Bread of Life

A person described the shattering experience of driving a truck down a rutted track to a collection of grass huts in Haiti recently, and being met by dozens of starving people running silently to the back of the truck with little bowls in their hands.

In 5 minutes 200# of cooked rice had disappeared, and the people drifted back to their huts as silently as they had gathered.

Without that food they may not live and breathe another day, that is how basic.

I am the bread of life, says Jesus.

In addition to mere physical survival, the bread of life is more as well.

Someone will say,”I'm hungry, but I don't know what I want to eat.”, and then goes around trying a little of this and a little of that in life, and never settles on anything significant.

A famous example was St. Augustine, who as a young man was the despair of his mother, dabbling in various schools of philosophy –he was so smart that he could argue brilliantly about most anything – shacking up for awhile, traveling here and there.

He was hungry,really hungry, and came to realize how hungry he was.

The old philosophies did not satisfy, the old debaucheries no longer pleased.

In his autobiography he says that he heard a child singing “Take up and read” and so he took up the scriptures and read the first passage that his eye fell upon, a passage from Romans 13, and then he was firmly on a completely new road.

He became one of the most prominent thinkers and writers in the history of the church, deeply influencing many, including Martin Luther 1,100 years later.

Augustine's hunger was finally satisfied, in the Word of God.

There are many these days who are similarly hungry.

In some ways we need to fill the role that Monica, Augustine's mother, filled for him.

She never gave up on him.

Despite his sometimes foolish ways, she continued to pray for him, and she remained available to him.

It would be far easier for us to close ourselves in and in righteous superiority claim that we have the bread of life as our treasure trove, and obviously “they” – whoever that is whom we are discussing at the moment – doesn't have it.

It is much harder to realize that the bread of life is ours only so long as we are using it or giving it away.

Like the manna of old it cannot be hoarded or used as a reason for bragging.

The bread of life.

A group of people in a cranky mood decided that they were going to have “roast preacher” for lunch.

It is a very easy dish to prepare.

One said this and another said that and someone added “I can't remember a thing from the sermon” and then they really got going.

Until a senior member put a stop to it.

He said, “My dear spouse has prepared thousands of meals that have nourished me over the years.

I would be hard pressed to remember the details of very many of them, but they have done their job, a little bit at a time.

So it is with sermons and lessons week after week. Listen and digest them, and let them work on you from the inside out, and see what God has in mind for us.”

That was a perceptive man, I'd say!

The bread of life.

It is not just about the calories consumed.

It doesn't take long for an observer to see what a difference is made by having the refreshments after the service.

They can be simple or elaborate, but the point is that they get people to slow down for a few minutes and talk as they “break bread” with one another.

The Lord has another chance to work on heart and mind in those conversations, as we care for one another.

The bread of life.

In the past several weeks we have been singing hymns that make the connection between this term bread of life and Holy Communion.

Life is not just a matter of breathing;

truly, the most important part of life is our connection with the Lord Jesus, which is most clearly and regularly expressed in our sharing in the Lord's meal.

This is the case not because the pastor says so, or because the pastor makes Jesus do something he otherwise would not want to do.

It is because it is the Lord's own invitation for us to gather and to make thanksgiving to God with bread and wine in Jesus name and hear his promise “This is my body”, the bread of life.

What a wonderful thing it is, what a joy to follow his express command and promise!

When we are doing so, we are training in how to live with God here, so that we might be able to live with God eternally.

The bread of life, eternal life.

Oh, let's not get stuck on thinking of it as some sort of continuation of this life, a kind of “best of” highlights, with all of the problems and sorry chapters excised.

It is not like the raisings that Jesus performed back there in the Gospel stories, because those folks were merely returned to the same life which they had previously.

The bread for eternal life is for a new creation, a completely made-over existence.

In the Creed we confess: I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come., and this is what we are anticipating, a new creation.

God takes this little bit of bread that we see in our hand and fashions it into the promise of something so wonderful that we can hardly wrap our mind around it.

Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, says the Lord.

It is a new creation, not a continuation of the old creation, but a re-made creation, recognizable to those of the old creation but something new.

More than that we can't say, nor do we need to say.

The bread of life is the bridge between the two forms of life, and that is all we need to know.

It is a matter of faith right now, trusting the promise, and the voice of the one who makes that promise.

There was a house fire and most of the family got out safely, but one little girl appeared at an upstairs window.

In the smoke and darkness, she could not see her father on the ground below, although he could see her.

He called, ”Let go, Susan, I'm right here and I'll catch you.”

Finally, she trusted his voice, letting go, falling through the darkness into the safety of her father's arms.

This is what happens when we die; letting go, trusting the voice that promises the bread of life eternal at the great and final banquet.

…......

About this point someone will surely say:

Now pastor, you have been talking about bread of life as physical bread,

as the written word of God in scripture,

as the spoken word of God in sermon,

as the acted-out word of God in Holy Communion,

as the performed word of God in our lives together,

as the promised great and heavenly banquet, and more.

Now which is it?

Which do you mean?

Which is the right definition?

And you know what my answer is going to be.

Yes.

With wonderful ambiguity and multiplicity, we appropriate all of them at the same time!

We began today by asking if the term bread of life scientific prose or more akin to poetry.

And so we'll close by looking at a stanza of the hymn we sing next.

We sing of the church's one foundation, that....

One holy name she blesses,

Partakes one holy food,

And to one hope she presses

With every grace endued. [LBW369.2]

Yet she on earth has union

With God the Three in One,

And mystic sweet communion

With those whose rest is won.

[LBW369.5]

You hear how the poet has woven together the various strands of meaning of the term bread of life from the present and the future in one seamless whole!

And the purpose of treasuring this bread of life is clear as he ends the hymn:

Lord, save us by your grace,

That we, like saints before us

May see you face to face. Amen.

[LBW369.5]

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.