Once
upon a time, a long time ago, the Hebrew people found themselves slaves in
Egypt. Pharaoh was cruel and jealous and heaped hardship upon hardship upon
them, forcing them to build his cities. And as they labored they called out in
their distress and God heard their cries and sent Moses to free them from
slavery. After much intersession on the part of Moses and a long affair
consisting of 10 miraculous plagues, Pharaoh finally agreed to allow the Hebrew
slaves to go free. The Hebrew people hurriedly gathered their things and left
as quickly as possible. Only to have Pharaoh change his mind, chasing them all
the way to the red sea where God parted the sea allowing the Hebrews to pass
safely to other side, collapsing it back in on itself and covering Pharaoh’s
army in water.
And
thus the Hebrew people made their exodus from Egypt. Once on the other side,
they met God at a mountain, where Moses, serving as mediator between God and
people, laid down the ground rules for their relationship. A Covenant was
formed and they became the People of God, trusting and relying on God from that
day forward. And thus began their journey through the wilderness back to the
land God had given to their ancestor Abraham.
Since
they had left so quickly they had not brought enough food with them to carry
them through their long journey. So, they became completely reliant upon God
for the very food they needed to survive. The food God provided for them was called
Manna, which was a word which literally meant “what is this?” But it was also
called Bread from Heaven. For the Hebrew people the Bread from Heaven, provided
by God, was the ultimate example of what it meant for the people of God to be
totally and absolutely dependent upon God for all things. During their desert
wanderings they had no other option than to rely upon God for their daily sustenance.
God fed them and it was through God’s provision they were able to live as they
journeyed toward the Promise Land.
When
Jesus says that he is the Bread of Heaven, to the people who had gathered to
listen, he is quite obviously making an allusion to Manna. He is telling those
listening to him that he is spiritual sustenance sent by God to provide them
with the spiritual food they need to be the people of God. Jesus is the Bread of
Heaven; he is food in the desert, is the Manna. He is that which keeps the
people of God alive throughout their treacherous journey. In short Jesus is
life. But not just any kind of life, not life barely eking by, scraping and
scratching at the edges, just barely carving out existence, but true life; life
that matters, life that is worth living, can only be found in him and provided
by him.
Although
it is not found in this gospel, Jesus being the daily bread which sustains us
and brings life to us, can bring new meaning to the Lord ’s Prayer when we say,
“. . . give us today our daily bread. . .”we pray every week. When we say this,
what comes to mind first is food, of the actual stuff we need to make it
through the day, of physical sustenance. Perhaps we make think of it as
slightly metaphorical, taking it to mean all the things we need from day to
day. So in asking Jesus for our daily bread is asking for him to provide the
things we need to make it through each day. But if Jesus is bread, the bread that matters,
the bread that truly feeds, that adds a whole new dimension to this request. When
we are asking Jesus to give us the bread we need for today, we are asking the
One who is the very Bread of Life to give us spiritual food. What we are
actually asking is, “Jesus provide us with all that we need to be spiritually
healthy, to be fed and satisfied spiritually today (and everyday) by you and you
alone.”
“Help us to not find our spiritual sustenance
in anything or anyone other you.”
“Give
us today what we need to be the
people you are calling us to be.”
“Give
us this day our daily Bread!”
“Give
us you, all of you, exactly what we need of you! Oh, Lord Jesus, feed us today!”
(pause)
Thinking
about eating, makes me think of something that I am sure is happening in many
and varied places all across this country, perhaps even the world; almost every
day; somewhere, sometime, there is a child sitting before a meal, displeased
with green broccoli, white cauliflower, red peppers, slimy spinach, stinky
Brussel sprouts, horribly round and smooshy peas. And as she kicks her feet and
shuffles in her seat she rolls those peas around her plate or presses them with
her fork. An adult, nearby, is inevitably extolling the virtues of vegetables,
explaining the importance of the vitamins and minerals they provide. And at any
given moment at least one of those adults is saying, “You are what you eat.” I
am sure that at least one of those children is thinking to herself, “I’d rather
be a jelly donut.”
I
cannot say with any certainty, if Jewish Mothers at the time said anything
similar to their children in the first century, but I can say, that the idea
that eating something making that thing a part of a person; that is in the
eating one assimilates that thing into one’s being, was a pretty common
thought. The first century hearer of Jesus’ word would understand the sentiment
behind, “you are what you eat,” even if they had never really heard it put that
way. Assimilating Jesus into our being is exactly one of the ideas we are to
hear when Jesus is speaking about being the bread of Heaven saying, “those who
partake of me, ‘will abide in me and I in them.’”
