Penny Bridges
Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” If this first verse of today’s Gospel sounds familiar, it’s because last week’s Gospel ended with this same verse. In fact, we are now in the third week of a series of Gospel readings from John chapter 6, focusing on Jesus as the bread of life. First he fed the crowds with physical bread. Then he started to teach them that what he has to offer is something far more valuable than physical bread: it is the bread of eternal life that faith in God bestows. Today the religious authorities have started to take notice, and they are pushing back. How can this man be bread from heaven? We know him; we know where he lives. How can an ordinary person be something eternal?
The analogy is obvious to us: bread is the most ordinary foodstuff in the world; every community of human beings relies on some form of bread for their most basic nutrition. But the divine bread that Jesus offers, the bread of eternal life, bread that comes from heaven, is anything but ordinary. This is where the age-old struggle begins: how can Jesus be both God and man? How can a person of flesh and blood also be the eternal Word through whom all things were created? It is the inability to accept this truth that eventually leads to Jesus’s death; and it has repeatedly been the source of schism in the Christian church through the centuries.
Jesus says that nobody comes to him unless the Father draws them. In fundamentalist circles this is sometimes interpreted to mean that you can’t be a Christian unless God invites you in, a very exclusive way of understanding our faith. But let’s look more closely at that. God draws us to Godself. In the original language, this word, draw indicates effort, like dragging or hauling. Much later in John’s Gospel it’s the word used when the risen Christ has told the disciples to throw their nets over the other side of the boat, and they can barely haul in the nets because they are so heavy with the catch. It’s also used elsewhere in the NT to describe Paul being dragged out of the Temple by a mob, or Christians being dragged into court. Its use suggests that the thing or person being dragged or drawn is at best inert and most likely resistant.
So maybe, instead of what we read in our translation, we might hear Jesus saying, “Nobody comes to me unless the Father drags them kicking and screaming.” That feels much more authentic to me, knowing how hard we can resist God’s free gift of grace. And look at the community surrounding Jesus when he says this: they refuse to accept what he is saying. How can he offer them bread from heaven, they ask? Everyone knows there is no such thing as a free lunch. But what is Jesus asking in return for this bread from heaven? Absolutely nothing, just that we be hungry for it.
Perhaps the hardest part of the life of faith is learning to trust that we are worthy of this free gift, that our hunger is the ticket to eternal life, that we don’t have to accumulate brownie points or be perfect people before Jesus will love us and accept us. But I should also point out that accepting the free gift does carry an obligation, to respond by living our lives in a way that honors Christ. And I refer you to the epistle to the Ephesians for a user manual for faithful living.
We are to live into the promises of our baptism. We are to put away the old and take on the new. Whether we were baptized as infants or made our first commitment at last year’s Easter Vigil, we can experience the renewal of baptism over and over throughout our lives. We can use opportunities like the renewal of baptismal vows, reaffirmation, private confession, even a birthday or a new year, to mark a new beginning, making a commitment to change our life in some way, large or small, to grow into the full stature of Christ.
This is a bit of a digression, but when Paul writes “putting away all falsehood, let us speak the truth to our neighbors”, I have to acknowledge the difficulty of discerning what is true, especially in our world of online media. Artificial Intelligence makes it harder every day; so do scams and hoaxes like the “lost dog” posts or the emails and texts purporting to come from clergy that start, “I need a favor, but don’t call me back …”. Our first reaction in this day and age has to be, “Is this real?”
For those of us who have spent most of our lives assuming that we could trust mass media outlets, this is a hard learning. I hate having to assume the worst of people. But I am having to learn to be a skeptic about the words and images that people share. No matter how cute or heartrending the picture may be, it might still be a lie; and we are called to speak truthfully to our neighbors.
OK back to the Gospel. The essential message that Jesus is trying to get across in this chapter of John, is that what he is offering us is something that will bring a new quality of life to the world. It is the bread of life, the life of the world, the bread that is Jesus living among us. Just as chewing on bread keeps our bodies alive, so chewing on the Word of God as we encounter it in Jesus gives us life in the spirit, life in abundance, eternal life, in the here and now.
We consume bread to sustain physical life, and we consume Jesus to sustain our life in the spirit. And we consume Jesus in several ways: through the sacrament of the Eucharist, through his words passed down to us in Scripture, and through his presence made known to us in every member of the body of Christ, the church.
The shape of our Eucharistic liturgy is not an accident. We enter the near presence of God with songs of praise. We hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the word of God, first through the prophets and apostles and then through Jesus himself in the Gospel. We contemplate that word, guided by the preacher, who opens up the word through informed personal interpretation, so that we too can find our own way of receiving that word. We pray for ourselves and for others. We confess our sins, and once assured of God´s forgiveness we can offer one another the reconciling Peace of God.
The first part of the Eucharistic prayer reminds us of the great history of salvation, from creation to the resurrection of Jesus and on to his second coming. The sacrament that follows carries meaning only because of what has come before. We can receive the bread of life, the flesh and blood of Jesus, because we have heard his words, practiced reconciliation, and prepared ourselves for union with him. Only then can we possibly expect to become the body of Christ in the world. At the end of the service the deacon sends us forth to be companions for one another – a word that literally means those who eat bread together.
Just as the food we eat changes us, so the heavenly food that we eat changes us too. We receive the Eucharist believing it in some way to be the flesh and blood of Jesus, and it changes us. It changes us individually and it changes us corporately. As one writer puts it, “We eat Jesus as the bread of life so that he can enter into us, transform us from within, so we can perform in the world the healing, nurturing ministries he makes possible. Jesus has become our food so we can be a source of nurture for others.” Norman Wirzba “God the Gardener” in Yale Divinity School’s Reflections Fall, 2014.
Some theologians insist that the Eucharist is valid only when wheat is used to make the Host. In fact, the website for our communion wafer supplier has a disclaimer in the description of their gluten-free option: “it is considered invalid material for the Catholic Mass”. We Episcopalians have a different take: just as Jesus used the most ordinary, most readily available materials, so Christians in different parts of the world can use whatever comes to hand for the Eucharist. And if wheat makes you sick, it’s OK to substitute something else, because our God is a loving God who doesn’t want anyone to suffer, especially not at the hands of the church. Here we should experience nothing that doesn’t illustrate God’s endless, unconditional, life-giving and liberating love for all of God’s children.
It is that love that forms the basis of all life, that sustains all of creation. Whether it’s our daily bread on the dinner table, our symbolic bread at the Communion steps, or the spiritual nourishment we receive from this community of faith, God’s love gives us all we need to live in fullness and abundance. And there is enough to go round. There is no reason for anyone to go hungry in this world, if only we make the commitment to share what we have with those who have less.
The really miraculous thing about love is that the more you share it, the more you have to give away, just like the few loaves and fishes that turned into baskets and baskets of food. And so, once again we take our cue from St. Paul, to “Live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” Come, eat, and enjoy the abundance of life in Christ.
