John 6:35, 41-51
I am indebted this month to the work of the reverend Lauren Winner in her book “Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Ways of Meeting God,” specifically the chapter of her book about Bread which can be found online via the Image Journal. I commend to you her reflections on the scriptural image of Bread as you reflect on these four Sundays of the “Bread of Life Discourse” in the Gospel of John.
As if to ensure that we have not forgotten where we are in our journey, this week our Gospel passage begins by repeating the closing verse of last week’s passage. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” The famous and enigmatic proclamation of Jesus’s true identity, and a promise that those who come to him will be cared for. This declaration of self-disclosure by Jesus is controversial to his listeners. In stories of God’s encounters with humanity, God has introduced God’s self this way. “I am.” In case we did not catch his meaning, Jesus goes even further, telling his listeners that he has come down from heaven, that he is the one whom God has sent. The people are incredulous. To be so bold as to claim to be heaven-sent to the same people who watched him grow up, the same neighbors who work and live beside his mother and his siblings! Not only does it seem like an outrageous claim to them, but this is dangerous talk, the kind of talk that could attract attention from the authorities of the Roman Empire. It has certainly attracted the attention of the neighborhood, and they are not subtle in their disapproval of Mary’s son’s behavior.
But Jesus does not leave them to their gossip. The Son of God knows that belief is work, that the Gospel often falls on stopped-up ears, and that humanity is often betrayed by our own first impressions. The life and ministry of Jesus pushes past the narrow human vision of identity, past the petty gossip and the religious and political posturing that insist he fall in line and remember his place. He is someone’s son, yes. He has been someone’s brother and neighbor and friend. And within and above all of these roles, he is the sustainer and the source of our salvation, the bread that wards off hunger for power and fulfills us as no earthly striving could.
Knowing that they are complaining about him, understanding that they were talking about him as if he were just another upstart looking for fame, Jesus calls them out, and then he calls them in. Do not complain among yourselves, he tells them. Against this sowing of division, Jesus holds up a mirror. “No one comes to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me…Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” Jesus calls them to look closer, to look for what they know to be true about God, to find in the face of the Son the image of the Father. Jesus calls them in deeper, revealing an invitation that has been freely extended from God throughout the history of creation and finally fulfilled in Christ’s birth. Some will listen, and others will run. And still, Jesus makes room at the table, ready to feed the entire world.
“Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.” The bread of life which sustains beyond all hunger, the belief that quenches beyond all thirst, is truly present, embodied in Jesus. This is the scandal, the impossible claim which is met by either faith or complaint, the truth at the heart of everything. God has not left us for dead. God has given to us something that does not perish, and in this giving God has received us into eternity, freed from the snare of sin and the sting of death. The bread of life has been offered up to us, the table set for our sustenance and our salvation.
This bread that has been given to us is compared to manna, the delicate sweet substance that appeared like dew on the ground in the desert camps of the Exodus from Egypt. This manna is bread for a journey, food that sustains an oppressed people as they journey through wilderness to an unknown land.[1] The seekers wanted Jesus to provide them with bread to eat, as their ancestors had been sustained by heavenly bread. The complainers would rather all this talk of bread come to an end, or at least be taken someplace else where it cannot trouble them further. But Jesus hears in both voices the fear of the wilderness. Jesus knows that he has been sent to call people into a life of journeying, a continuation of the exodus from oppression, pain, and the ways of death. The bread of life, Jesus himself, is as author Lauren Winner so beautifully put it “manna dropped miraculously in our wilderness.” The bread of heaven is journeying bread, a provision for a journey through wild places and a reminder of God’s faithful presence even when we feel lost and unmoored. Jesus is that sustaining bread which fulfills us such that we are capable, though flawed and weak, of living the life he models for us. Jesus is the food which strengthens and unifies us such that we can live in community like the one envisioned by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians. A community founded on truth-telling, of real and honest emotion, of measured speech and work which builds up and builds upon the grace of God within the Body of Christ. The sustaining presence of Jesus, Immanuel, God-with-us, shows us that our kingdom work is possible, that we ourselves are capable and worthy of being called beloved.
This sustenance is not something we can earn or even something we can make. The Divine Love which gives us life is a gift freely given, an invitation freely and unequivocally extended. That same love draws us nearer to itself, through Christ and in Christ and in communion with one another as the Church. Our journeying bread is more than a meal. It is a seal, a promise, and an eternal presence. Lord, give us this bread, we pray. Christ responds by offering us himself. Take and eat. Taste and see. This manna from heaven has been sent to us, to teach us what it is to be truly filled. The life of Jesus, our daily bread, is a charge to the Body, an image of Christ imprinted on his Church. We as church are not called together to be satisfied, but to be broken like bread and given to the world as Christ has given himself for us. We as church are gathered together to be fed, not for our own sakes, but that we might in turn take what remains among us out to feed the hungering world. We come here because we are hungry. God calls us here to remind us that we have been filled. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.
[1] Winner, Lauren. “Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Ways of Meeting God.”
Mother A Writes 