brighter. First, in John 1 we heard Jesus say, “Come see” to his disciples, as he invited them to join him. Then we talked about the first miracle in John 2 at a wedding where Jesus demonstrated the hospitality of God. In John 3 we saw Nicodemus, a teacher of the law come to him under the cover of night and become baffled by the invitation to be born again from above.
This was also when we were reminded that deeds done in the night will come to light and assured that Jesus came to reconcile the world to God, who so loved the world, that he gave us Jesus. So far, most of the characters in this story don’t really understand what Jesus is telling them, at least not at first. Remember how the Samaritan woman in John 4, still unnamed but also the first evangelist in John’s gospel, wanted life-giving water to fill her jar and then left her jar to tell others when she realized that Jesus was both the water and the source. You may recall that I suggested this passage to be like a marriage proposal, not to the woman but to all of us.
The next week, last week, the story continued in John 5 with a man Jesus healed on the Sabbath who simply did not understand what Jesus meant when he said, “Do not sin, so nothing worse may happen to you” and we talked about sin as brokenness in our relationships, one to another and between us and God.
Now, today – in John 6, it just gets weird. There’s no way around it. This is a weird passage. Even the disciples who heard it (which is probably not referring to the 12 but to others gathered around) said in 6:60, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”
Hopefully, we can but let’s talk about it a little. The first thing we need to do to take a little of the weirdness out of it is to realize that Jesus is doing the same thing here that we’ve seen in other places. He is speaking about a spiritual reality as it connects to our physical reality. If it helps to say that this is metaphorical language, then you are welcome to take it that way, but I think that the Spirit of God that inspired these texts has something a little more than a metaphor in mind.
For one, there is no getting around the fact that Jesus is telling the crowd that they have to literally eat his flesh and drink his blood. The context of the Greek language here is very straightforward. That’s also why the people respond with something like, “You gotta be kidding me.”
As modern listeners and readers, we can’t help but think that Jesus must have been talking about the sacrament of communion. It certainly makes more sense that way, and I want to talk about that a bit, but first I think it is important to think a little about the connection between this conversation and the events that came before it.
I mentioned before the reading that this followed the feeding of 5,000, and these people that are talking to Jesus are some of the same ones he fed before. Jesus dismisses them because they are just coming for bread, which is kind of a big deal in that day and time. In fact, the Hebrew word for bread is only one stroke of a vowel different from the word for war. If there is no bread…there may be war.
Food and water scarcity and abundance were aspects of societal control. In fact, in John 6:15, the people were so enamored by the providence of God that they wanted to “take him by force and make him their king.” I’m not exactly sure how that would have worked, but clearly, there is a connection between providing for the basic needs of a people and the independence that those people might enjoy.
I would like to say that has changed. I would like to say that we only see food and water scarcity in underdeveloped or oppressed countries, but of course, we know that we have the same issues here and now that they had there and then. Today, we call places with limited access to grocery stores and healthy food options “food deserts.” There are some food pantries around town and ongoing conversations about development on the Northside of town. We do our part where and when we can through our monthly peanut butter collection, emergency food bags for those in need, and occasional collections for the Campus Cupboard for needy students, but food insecurity remains an issue in our community.
That is one of the reasons that we participate in the Souper Bowl of Caring every year. If you don’t know about it, this was started by a small youth group in a Presbyterian Church in South Carolina several years back. They decided that they wanted to do something about hunger and food insecurity in their neighborhood, so they came up with a simple idea – inspired, really! On the day of the Super Bowl, they would have a different challenge. Everyone would be encouraged to vote for their favorite team from that other game with a can of soup for the local food pantry. Later they expanded that to voting with financial donations. Someone else heard about it and the idea just caught like wildfire. Millions of dollars have been raised over the years - distributed locally in communities around the country – because this one youth group decided to do something different.
As cool as that is, we also know that hunger is not stopped by stocking food pantries. Hunger is an economic reality that exists hand in hand with poverty. Where there is poverty, there will be hunger. This is why those people that were fed by Jesus wanted more from him. In John 6:25-37 they asked for a sign like the Mana from Moses, and Jesus reminded them that the Mana – the bread from heaven – was from God, and so was he.
In that same conversation, Jesus tells the people that they need to work for bread that will last, and when they ask what they need to do, Jesus says, “Believe in me.” That’s it. Believe that Jesus is the Bread that gives life. Believe that Jesus is offering for us to consume him – to take him into ourselves – in a way that allows the essence of what Jesus is to be metabolized and incorporated into who and what we are.
The idea of consuming Jesus and being purified from within through him is essentially the backbone of the eucharistic theology of our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in their practice of communion and it’s also the reason that the language of cannibalism has plagued the church from its infancy. We can’t get away from it. It’s right here in John 6:53, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”
While Reformed Christians do not believe in the same kind of metaphysical transformation that our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters do, that does not mean that the meal we share is merely ceremonial or symbolic. We believe that God is present in a very real way in the bread and in the cup when we share them in memory of what God has done for us through the saving death of Jesus and in celebration of the resurrection that is to come.
