Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Scriptures: 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33, Psalm 130, Ephesians 4:25-5:2, John 6:35, 41-51
I’d like you to speak the beginning of a prayer with me. You know it by heart. We’ll speak it through what the reformer Martin Luther called the fourth petition, about receiving bread. It begins:
Our father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. And give us today our daily bread.
It may feel strange to stop partway, but there’s something about it I want to emphasize, and we’ll pray this prayer again together before we leave today.
I was raised mostly in Montana and Wyoming. Out West, we tend to be a bit more literal in our speech. We have an attitude of “say what you mean,” so for example we don’t tend to use sarcasm, unless we want to start a fight. As a side-note, the first Christmas I spent with Wendi’s family, I thought they all hated each other because they were so sarcastic – which for them as Midwesterners was of course an expression of love and familiarity.
The Southwest was once also unfamiliar territory for me, and I’ll never forget the road trip my family took to Texas when I was in elementary school. We had stopped at a diner along the road for dinner. The table had salt and pepper shakers, and a huge cellar full of a grainy white substance. I was young, but I knew that salt and pepper went together but had never seen a third piece, so I asked the waitress what it was. Without missing a beat, she said “It’s sugar, sugar.”
My jaw hit the floor. I had never been called a food before, and I was mortified. On the one hand, it was exciting to have a vat of sugar on the table, but what did this stranger mean by calling me “sugar.” It’s silly, looking back, and is a nice reminder that traveling teaches us as much about ourselves as it does others.
I share this memory to reflect on how many foods we use as nicknames. Sugar or honey. Peanut, lambchop, or pumpkin. Buckwheat, sprout, sugarplum… the list goes on.
How about “bread”? I’m not talking about “muffin” or “cupcake.” “Bread,” plain and simple. If anything, it seems dull compared to other options, not really a standout choice.
And then Jesus goes and says, “I am bread.” From today’s Gospel reading, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
I hear Jesus making at least three life-changing promises with these words. I’ll tell you what I hear, but first, let’s take the time to understand what’s happening in the Gospel at this point.
There are many good things to say about the shared lectionary; that’s the 3-year cycle we use to help choose readings each week. Over the course of 3 years, the church reads together about 70% of the New Testament. We read a little over 13% of the Old Testament, which isn’t a lot. Considering how much is in the Bible, that’s not bad, and it leaves plenty to read at home.
We’re in the Year of Mark, but because it’s the shortest Gospel account, we also dip into the one Gospel that wasn’t assigned a year (you may have noticed that there are three years, but four Gospels). John’s account doesn’t have a year. Only one miracle occurs in all four Gospels, the feeding of the 5,000, and the people who composed the lectionary cycle decided to use it as a transition between Mark and John.
Leading into today’s reading, Jesus has fed the first multitude, walked on water, and is teaching again. It might therefore seem that we’re in a familiar setting, here in John. But we shouldn’t feel too comfortable: this is a different Gospel account, and the details matter.
When we hear Jesus say, “I am the bread of life,” I hope we hear a reference to Communion. It’s interesting and worth noting, though, that Jesus says these words in the only Gospel that doesn’t mention him feeding the disciples at the last supper. Instead, at the last supper in John, he washes their feet.
Jesus calls himself “bread.” This is why I asked you to join me in the Lord’s Prayer to open this sermon. In Martin Luther’s Large Catechism, the reformer wrote this about the prayer’s fourth petition:
To put it briefly, this petition includes everything that belongs to our entire life in this world, because it is only for its sake that we need daily bread. Now, our life requires not only food and clothing and other necessities for our body, but also peace and concord in our daily activities, associations, and solutions of every sort with the people among whom we live and with whom we interact.
That’s just a snippet of Luther’s thoughts. Luther wasn’t great at putting things briefly: he wrote about four pages on this single line of prayer, “give us today our daily bread.” He also saw in it a prayer for civil authorities, for honesty in business, and for protection from the devil and powers of evil.
Another example: you may have noticed that, for his Jewish audience, Jesus connects this to the manna that their ancestors had received while on exodus to the Promised Land. When they had nothing, God still provided.
So to try and really put it briefly, and borrowing from familiar prayers: God provides everything we have and everything we are, and so we acknowledge that what we have from God is all gift, and comes to us as signs of God’s gracious love.
If by “I am the bread of life,” Jesus is speaking of Communion, Jesus is also talking about the “daily bread” of the Lord’s Prayer. We remember Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection through sacrament and receive his body and blood as covenantal promise of the resurrection’s role in our lives; we also receive from “the bread of life” the “everything” in Luther’s discussion.
And yet, there’s more. We hear from the doubting, confused crowds in John chapter 6 that they don’t understand who Jesus is. They say, “We know this guy, and we know his parents. How could he be saying that he came from heaven?” They could add, “He came from Bethlehem, and that’s not heaven.”
This is a question of Jesus’ identity. When Jesus talks about manna, he draws a further distinction between the type of bread he is and the manna the ancient Hebrew people received on exodus. Jesus says, “Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Jesus doesn’t mean this as a condemnation of his own Jewish ancestors, but to draw a contrast between what God provided at a particular time of need and what his presence as messiah means to the entire world.
Because God’s plans for our lives are not short-term. In the first chapter of John, we learn that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
This Word, this light, this bread. This Jesus. Salvation was God’s plan from the beginning.
We partake in the Bread of Life together as we gather around the Communion Table, and receive the body and blood of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
We partake in the Bread of Life every day, as we receive from God the gifts of all we have and all that we are.
We partake in the salvation God wrote into reality at the moment of Creation as we open our eyes to the blessings we receive freely to share so that others may also know God’s lovingkindness.
Because Jesus is our bread. The source of our strength, our very nutrient in the life of a Christian. Thanks be to God.
-Pastor Will Bevins