If
Jesus is the Bread of Heaven, it is in him that all humanity will find Life.
Just as assuredly as eating literal bread will provide sustenance, and that
sustains physical life, eating the Bread of Heaven, will provide nourishment
for our spiritual lives. Eternal life, true life, is lived in Jesus and is lived
by partaking of him, so that we become a part of him and he becomes a part of
us.
The
call of every follower of Christ is to assimilate Jesus into our lives and to
be assimilated by Jesus. To put it in a way with which you maybe more familiar
hearing, we are all called to live in personal, intimate relationship with
Jesus Christ, doing everything we can to draw closer to Jesus and to strengthen
our relationship with him.
When
missionaries go to other countries, one of the things we talk about is how well
they assimilate into the culture. How well to they become like the people in
their new country, speak their language, understand their cultural assumptions,
come to see and understand how the people in that country interact with the
world around them as well as with one another. It is about becoming more and
more like the people to whom you are attempting to bring the gospel.
When
we speak of followers of Jesus assimilating Christ into their lives, we are
talking about becoming more and more like Jesus. Allowing ourselves to be made
over in Jesus’ image, so that we act like Jesus, we talk like Jesus, we love
like Jesus and forgive like Jesus. So we are what we eat and if we eat Jesus we
become more like Jesus. So that day by day, by partaking of Jesus, we become
more and more like him in all things.
In
a manner of speaking our spiritual lives need food as much as our body does,
and often times, whether intentional or not we are continually partaking of
something that feeds this part of who we are. We are filling ourselves up, and
in doing so we are assimilating those things into our lives. We are always
consuming something, the books we read, the TV we watch, the conversations we
have, the very things with which we fill our lives, which we find valuable, our
stuff, our jobs, our positions, all the things by which we define ourselves and
allow to define us. And if we are not intentionally filling ourselves up with
the things of Jesus and purposely assimilating Jesus into our lives, we will begin
to look like all the other things we are consuming. If we partake of healthy
food, we will be healthy, and if all we eat is junk, well then, we will become
a jelly donut.
We
need to fill our lives with the things of God. There are amazing books out
there written by gifted Christian writers that are written to encourage us on
our spiritual journeys, novels, memoirs, biographies and journals of great
followers of Christ who have gone on before. There are devotionals written to
give daily encouragement, as well as books that are written to help us on our
faith journeys. And of course there is the good ole fashion idea of just
reading the Bible and seeking to gain understanding of God’s calling upon our
lives by reading scripture often and at length. There are Bibles set up to help
you read through the Bible in a year or chronologically or reading programs
that can be found on the Internet that will give you passages to read for your
edification and spiritual growth, to be read each day. One person I met even
just found a new translation each year and worked to read through it. And of
course there is prayer, so many different ways to pray, the traditional
kneeling by the bed each night and each morning, beginning and ending each day
talking to God. There is praying through drawing or while listening to music,
or praying scripture, such as praying psalms or the Lamentations, as well as
praying through journaling, writing down your prayers. There so many things out
there that can be done while praying to help focus your mind and keep you from
becoming distracted. All these things are ways of consuming Christ,
assimilating Jesus into our lives so that we can become more and more like
Christ in our thoughts and in our attitudes, in all we do, in all we say.
Now
I am not saying that we are not to watch TV, listen to our favorite music,
partake in deep conversation with our non-believing friends or consume all the
good books there are in the world. But, I am
saying, “all things in moderation.” Eating one jelly donut, even one jelly
donut every day will not necessarily do you in. But a dogged pursuit of jelly
donuts will make you look like a jelly donut physically and spiritually. Partaking
of nutrient rich foods that will give your body the things is needs to be
healthy on a regular basis, along with jelly donuts in moderation is what I am
talking about. I am saying do not just consume the smorgasbord that our culture
and our world provides but partake intentionally of the things of God filling,
your spirit with things that will make you spiritually healthy and cause you to
look more like Christ instead of more like a facsimile of all that this world
has to offer.
