Pentecost 11B (week 2 of Bread of Life)
August 4, 2024
John 6:24-35
INTRODUCTION
Last week we began what is known as the Bread of Life discourse. Each of Jesus’ discourses in John’s Gospel are explanations of some sign, or miracle, he’s performed, so it’s important for our understanding that we recall what that sign was. Anyone remember what we heard last week? [Jesus feeding the 5000.] I’m sure you remember this story – Jesus and the disciples are all out, far away from town, and everyone gets hungry. One boy shares his lunch, and miraculously everyone ends up with plenty to eat, with 12 baskets left over. It is one of Jesus’ seven signs that we see in John’s Gospel.
The next part of the story happens the next day. Folks have gone to pretty great lengths to track down Jesus, and they find him, and today we will be hearing the beginning of the conversation that ensues. As always in John, conversation with Jesus is characterized by a lack of understanding, because Jesus is always talking from up here, in the heavenly realm, and people respond from down here, in the earthly realm. They totally miss what Jesus is really saying, because they are so stuck down in the world of the flesh. Not that we can really blame them. This is tough stuff Jesus is saying. Jesus is totally blowing their minds here.
One more quick comment about our first reading: for Jesus’ disciples, this story of being fed in the wilderness has been the defining story about how God provides. It is so foundational, that it is what the crowd refers to in trying to understand who Jesus is. So listen carefully, and then hold onto that story as you listen to what Jesus says about being the bread of life.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our council has been working with our synod’s Director for Evangelical Mission, Pastor Imani Olear, to do some visioning work for our congregation. I wonder how many of you know our existing vision statement? It is to “spread the word of God, build a strong community, and make the world a better place.” As a part of this process, some St. Paul’s leaders have been working on our “Case Statement” – each of us taking a stab at thinking about questions like, “Who are we? Why does St. Paul’s exist? What is our vision for the future? Who does or will benefit from our vision, and how? Why does our community need our particular vision?” I love these kinds of questions, but they are really hard! This sort of introspection does not come easily to everyone. (I should add, by the way, that if you would like to take a stab at a case statement and answer any of these questions, you are encouraged to! They do need to be completed by this Thursday – if you want to do it, or just talk to me about it, let me know and I’ll make it happen.)
As I’ve worked on it, some of the questions have been straightforward, and some have left me feeling a bit like a deer-in-the-headlights (like, “Huh?”). When that happens, I find it helpful to look at questions like this through a particular lens – often, for me, a biblical one. So today I will walk us through looking at our vision statement, through the lens of our Gospel reading.
First: St. Paul’s has a vision to “spread the word of God.” Seen through the lens of the Bread of Life, we have an answer: we believe that the Word (in this case, the words of scripture, but also Jesus himself, the Word made flesh) nourishes us. And by that, I mean, the word of God sustains us, helps us to grow, to be healthy, to have energy for the task before us. The Word doesn’t perish, like breakfast does by lunchtime, but continually sustains us – and we gain more of these benefits when we regularly partake of it, in the form of scripture-based devotion, Bible study, prayer, worship, or whatever else feeds your spiritually.
As far as our St. Paul’s vision goes, to spread the word of God – if we have a vision of spreading these benefits beyond ourselves, beyond even our congregation – then it goes to follow that we ought to be regularly partaking of it ourselves! How can we give away something we don’t have, after all? How can we share the joy of that vision with others, if we don’t intimately know that joy ourselves?
As I worked on my case statement, and reflected upon how I see this vision playing out at St. Paul’s, I thought: my vision for St. Paul’s is that every member would, by consuming the Bread of Life with intention, be able to identify and articulate how God is moving in their lives, not only in big important moments, but in mundane moments, too. Because when we can do this, God becomes not some divine being on a cloud somewhere, but a being who continues to be active among us. This awareness gives not only sustenance, but purpose to our lives, and also gives us hope, comfort, support, and courage to do hard things. Consuming the bread of life equips us to be a force for goodness and grace in the world. That is what we can gain by living out our vision, “to spread the word of God.” …
The next part of our vision is to “build a strong community.” I guess I had previously thought of this as the community beyond our walls, but now I’ve started to think of it as being our church community – both those already here, and those who may join us at any given time. And in light of today’s Gospel, it is hard not think about “church community” without thinking about meals. Not just church potlucks, but meals like the one Jesus has just provided for them in which 5000 were fed from five loaves and two fish, or the meal Jesus will later institute, which we celebrate here each Sunday, in which we believe we are physically eating “the bread of God come down from heaven to give life to the world.”
I’m really interested in that phrase from John, about the “bread from heaven that gives life to the world.” I don’t think Jesus is just talking here about eternal life – because the bread is coming down from heaven, not bringing us up to heaven. No, I think Jesus is referring here to the life that we crave and seek right here on earth, right now.
So what does that life look like? What does it mean that Jesus “gives life to the world”? I suppose it looks different for different people. But I’d venture to guess that we all find some life and fulfillment in… a sense of belonging. In feeling accepted for being exactly who we are. In being seen and known. In feeling loved. Am I right? That’s the sort of nourishment that endures, that does not perish, and it is worth working toward building!
Now, we can go about getting those things (love, belonging, etc.) in any number of ways, with varying degrees of success. But my vision for St. Paul’s is that we would be seen as a place in the larger community where anyone can come and belong, where they will hear they are loved by God and by us, where they will find rest for their souls, and receive bread for their spiritual journey – not only through Word and sacrament, but through the relationships they experience here. When the bread of God that comes down from heaven gives life to the world, that place of love and belonging is what I imagine life might look like. That is the strong community we have a vision to build. …
Finally, St. Paul’s has a vision to “make the world a better place.” This seems the most straightforward to most of us, I think. We want to make an impact on the world, making lives physically better for people. We do this through our various donations, both of time and resources. We also do this just by being the Spirit-filled, God-encouraged, loving, hopeful, compassionate people we are made to be – the sort of people the other parts our vision enable us to be, having been nourished and sustained by the Bread of Life, and by our place in a community of love and belonging. We make the world a better place by bringing the light of Christ into a world so often threatened by darkness.
So my question on this part isn’t so much what this part of our vision statement means, but rather, why we do it. What compels us to want to make the world a better place? And here, our Gospel reading can again guide us: we do it because we believe in Jesus. “This is the work of God,” Jesus says, “that you believe in him whom [God] has sent.” We believe that the life-changing power of love, of God’s self-sacrificing love for us, calls, compels, and enables us to do it.
And so we strive to live into our mission:
• to partake of and then to share the life-sustaining, nourishing, grace-filled Word of God with a hungry world;
• to do the hard work of building a community of love and belonging;
• to get out there and, by the strength and encouragement of God’s Word and God’s people, to make the world a better place than it would have been without us.
All of this we do because we believe in Christ, who gave everything, even himself, so that we would have this life, so that we would be sustained and nourished – and so that we would know that even when we don’t live into this vision perfectly, that never changes how very much God loves us.
So eat up, my friends. Eat this Bread of Life, always. For whoever comes to Christ will never be hungry.
Let us pray… Bread of Life, you have a big vision for the world and for us. Help us to live into it by feeding the world with your love, by building a community of belonging, and by making the world a better, more light-filled place. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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