Sermon: “Give Us This Bread Always”

Text: John 6:24-35

18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

August 2, 2009

Scripture introduction.  As it was last week, our second reading this morning is from the 6^th chapter of John’s Gospel.  Last week’s passage included Jesus’ multiplication of the bread and fish to feed the crowd.  I mentioned in the sermon that, as least as John tells it, the point of Jesus’ message is not to show Jesus satisfying the physical needs of the crowd.  Rather, it was an object lesson that sets up and introduces our text for today, in which Jesus, after engaging in some back and forth arguments with the crowd, finally reveals that he is the true bread of life.

The key to the whole passage is the Old Testament story of the manna.[1]  You remember that when the Israelites had fled Egypt and were hungry in the wilderness, God provided a curious food called manna for the people to eat.  They continued to survive on the manna throughout the rest of their 40 years in the wilderness.  In Deuteronomy we read that later, as Moses reflected back upon their time in the wilderness, he told the Israelites that God first had allowed them to feel insecure about their food and then had supplied the manna in order to humble them and make them “understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”[2]  The crowd who had eaten the loaves and who followed Jesus to Capernaum wondered whether the bread was a sign—like the manna in the wilderness—that Jesus would keep feeding them and would supply their other earthly needs and desires.  Jesus agreed with them that the manna story was relevant.  However, he told them they, like their ancient forebears, had missed the point.  The point was not the food they had eaten, but the importance of every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.  Then he told them that he, himself, was the living embodiment of God’s word.[3]  Let’s listen in on this conversation between Jesus and the crowd.  I’ll be reading from the 6^th chapter of John, verses 24-35.

Sermon.  When I was in seminary—I hope I haven’t used this illustration before—my friend and fellow student, Rev. Bessie Hooten, suggested that I undertake a fast.  I had never done this before, so I decided to give it a try.  For four days, Tuesday through Friday morning, I had no food and no drink except water.  The first food I ate was on Friday morning when I took Communion in the morning chapel service at the seminary.  The method we used was by intinction, so I tore off some whole wheat bread and dipped it in the wine.  When I put it in my mouth, it exploded with flavor.  I have never tasted so many different tastes in a piece of bread!  It was the most sensual experience of the Lord’s Supper that I have ever had. 

When we receive Communion eagerly, as if we are truly hungry for its nourishment, we acknowledge our deep need for the grace of God, which we experience in Jesus Christ.  As we approach the elements and consume them, we know that our need is the most important thing and that God’s overflowing grace satisfies our need.  If we are hungry for the food, we do not over-intellectualize what is going on.  We do not speculate about the physical or metaphysical relationship between the bread and juice before us and the body and blood of Christ.  Rather, it is a simple matter: we are hungry, so we eat.  We are needy, and God has provided.

I mentioned that last week’s gospel passage was also from the 6^th chapter of John.  In fact the lectionary stays in John 6 for five consecutive weeks.  One lectionary commentator suggested the reason is that the Roman Catholic church drew up the lectionary originally and that John 6 is perhaps the most central passage for the Catholic Mass.  I’m not qualified to go beyond the basics of sacramental theology among the various denominations.  My rudimentary understanding is that Catholics believe in “transubstantiation,” the transformation (not physically, but metaphysically) of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.  For Lutherans, the word is “consubstantiation,” the presence of Christ alongside the Communion elements.  In the Reformed tradition we would speak of the real, spiritual presence of Christ in the act of Communion.  Of the three formulations, the most physical is probably the Catholic view; and John 6 seems to underscore the physicality.  As our passage for today ends, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.”  Later in the chapter, Jesus becomes even more explicit: “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”[4]  That sounds pretty physical to me—so physical that it’s somewhat off-putting, I think.  And just imagine how it would have sounded to a first-century Jewish audience, who were prohibited under all circumstances from consuming any kind of blood!

