Trinity XIII (B) [proper 16] – Sunday 25th August 2024 – St Anne’s, Wrenthorpe (Eucharist)
John 6:56-69
Well here we are, finally, at the end of the loaf… the final crust! Or perhaps just a bag of crumbs. We may even be mouldy, and not even good enough to give to the ducks – although of course we shouldn’t give bread to ducks…
Sorry, where was I going with this?
Ah, yes, today is our fifth and final session from John’s Gospel, where the Evangelist uses the metaphor of bread to show us the way to Jesus.
We have probably all heard these passages here, and around the Benefice, from various of my colleagues, in different ways.
From feeding five thousand or more hungry tummies with a simple picnic, to the crowds wanting much more but not knowing what. Jesus tells them that the bread they need is Himself….
Then, like everyday commonplace bread, Jesus’s detractors dismiss Him as being nothing special – just Jesus, whose parents we know.
Again, He says, that He is the Living Bread. Believe and live!
And with the ever present reminder, to those following Him, of their ancestors needing sustenance in the Wilderness…. Manna from heaven… Desperate hunger met with a gift from God.
John repeats the message: Jesus, as body and blood is as food and drink – and again today, the language of non-kosher cannibalism! It’s no wonder that this was a pivotal moment for some…
And equally, no wonder that John wants us to understand this… to see a relationship with God, in Jesus, in this different way.
Bread is ubiquitous – there is bread, or something like bread, in most cultures, amongst most peoples, and their everyday food.
Whether it’s cheap, white sliced, still cold out of the freezer – or warm, fresh, sourdough baked by elves in some tiny artisan bakery you’ve never heard of….
We know bread! The feel and texture, the aroma and taste…..
I am more than happy to talk about my lifelong love for toast, sandwiches, other scrummy bread-related snacks… but I doubt that any of us would gain much, if anything!
Bread is everywhere, yet is it available to everyone?
What if you cannot or will not eat of it?
What if bread is bad for you?
For some bread leads to illness – Gluten intolerance and coeliac etc.
What if it is beyond your means to have bread?
I think of how morality is often illustrated with value judgments comparing the theft of a loaf of bread with the theft of well, pretty much anything else!
John’s narrative has Jesus using language that speaks of the physicality of eating – consuming, taking within the body – as if, in so doing, Jesus physically abides within.
This metaphor has its limits, and perhaps Jesus knew that it would be too literal and too repellent for some…
Perhaps the many “followers” – those who would have clicked “like” whilst scrolling through Jesus’s “posts” on Discipleship – perhaps they found what Jesus was now saying to be too hard to absorb and to live by….
It’s that moment, when you realise you are being asked to do more than you thought you would have to do, to be a ‘member’ of something… when what was being presented to them would take them beyond comfort and the everyday….
They were now past the amazing picnic that was so popular … now they had to wrestle with the idea that ‘consuming’ Jesus was literal in that it meant that they would abide in Him – and He in them – and all in God.
Now that’s a Big Ask….a tough call, no “influencer” in the history of humankind could make that request of someone…. For it to be a good thing…. A life affirming choice….
Sometimes we want certainty, simple clarity, facts, knowledge and basically the whole thing sketched out neatly with all the colours inside the lines!
With God, it’s not like that….
With Jesus…. you can kiss all that goodbye!
Yet, the crowds in their desperation for something better, want Jesus to be something He cannot be…. Those that follow Him are hoping for easy teaching, to see Jesus lead them forward….
Speaking in the synagogue He makes connections between heaven and Himself.
He uses the term Son of Man – ascending to Heaven…. In other words, Jesus is both God and Man… in the flesh and yet beyond the flesh….was that any easier for them to grasp?
Apparently not!
John tells us that several of the followers turn away.
The Twelve remained – they had at least some context, having been with Jesus for a while and hearing Him speak in parables and stories and riddles and metaphors… they had some experience, but not everyone ‘gets’ the message!
Well…. Be honest… would you? Would we? I cannot be sure that I would have…
And then Peter speaks with a confidence that probably surprised them all:
“…We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’”
Wow!
Now, I am not particularly good at ‘the testimonial’ – speaking about my journey of faith… or at least I wasn’t. I feel a bit more confident and articulate now, but as a younger Christian, the idea of speaking about ‘coming to faith’ just didn’t make sense!
And if I heard anything remotely ‘evangelical’ or scriptural, pushing against my self-confidence or moral difficulties, I ran away.
We are not always ready to hear Jesus or, as is often the case when we are at least open to Jesus – we don’t always receive His words in the way that we think we should. What are we missing? What have we misunderstood? Is this the right direction to travel?
Not all journeys to Discipleship are the same. We may not turn back but we might pause for a while… God calls us in His own time.
I wonder how we have received this season of bread?
What does it mean to us and how can we share this teaching with others?
I said earlier that for me to speak about my own love of bread would probably not be our best experience. However, on reflection….
I struggled with eating for all of my earlier years. It was a control thing that later, my therapist associated with me having been adopted. In the late 1970’s I was at boarding school, which, in its entirety, was awful. Mealtimes were a nightmare. Food was poor and I struggled to eat with others. I was permanently hungry.
In the afternoons, at exactly four o’clock, our house-mother issued cereal, in a mug, with milk from a churn, and two slices of bread. We had an electric hotplate…. And a coat hanger.
The joy of toast and cereal was a true celebration. Not just to take away hunger but as a light in the darkness; of self-care, of a private enjoyment of food. A little bit of hope.
This is not an illustration of hardship but hopefully one of complexity – human needs are not always simple and we shouldn’t dismiss or disregard our physical bodies, on our spiritual journey. Jesus doesn’t .
We are very familiar with the concept of a meal as celebration! Christmas, Easter, other life events… I think also of America and Thanksgiving, a memory meal – when having lived with adversity, with nothing taken for granted… and then hope and celebration!
We have that here – today and… most Sundays…only better!
And yes, we might have difficulty with some of the language and images that Jesus used. We may also struggle with the concepts of “Body” and “Blood”, in the liturgy of the Eucharist. In fact, the whole idea of bread and wine becoming flesh and blood may be something we avoid talking about, or we may have very strong views, which might not always stand up to scrutiny.
In a short while, when we come forward to receive bread and wine, what happens?
What is it we seek?
With your hands outstretched, what do you want?
What do YOU bring?
We bring ourselves – all of us, our joys and woes, the people on our hearts, we bring our faith and our trust. We might all bring our failure and our misunderstanding in living the Way that Jesus encouraged.
What does He say?
“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” (56)
Eating his flesh is not some weird cannibalistic ritual. It is about partaking in his nature. When we extend our hands to receive bread at communion, we are saying ‘Yes, we need you. We need more than the everyday, more than our limited and limiting worldly perspectives.
When someone asks you about what we do at church, tell them about Eucharist – the bread and wine… yes, it’s a memory meal, a spiritual encounter with Jesus at The Last Supper…. But it’s also a way for Jesus to be ‘one’ with us – and us with Him – physically.
We rarely share anything too crunchy or bread-like….! And the wine is ok….but it’s a real moment. A real encounter.
Flesh and blood are life – living bodies are made of such things. God seeks a relationship with us and we bring our bodies – sometimes whole, sometimes broken, always in need – to the Christ that says “…the one who eats this bread will live forever” (58).
May the bread of life abide with you this coming week.
Amen.
Image: Sliced Bread by Mk.S on Unsplash