While the promise of this passage is certainly that God will raise up those that believe in Jesus on the last day, there is something even greater going on here. These people who have been fed in pastures by still waters by the One who provides more than we need are being told that Jesus wants something more for them. Jesus wants a Holy union with them, and with you, and with me, and with everyone.
In this land ruled by consumerism; on this day in which great treasures of wealth are spilled out while gladiators take the field (Lord knows I wish that were a metaphor, but it’s not); in this land of plenty where food is thrown away while our neighbors go hungry; Jesus is still offering himself to us. Jesus says to us, even now, that he sees our hunger for a more comfortable life – or just for the next meal – and he wants us to consume him instead. He wants us to be fed by him instead. He wants us to hunger for the spiritual food that he was eating by the well in Samaria – which is to do the will of God.
And what is that? John 6:29 says that it is to believe in Jesus as the one sent from God. If we truly believe that and place our hope and trust in him, I believe that we will grow to care more for one another. At least, that’s what you have shown me over the last decade of ministry together.
We’ve developed partnerships through our faith in Christ that support the faith of students at ULL through Wesley United Campus Ministry (which is also listed as a Ukirk site through the PCUSA). We’ve hosted mission teams and done such a fine job that we have a group coming in March even though we don’t have an active disaster apart from poverty and resilience work. We’ve partnered with a congregation in Cuba to develop clean drinking water, and right now we are recovering from a pandemic and finding out how much it matters just to be together.
We are, of course, are not without loss. While I know it is sad for many of us, I want to give the last word today to someone who typically lets his actions speak louder than his words. Robert Nash was a gentle giant if ever there was one, and the flowers are here in his honor today. He was a Vietnam vet, a roughneck, a pilot, and as generous a person as you might ever meet. He was not a perfect person, but I’d say that if anyone was ever serious about taking Jesus into their heart, seeking to be consumed and perfected by their belief in Jesus as the bread from heaven that does not run out, then that one would be Robert Nash.
I look forward to the great reunion that is to come with him and so many others, but first, we have to taste and see. We have to live sacramentally. First, we have to seek the presence of God in our common union here and now. First, we have to look to the One who is from God so that we might be consumed by the love that promises us more than what we want and offers what we truly need. In the end, my expectation is that we’ll find what we truly need is received even as we give of ourselves – whether it is one can of soup (or jar of peanut butter) at a time or advocacy for social change or partnerships that demonstrate love and mercy – the lifeblood that flows through us comes from the cup of salvation and the bread that has come down from heaven. Amen.
As we moved into this season of Epiphany – which means enlightenment: literally a season celebrating the way Jesus makes the presence of God more obvious to us – we moved from the candlelight of Christmas and the call to join our lights together to make our demonstration of the light of Christ brighter. First, in John 1 we heard Jesus say, “Come see” to his disciples, as he invited them to join him. Then we talked about the first miracle in John 2 at a wedding where Jesus demonstrated the hospitality of God. In John 3 we saw Nicodemus, a teacher of the law come to him under the cover of night and become baffled by the invitation to be born again from above.
This was also when we were reminded that deeds done in the night will come to light and assured that Jesus came to reconcile the world to God, who so loved the world, that he gave us Jesus. So far, most of the characters in this story don’t really understand what Jesus is telling them, at least not at first. Remember how the Samaritan woman in John 4, still unnamed but also the first evangelist in John’s gospel, wanted life-giving water to fill her jar and then left her jar to tell others when she realized that Jesus was both the water and the source. You may recall that I suggested this passage to be like a marriage proposal, not to the woman but to all of us.
The next week, last week, the story continued in John 5 with a man Jesus healed on the Sabbath who simply did not understand what Jesus meant when he said, “Do not sin, so nothing worse may happen to you” and we talked about sin as brokenness in our relationships, one to another and between us and God.
Now, today – in John 6, it just gets weird. There’s no way around it. This is a weird passage. Even the disciples who heard it (which is probably not referring to the 12 but to others gathered around) said in 6:60, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”
Hopefully, we can but let’s talk about it a little. The first thing we need to do to take a little of the weirdness out of it is to realize that Jesus is doing the same thing here that we’ve seen in other places. He is speaking about a spiritual reality as it connects to our physical reality. If it helps to say that this is metaphorical language, then you are welcome to take it that way, but I think that the Spirit of God that inspired these texts has something a little more than a metaphor in mind.
For one, there is no getting around the fact that Jesus is telling the crowd that they have to literally eat his flesh and drink his blood. The context of the Greek language here is very straightforward. That’s also why the people respond with something like, “You gotta be kidding me.”
As modern listeners and readers, we can’t help but think that Jesus must have been talking about the sacrament of communion. It certainly makes more sense that way, and I want to talk about that a bit, but first I think it is important to think a little about the connection between this conversation and the events that came before it.
I mentioned before the reading that this followed the feeding of 5,000, and these people that are talking to Jesus are some of the same ones he fed before. Jesus dismisses them because they are just coming for bread, which is kind of a big deal in that day and time. In fact, the Hebrew word for bread is only one stroke of a vowel different from the word for war. If there is no bread…there may be war.
