John 6:35, 51-60
Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS
February 13, 2022
“How’s your life right now?” said my dear friend through the phone.
Not, “How’s it going?” or even, “How’s life?” But “How is YOUR life RIGHT NOW?”
What a jarring question. How is YOUR life RIGHT NOW?
Goodness.
My answer that day, which was a few years ago now, was that I was worried about something. I don’t recall the details. So I poured it all out to my friend. Eventually, I kind of spiraled into one of those “what if” cycles where I was, oh, about 2-3 years out in the future of the present moment imagining scenarios that might never come to pass.
I am CERTAIN none of you know what I’m talking about. (wink wink)
And this wonderful friend of mine said something like this, “You know, Caela. God promised to give us our daily bread. DAILY. So I don’t actually think God promised to give you a crystal ball today and show you exactly how everything for the next 2 or 3 years is going to play out. God promised to meet us in each day - today - and give us what we need - today.”
There was a long pause while I let that sink in. And then I said, “Right. And then each of those days strings together…”
And we both said, “Into a life.”
(inhale - exhale)
I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but bread is kind of everywhere in the Bible. It’s important enough that it makes an appearance in the Lord’s Prayer. It’s in the stories about Jesus’s final days here on Earth and, because of that, we still gather around tables and bless bread and remember Jesus’s life and ministry.
And it’s not just in the Second Testament, of course. When the Israelites flee Egypt, we are told that they leave in such a rush that they don’t even have time to let their bread finish rising. Instead, they wrap up the unrisen dough in their clothes and toss it on their backs as they flee. That’s why the bread used at Passover is unleavened. And who can forget that when the Israelites are in the desert, starving and hopeless, God sends a bread-like substance called manna to feed them? (Incidentally, God feeds them with just enough for each day - not 2-3 years at a time as my dear friend so gently reminded me.)
Anyone who’s ever made bread can tell you: it’s basically an everyday miracle. All you really need to make it is flour, water, salt, and some kind of leavening agent - like yeast.
Now, yeast in and of itself, also feels miraculous. For starters, although most of us buy our yeast at the store in little packets, it’s actually just a naturally-occurring organism out there in the world. If you don’t have access to a grocery store or a starter, you can apparently even just capture WILD yeast. Amazing! [1]
Yeast does its thing by sharing the fruits of its metabolic process with us. When the yeast eats, it creates little gasses that eventually make our dough rise. [2] When my kids were little, David taught them that the yeast was burping and that always got a giggle when bread was being made.
And so these simple, everyday elements - flour, water, salt, leaven - come together and are transformed into a miraculous substance that keeps us alive. It’s a beautiful interplay between the natural world and human ingenuity. And when we think about those cute little yeasties eating and burping so that we can eat and burp, too, it’s all very circle-of-life, isn’t it?
Bread is a gift. And so when Jesus says, in the Gospel of John, “I am the bread of life,” I think we all sit up and pay attention. Because whether you live in the year 2022 where you can have bread delivered straight to your door after ordering it from an app on your smartphone or in the ancient world where yeast had to be captured and nurtured and baked into bread every day, one thing is true across all time and cultures: we all need to eat to live. And for most of us, that eating involves bread in some form or fashion.
Now, when the author of John was in school, one of his writing teachers must have taught him the importance of “show, don’t tell.” Because before Jesus even says, “I AM the bread of life,” he shows it. Right before the passage we heard this morning is the story of Jesus and his disciples feeding the crowd of 5,000 people with five little barley loaves that a local boy brought with him. After everyone ate and had their fill, the story goes that there were still leftovers, even. And so we have this miraculous story about abundance and sharing and the ways that God provides daily bread for us when our physical bodies need sustenance.
And then on the heels of that story, John can’t help but to TELL a bit, too. Having shown the ways Christ meets our physical needs, the author of this gospel also wants to make it clear that Christ comes to meet our spiritual needs, too. And so we get this lengthy Bread of Life Discourse that we heard just a small part of today.
Jesus tells us what he just showed us - that he is bread for our journey. Christ comes to us as embodied, enfleshed nutrition. Filling us up, helping us grow healthy and strong, sustaining us, bringing us joy and sustenance. And this gift of bread is for everyone. And it isn’t bound by the regular laws of time and space. Instead the bread of life is the One who is with God in the beginning.
“The bread of life was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through the bread of life, and without it, not one thing came into being. What has come into being through the bread is life, and that life was the light of all people.”
Life, life, life.
It’s everywhere in John’s gospel. Biblical scholar Jamie Clark Soles notes that the Greek words for life and living occur almost 15 times in this passage alone - but they really permeate the entire gospel. [3] And the Greek word for life, zoe, often comes as a part of a phrase, aionios zoe, eternal life, everlasting life. I heard someone once call this “the God kind of life.”
Full life, abundant life, life outside constraints. Life beyond our wildest dreams. Life that’s bigger, bolder, more beautiful than we had even hoped for. Life with bellies and spirits that are overflowing with the nutrients we need to not just survive but thrive.
And so, I ask you today, “How’s your life?”
Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to raise your hand and tell everyone. But I do want you to take the question and tuck it in your pocket for later. Go ahead, fold it up. Tuck it ij. When you can find a quiet moment - by yourself or with a friend - take it out and turn it over in your heart.
How’s your life right now?
If you’re struggling, where can you turn for support? I know you might be one of those people who “doesn’t want to bother somebody else,” but Jesus wants you to have abundant, full, overflowing life. And who are you to argue with Jesus?
Reach out to a friend, a family member, someone from church and let them know you’re going through a hard time. The person you reach out to might not be able to fix it, but there is something healing in just speaking your truth aloud to someone and allowing them to enter into the struggle with you, isn’t there? Jesus said he’s the bread of life and bread is shared around tables - in community. We can be community for each other in the hard times. It’s the way of Jesus.
If your life is pretty great right now - if you have more than enough daily bread - how can you make sure others are filled, too?
Jesus wants us ALL to have abundant, full, overflowing life. Jesus desires for ALL to be nourished, full, healthy, growing, satisfied. And that only happens if those who have more than enough reach out and share what they’ve got with others. We live in a world where systems have been created to keep the poor down and the rich up - but when Jesus was in his mother’s womb he heard her sing a song about God lifting up the lowly and bringing the powerful down from their thrones. Mary sang of a God who filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.
How can you be a part of God’s dream of a world like the one Mary envisioned? Where can you share your resources, time, privilege, and energy to dismantle systems that harm and offer compassionate, urgent care for those who are hurting? The needs are there - and it is my prayer for you that you allow Christ to partner with you in determining where to focus your gifts in serving others.
However your life is right now - great, bad, wonderful, awful, somewhere in between or all of the above at the same time - hear this good news: Christ desires that we have life and have it abundantly. Christ, the bread of life, invites us to take and eat - and to be filled and nurtured and sustained. Christ invites us to abide in him and wants to abide in us. Christ comes to animate us into life.
NOTES
[1] https://www.masterclass.com/articles/wild-yeast-guide
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