But John 6 also gives us another way of understanding Communion.  Many believe that John’s gospel is the result of a combination of several earlier sources.  Just as Matthew and Luke used Mark’s Gospel as they were writing theirs, so the author of John’s gospel probably relied upon and combined other sources in arriving at the final form of John.  What we see in John’s gospel may be the combination of two sources—one with a very physical emphasis and one with a more symbolic emphasis.  Let me show you what I mean.

Going back to our passage for today, the crowd asked Jesus what sign he was going to perform in order to make the people believe.  They and Jesus had been discussing the multiplication of the bread, so the crowd brought up the Old Testament story of the manna.  Implicitly contrasting Jesus with Moses, they quoted loosely from scripture, saying, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”  Jesus responded to them on their own terms—using the classic form of a Jewish midrash, which is a particular method of biblical interpretation.[5]  In effect, he was saying, “You are interpreting the scripture the wrong way.”  You assume that Moses gave you the manna, the bread from heaven, when in fact it was God who was the giver.  Jesus simply supplies a different antecedent for the pronoun “he.” 

Then Jesus moved to the verb, “gave.”  In biblical Hebrew there were no vowels written into the text—only consonants.  The reader had to supply the vowels.  Some Hebrew verbs, including the verb “give,” have the same consonants in the past tense (“gave”) as in the present participle (“is giving”); they are different only in their vowels, which are not written in the text.  Thus, Jesus was saying that the crowd was supplying the wrong vowels.  They should understand that God’s gift of the heavenly bread was not in the past, but rather in the present.  God is giving the bread from heaven.  With this background, Jesus’ reply to the crowd is easier to understand:  “Very truly, I tell  you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives [or is giving] you the true bread from heaven.”

Then Jesus explained what he meant by “true bread from heaven.”  He said, “[T]he bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  Just as manna came down from heaven and gave life to the ancient Israelites, so the true bread from heaven is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.  As the notes to our New Revised Standard Version of the Bible indicate, however, the impersonal phrase “that which” may just as correctly be read as “he who.”  So, as is frequently the case in John, Jesus is speaking in a way that has a double meaning.  When you take it all together, Jesus is claiming that he, himself, is the true bread from heaven because it is he who has come down from heaven and who gives life to the world.

Probably the crowd never understood what he was saying.  That, too, is common in John’s gospel—for persons not to understand the deep meaning in Jesus’ teachings.  It was just too much for them to grasp.  They responded simply, “Sir, give us this bread always,” which sounds as if they were still thinking of the loaves, or at least of manna.

Now, consider this exchange in light of Moses’ famous statement about the manna—that “one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”  Jesus’ point was that he was the word of God.  The manna in the wilderness and the food that Jesus himself had multiplied were simply bread, but he was the true bread that came down from heaven, the word of God by which we are to live.  He gives us life when we live by his word.  The way I understand it, the argument Jesus makes in this part of John 6 is not physical and fleshy.  Indeed, it strikes me as symbolic and cerebral.  Simply put, Jesus, the Word of God, gives us life when we trust in him, when we accept him as God’s son and live according to his teachings. 

Whether it is due to the author using different sources, or for some other reason, chapter 6 of John’s Gospel contains two ways of understanding the phrase, “the bread of life.”[6]  Whoever wrote the Gospel must have thought it important to include both understandings—the intellectual approach and the physical approach.  It’s another example of the richness of Scripture, which always allows for different approaches to basic questions of faith.  While in matters of faith we would never say, “Anything goes,” nevertheless, in orthodox Christianity there is room to accommodate most world views and personality types.  We do not all have to be the same, nor must we think exactly the same, in order to call each other sister and brother in the faith.  Indeed, at different points in our lives, we may experience faith in different ways.  At one time it may be important for us to line up the propositions that we believe and accept, moving syllogistically from one principle to the next.  At other times, we may simply need to be nourished at a basic, organic, level.  God’s grace is big enough to accommodate both.

Today, as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, let us enjoy the “bread of life,” however it nourishes us best.  Someone greater than Moses is here.