Food and water scarcity and abundance were aspects of societal control. In fact, in John 6:15, the people were so enamored by the providence of God that they wanted to “take him by force and make him their king.” I’m not exactly sure how that would have worked, but clearly, there is a connection between providing for the basic needs of a people and the independence that those people might enjoy.
I would like to say that has changed. I would like to say that we only see food and water scarcity in underdeveloped or oppressed countries, but of course, we know that we have the same issues here and now that they had there and then. Today, we call places with limited access to grocery stores and healthy food options “food deserts.” There are some food pantries around town and ongoing conversations about development on the Northside of town. We do our part where and when we can through our monthly peanut butter collection, emergency food bags for those in need, and occasional collections for the Campus Cupboard for needy students, but food insecurity remains an issue in our community.
That is one of the reasons that we participate in the Souper Bowl of Caring every year. If you don’t know about it, this was started by a small youth group in a Presbyterian Church in South Carolina several years back. They decided that they wanted to do something about hunger and food insecurity in their neighborhood, so they came up with a simple idea – inspired, really! On the day of the Super Bowl, they would have a different challenge. Everyone would be encouraged to vote for their favorite team from that other game with a can of soup for the local food pantry. Later they expanded that to voting with financial donations. Someone else heard about it and the idea just caught like wildfire. Millions of dollars have been raised over the years - distributed locally in communities around the country – because this one youth group decided to do something different.
As cool as that is, we also know that hunger is not stopped by stocking food pantries. Hunger is an economic reality that exists hand in hand with poverty. Where there is poverty, there will be hunger. This is why those people that were fed by Jesus wanted more from him. In John 6:25-37 they asked for a sign like the Mana from Moses, and Jesus reminded them that the Mana – the bread from heaven – was from God, and so was he.
In that same conversation, Jesus tells the people that they need to work for bread that will last, and when they ask what they need to do, Jesus says, “Believe in me.” That’s it. Believe that Jesus is the Bread that gives life. Believe that Jesus is offering for us to consume him – to take him into ourselves – in a way that allows the essence of what Jesus is to be metabolized and incorporated into who and what we are.
The idea of consuming Jesus and being purified from within through him is essentially the backbone of the eucharistic theology of our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in their practice of communion and it’s also the reason that the language of cannibalism has plagued the church from its infancy. We can’t get away from it. It’s right here in John 6:53, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”
While Reformed Christians do not believe in the same kind of metaphysical transformation that our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters do, that does not mean that the meal we share is merely ceremonial or symbolic. We believe that God is present in a very real way in the bread and in the cup when we share them in memory of what God has done for us through the saving death of Jesus and in celebration of the resurrection that is to come.
While the promise of this passage is certainly that God will raise up those that believe in Jesus on the last day, there is something even greater going on here. These people who have been fed in pastures by still waters by the One who provides more than we need are being told that Jesus wants something more for them. Jesus wants a Holy union with them, and with you, and with me, and with everyone.
In this land ruled by consumerism; on this day in which great treasures of wealth are spilled out while gladiators take the field (Lord knows I wish that were a metaphor, but it’s not); in this land of plenty where food is thrown away while our neighbors go hungry; Jesus is still offering himself to us. Jesus says to us, even now, that he sees our hunger for a more comfortable life – or just for the next meal – and he wants us to consume him instead. He wants us to be fed by him instead. He wants us to hunger for the spiritual food that he was eating by the well in Samaria – which is to do the will of God.
And what is that? John 6:29 says that it is to believe in Jesus as the one sent from God. If we truly believe that and place our hope and trust in him, I believe that we will grow to care more for one another. At least, that’s what you have shown me over the last decade of ministry together.
We’ve developed partnerships through our faith in Christ that support the faith of students at ULL through Wesley United Campus Ministry (which is also listed as a Ukirk site through the PCUSA). We’ve hosted mission teams and done such a fine job that we have a group coming in March even though we don’t have an active disaster apart from poverty and resilience work. We’ve partnered with a congregation in Cuba to develop clean drinking water, and right now we are recovering from a pandemic and finding out how much it matters just to be together.
We are, of course, are not without loss. While I know it is sad for many of us, I want to give the last word today to someone who typically lets his actions speak louder than his words. Robert Nash was a gentle giant if ever there was one, and the flowers are here in his honor today. He was a Vietnam vet, a roughneck, a pilot, and as generous a person as you might ever meet. He was not a perfect person, but I’d say that if anyone was ever serious about taking Jesus into their heart, seeking to be consumed and perfected by their belief in Jesus as the bread from heaven that does not run out, then that one would be Robert Nash.
I look forward to the great reunion that is to come with him and so many others, but first, we have to taste and see. We have to live sacramentally. First, we have to seek the presence of God in our common union here and now. First, we have to look to the One who is from God so that we might be consumed by the love that promises us more than what we want and offers what we truly need. In the end, my expectation is that we’ll find what we truly need is received even as we give of ourselves – whether it is one can of soup (or jar of peanut butter) at a time or advocacy for social change or partnerships that demonstrate love and mercy – the lifeblood that flows through us comes from the cup of salvation and the bread that has come down from heaven. Amen.
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