July 29, 2018: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
I love that line in the gospel today where it said “Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all.” Sounds like a description of Woodstock to me. It also sounded like my yard yesterday, since it was the first time I could get out and mow it since the great flood of July 2018. Of course, none of this has anything to do with where this sermon is heading, but that shouldn’t be a big surprise to you by now, right?
It is late July heading into August in our lectionary Year B – when we take a break from the gospel of Mark and hear five weeks of John 6, which make us all begin to think about dusting off that bread maker we bought years ago. Yup – we are about to take our triennial dive into the Bread of Life discourses – the time when we hear about Jesus, bread, and more Jesus, and more bread…and, when most of us preachers head out for a vacation from it all (kidding – sort of).
But you have to ask yourself – why on earth does this gospel have Jesus talking about this over and over again? Why is it the church wants us to hear about it over and over again? Good questions, and I think we all know the answer too, because as many of us know from business – if you want people to hear a message – really hear it – you have to repeat it again and again, in as many ways as possible. They say it takes 7 of these iterations for any one person to have a message sink in. Apparently, Jesus and the authors of this gospel knew this long before management consulting for businesses became a thing.
Jesus feeds the 5,000 in the gospel today. Not a surprise to us really, we know he can do that, but certainly to those there…the ones who received what he offered – this was indeed a life changer because they never had experienced it before – so much so that they wanted to grab him and make him a king. But why is it important? Why is Jesus feeding the multitudes – Jesus as the bread of life (something we don’t hear explicitly this week, but look out…it’s coming) why is that so important?
I am reminded of a book given to me a few years ago by Sr. Pamela, one of the nuns in the Community of St. John Baptist, the Episcopal convent here in Mendham, New Jersey, where I am an Associate. The book was Sleeping With Bread, by Dennis, Sheila, and Matthew Linn. In the book, they tell this story “During the bombing raids of World War II, thousands of children were orphaned and left to starve. The fortunate ones were rescued and placed in refugee camps where they received food and good care. But, many of these children who had lost so much could not sleep at night. They feared waking up to find themselves once again homeless and without food. Nothing seemed to reassure them. Finally, someone hit upon the idea of giving each child a piece of bread to hold at bedtime. Holding their bread, these children could finally sleep in peace. All through the night the bread reminded them, “Today I ate and I will eat again tomorrow.”
Today I ate and I will eat again tomorrow.
How many of us never have to think about that?
And here’s the thing…you know how those children had bread beside them in their dreams, and bread to eat in the morning? It was, as the story is told, because adult refugees shared their bread with them.
This is the very essence of the gospel.
You know, there is no institution of the Lord’s Supper in the gospel of John – that’s found only in the synoptics of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These next several weeks are as close to it as we get in this gospel, a meal rooted in his life. Over and over again in these next few weeks we will hear that Jesus is the very bread given to those who hunger – he is the bread of life. It is the Eucharistic feast, the same as what we experience here.
We are fed at this table. Jesus nourishes us, fills us with grace, strengthens us in love. When we gather here, there is enough for everyone – all people – no exclusions, no exceptions – everyone is welcome at this table. As I say in the invitation, “this is not our table to control, this is God’s table, come to this table to eat and drink.” What we receive here is the very bread we are able to sleep with, resting in the knowledge of God’s love, and knowing that there is enough…there will always be enough.
So that brings forward something I want us all to pray about in the coming weeks. Every Sunday as you hear Jesus talking about bread, as you come forward to this table, I ask that you think about what it is you are receiving – really open your heart to it, let it rest on your tongue a bit – and ask yourself “what is that?” No really, I want you to shake yourself up out of whatever normal way in which you receive and embrace it as though you have never received it before, just like the 5,000.
Because there is a reason Jesus and this gospel repeat this message over and over again. And it is this: with that bread – with Jesus – we are made one with Him. We are the body of Christ. We are the bread of life given for the world. And nourished in His love, we must then feed others. And that is not only important, it is the essence of our faith – no wonder Jesus and the authors of this gospel want to drive it into our very souls. It is a message the world needs us to hear – needs to hear themselves.
You know, they say you are what you eat right? In which case, I am likely to look an awful lot like a pizza to you right now. Thankfully, that is just a metaphor for us to understand that what we take in affects our bodies – sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. This is true as well for everything else we take in. If we are bombarded with hate, anger, betrayal, pain…if we absorb that into our systems, we will be that in the world. If we are showered with love, joy, hope, and forgiveness, we will be that in the world.
The world is sadly filled with an onslaught of darkness, breeding more darkness. Jesus knew this too – that is why he fed them…and why he feeds us still – that we, taking into our very bodies His body, taking into our very souls, His love, we will become what we are called to be in our baptism – Him in the world. We will be the light that brings about more light and dispels the darkness. We will be the bread that feeds the hungry of the world.
And what does that look like for us?
I saw a Facebook meme posted yesterday that had a quote – not attributed to anyone – that read “I screamed at God for the starving child until I saw the starving child was God screaming at me.”
God is calling out to us indeed to open our eyes, our ears, our hearts, to the hungry among us. When we eat this bread – this bread of life – the body of Christ, we are strengthened to be what we were baptized to be – the body of Christ in the world. And that means we need to feed the multitudes in our midst. We need to look for the hungry in our communities – the people hungry physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We must find them, feed them, give over our bread to them, be the bread of life they need. If we do not do this, then we are not a church at all. If we do not do this, then we are not really taking in what happens here at this table.
“The German theologian, Helmut Thielicke, used to tell the story of a hungry man passing a store with a sign in the window, “We Sell Bread.” So the hungry fellow goes into the store, puts some money on the counter, and says, “I’d like to buy some bread.” The women behind the counter replies, “Why, I’m afraid there’s been some mistake. We don’t sell bread.” “The sign in the window says that you do,” the hungry man says, irritated. The clerk then explains. “We make signs here like the one in the window that says ‘We Sell Bread.’ But we don’t actually make bread.” But, as Thielicke concludes, a hungry man can’t eat signs. Is this what the church is doing today. Making signs instead of offering bread?”[1]
Is this who we are – a sign maker – wearing and bearing crosses but not living into his life? Or, are we the body of Christ alive in the world today? This is a question we must always ask.
So, in the weeks ahead, let us consider this meal we take, and and ask God “who are those I am called to feed? Who, God, do you need me to see, and offer the bread of life?” Let every one of us when we leave here look for the hungry among us – the ones starving for food, for affection, for warmth, for freedom, for justice. Let us do this, and then, I ask every one of you to consider a way in which we, as a faith community, can become the bread of life for them.
Talk to your sisters and brothers here – share with them where you have seen hunger around you. Share with one another how we, as the body of Christ, can respond. And then let’s work together in our neighborhood and in the world to feed others as we have been fed.
For as the author of Ephesians makes clear in the passage we heard today – with the power of Christ “within us [we are] able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine.” We feed others here in our food ministry to both people and to animals, in addition to our other ministries. God is asking us to dig a little deeper – to ask, to imagine, and then to act – so we will live even more into who we are, and be all that we can be.
Jesus is the bread that feeds the world, let us feed on Him here.
We are the body of Christ that feeds the world, let others be fed by us.
Amen.
For the audio from the 10:30am service, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here:’
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
July 29, 2018
The Tenth Sunday After Pentecost
1stReading –2 Kings 4:42-44
Psalm 145:10-19
2nd Reading –Ephesians 3:14-21
Gospel – John 6:1-21
