Sunday, August 9, 2009
Holy Trinity Episcopal Church
Onancock, Virginia
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.”
We Southerners are very particular people. We’re particular about our traditions, we’re particular about our Ice Tea, and we’re especially particular about our food. You know exactly what I’m talking about. There’s only the proper way to make potato salad, devil an egg, or even fried chicken. Food here in the South is more than just sustaining life, it’s a way of life. It’s a way that we show hospitality and share with one another the fruits of our labor. Now living in England for seven weeks showed me a different side of food. The English are not exactly known for their cuisine, you can only live for so long on fish and chips! Before long, Mary and I were reminiscing about food. Ah, comfort food, the stuff that reminds you of home, of something familiar, of family. Hers was chicken and dumplings and mine was pecan pie and fresh tomatoes! Everywhere we went, we would somehow say to one another, “don’t you miss having such-and-such…” We were in West Yorkshire talking about Southern food. We didn’t go over there for the cuisine, but somehow that follows you. Inevitably, it seems, that you miss the comfort of things you can have easily only once they have disappeared.
Bread is the food that is woven throughout our readings this morning. In the Old Testament lesson we learn from Moses why Israel spent forty years wandering in thedesert. Forty years! Moses tells them that this was in order to humble them, and that in all that time the LORD was there leading them---never allowing the clothes on their backs to wear out or even their tired feet to swell up. They were given manna to eat, a strange new food, in order to teach Israel that they could not live on solely, “in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” Israel lacked the comfort of a home and the comfort of familiar food. And only by God’s grace did Israel survive the long ordeal. Their reward, however, was great. The land God was setting aside for was filled with olive trees, honey, figs, wheat, barley. The land was so rich that the flowing streams of waters were fed by deep wells—wellsprings that will not dry up. This place, this land is where Israel will lack nothing, where they can eat bread without scarcity. This is the gift and promise of God, so long as the commandments are kept.
Bread takes on an even deeper philosophical meaning in John’s Gospel reading. Jesus boldly proclaims, “I am the bread of life.” Jesus is the living bread that came down from heaven. Surely this is not the comfortable food that the disciples,much less even today, we can stomach reasonably. What an astonishing statement. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Consider this familiar statement heard every Sunday: “take eat, this is my body which is given up for you.” I wish the disciples’ reaction to this statement was recorded, probably more eyebrows were raised in the Upper Room than we can imagine. And yet we listen to all this as though we have heard many times before. Nothing seems odd to us about claiming one’s body as food. Yes, intellectually, we know that Jesus is clearly talking about something beyond the daily need of food; perhaps he’s clever at metaphor. But, if we cannot live by bread alone and at the same time we’re to eat the living bread from heaven, then what are we supposed to be eating?
It’s no coincidence that the language of food is used to help us understand in the most basic of ways our need for sustaining life. Feeding the stomach is important; feeding the soul is critical. Bread is one of the most staple items in just about every diet. Christ as the living bread from heaven is the gift from God to the world—just as the promised land was a foretaste of heaven on earth for Israel. All this, however, presupposes our complete and total dependency on God, or as the psalmist writes, “taste and see that the Lord is good, happy are they who trust in him.” You cannot simply feed your stomach and ignore your soul. You’ll surely die. And yet this heavenly bread is not comfort food—it’s not intended to satisfy our sense of building a comfort zone. It is to feed our souls and to spur us to action for the Kingdom. I am afraid that we hear those words so many times, “take eat,” or “give us today our daily bread,” that we use them as a sense of comfort rather than a call to action for Kingdom. The reality is that the Christian life is not a life of comfort. Even here, in this house of worship, there is no safe side of the altar or even a safe pew to hide from the call of Christ to work for the Kingdom. To eat this living bread, to partake in the life of Christ is dangerous work. And yet the rewards, the joy, the freedom of love which this life offers is truly awesome.
The words of Jesus are radical indeed. This bread is subversive to the established powers and principalities of this world. It subverts all the things in this world that are fleeting and flawed, things like power and greed. This bread is celebrated more times than we recite the pledge of allegiance, more times than we pay our taxes, and more times than we vote. The power of Christ is threatening to the powers because they live on bread alone. When we gather to break this bread and celebrate Jesus as the living bread taken, blessed, broken, and given to us and to the world, we are putting our trust in his Kingship and sharing in the powerful nourishment needed for body, mind, and soul. It’s easy to think that we eat Christ in the sacrament, but really it is Christ who consumes us. Hear again the words from this morning’s Collect, “Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will.”
Our joy and our comfort comes from knowing that Christ has made a complete and total claim on our lives, and that we cannot exist otherwise. Our hope is that by sharing in the bread of life, we can be partakers of the Kingdom and serve as Christ’s hands in the world today. We live dangerously as Christians, but we live protected by God’s love and grace which is sustained every time we gather as the Body of Christ. Our comfort comes from trusting God, trusting in God’s ability to nourish us with exactly what we need, never going hungry. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.” Amen.