We
need to be careful about how much junk we take into our beings. And be fine
connoisseurs of what we are partaking as spiritual food. Filling ourselves up on
sugary sweets, even if the sugary sweets are cookies shaped like fruit, they
are still sweets. Likewise be careful, even
wary, of things that dress themselves up as spiritual food but are
really only cross shaped donuts. There is a lot of Christian fluff out there.
Reading some cheesy Christian fiction is one thing, but partaking of that as
the staple food of your spiritual life is another thing altogether. Read some
fluff, but also read your Bible, a good devotional or something by Chrysostom,
Theresa of Avila, or one C. S. Lewis’s works of non-fiction. Our goal is to
consume Christ and the things of Christ so that we can be assimilated by Christ
and assimilate the things of Christ into our lives, becoming more and more like
him in everything. For those of you who have come to our annual retreats this
is what the spiritual disciplines are all about, including practises into our
daily, weekly and yearly lives that will help us become more like Christ.
As
we listen to Jesus’ words today, many of us cannot help but think about the
Lord’s Supper. When we partake of communion, we are partaking of the body and
blood of Jesus Christ. In the communion liturgy today, we will talk about Jesus
being our spiritual food and about being made one with him. As Mike pointed out
last week, although the original hearers of Jesus’ words would not have thought
of communion when he said these words, because this is before the last supper
and before his death and resurrection, the early readers of John, just like
ourselves, would have immediately connected Jesus’ words here to the Eucharist.
“Take this, it is my body.” “Drink this is it my blood.”
As
we come to the table we are re-enacting the death of Christ so that we will
never forget the sacrifice he made for us, but we are also reminding ourselves
of these two things. When we eat the
bread and drink of the cup, we receive them as the flesh and blood of Jesus
Christ and in doing so we are partaking of Jesus as spiritual, consuming him,
eating him. In so doing we are reminded that Jesus is our bread, our food, our
sustenance. In the Lord’s Supper we remember that we can only find spiritual
life by partaking of Jesus. He is the Bread of Heaven, feeding us, giving us
what we need, providing for us and giving us today eternal life, as we consume
him. The Christian life is one that is lived in total reliance on God, and
requires that we take all that God provides so that we can live, so we are able
to be the people Jesus is calling us to be.
Through
the Eucharist are in a sense partaking of Jesus, and in doing so we are taking
Jesus into us, allowing ourselves to be assimilated by Jesus and assimilating
Jesus into ourselves. By join together in communion we are affirming our desire
to become one with Christ, to daily become better and better images of Jesus
Christ becomes the very core of our being. In communion we are becoming the
people of God united together and united with Christ, by bringing Christ into
our very beings, consuming of Christ and allowing that consumption to shape who
we are down to the very core of ourselves so that inside and out we become more
and more like Christ.
As
we hear the teachings of Jesus here, we can have one of two reactions which are
also found in our scripture this morning. We can say, “This teaching is
difficult,” it is too hard, we cannot accept it. It is too much! Maybe, our
problem is that partaking of Jesus sounds too risky, or too strange. Perhaps we
are not willing to make a diet of the things of Christ. We like the things we
are already eating. We like the things with which we are filling our lives. We
are like the little girl looking at her peas. We know they are good for us, we
have heard all the reasons we should eat them. We know that they will bring
health, wholeness and well-being. We know that we should read the Bible more,
make a point to read more of the things written by Christian authors, make more
time for prayer, for journaling, for listening to God, but we really don’t want
to. We would rather keep things the way they are. The idea of being a jelly
donut sounds more appealing than becoming more like Christ (not to mention
easier).
The
other response we can have this morning is that of Peter, “Lord, to whom can we
go? You have the words of eternal life.” Jesus has just told us that life can
only be found in him. Jesus has explained to us that the only true sustenance
that can be found can only be found in him, the bread of Heaven. We realize
that without him we will starve; without him there is no life. So we instead of
rejecting the bread that is offered we turn to him and say, “Give me more!”
Like the woman at the well we respond by desiring all we can get. We say, “Let
me eat of you and be satisfied, let me never be hungry again.”
This
response has us coming to the Lord’s Table this morning hungry, ready to eat.
Ready to declare through the Eucharist, by partaking of Christ through
communion that life can only be found outside of him, that we rely on him for
all things, for all sustenance and for all nourishment, that we want to become
one with him, and with his body by partaking of him in this manner. If this is
your response, come, come let us eat together, let us join the feast of God and
partake together of the bread of Heaven, let us become one with Christ in
Christ, let us eat and be satisfied, nourished and fed!
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