|
The Bread of Life. It is a term that we often use at Communion. It actually is from the gospel of John, and is one of those “I AM” statements from Jesus.
I AM the Bread of Life.
I AM the Living Water.
I AM the Shepherd.
I AM the Vine.
I AM the resurrection and the life.
For the next five weeks the gospel reading will slowly march through the whole of chapter 6--where Jesus has a long dialogue talking about what it means to be the Bread of Life. Today’s story sets it all in motion--a familiar story, the feeding of the five thousand.
Did you know that it is the only “miracle” story that appears in all four gospels? (Although in the gospel of John these are not called miracles but “signs” and usually lead to Jesus expounding on what they mean about who he is.)
The story in John is slightly different from the ones we know of in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Did you notice that it is Jesus who decides to feed the people (and it has nothing to do with the time of day)? In the synoptics Jesus asks the disciples to feed the crowd because they have been with them all day and it is drawing near night.
Some commentators have suggested that John is making comparisons between Jesus and Moses. Jesus in the chapter just before has mention Moses saying “he [Moses] wrote about me.”
--Then Jesus goes up a mountain (as Moses did in the wilderness at Mount Sinai).
--John mentions that this is taking place near the Passover, the festival where the story of Moses bringing the children of Israel out of Eygpt is told and retold.
--And now, Jesus is talking about feeding these masses. When Moses had to find food for everyone in the wilderness, he couldn’t do it—and turned to God, who sent manna. Here Jesus is going to feed the people himself. The Bread of Life.
When the people see this sign, this multiplication of the loaves and fishes, they don’t really get it. They think this is another Moses. They say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” But he is more than that.
Did you notice that the little boy had five barley loaves? Barley was an earlier crop than wheat and it was used for fodder for horses, and for bread for the poor. It was not the best, and yet, Jesus makes it enough for the masses with leftovers to spare. This is a sign of who he is.
This abundance that is the Bread of Life is something John has pointed out in the beginning of his gospel, “From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace” (John 1:16). And later on John will have Jesus say, “I came that [all] may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
It is wonderful to know that God can take whatever it is we have to give, and make it so much more than we could ever imagine. But this passage also reminds us of God’s preference for the poor. I think it is no mistake that the one who offers his food is a little child, and one who is marked as “economically disadvantaged” as well, as seen in the type of the food he has.
The Bread of Life is not just an esoteric idea. Jesus intends it to have substance, sustenance, in the real sense of the word. As Mahatma Ghandi said, “There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
In the gospel of John there is no breaking of the bread at the last supper (that we hear about). There is instead washing of the feet. This moment, in the hills, is the special time when Jesus takes the loaves, gives thanks and distributes them to everyone around. Eucharist—giving thanks. The Bread of Life.
It is interesting that John decides to have this image here, in the midst of Jesus’ ministry, not at the end of it. He has it here where there can be focus on life and not death. He has it here so there is time to talk about what it means to be the bread of life, to be I AM.
I am left with the question I so often ask—what does this have to do with us? Of course, we can shift quickly to the Communion Table and the meal that we share each Sunday. Or we can feel good about the work we do in trying to help with hunger issues in our community, and our surrounding area (and we should be proud!).
But I am haunted by a story told by Jana Norman (a minister in South Australia) about a trip she took in seminary. It was to a small village in Chile whose only source of income was a nearby mine—one that was scheduled to be closed shortly by the new government.
“Our guide for the visit was a person from the village. A person whose entire livelihood was based on that mine who was now facing, along with everyone else in his community, a future that held no prospects at all. It was hard for me, and the rest of our group, to understand this. We were coming from a world where if something big changes, you simply go to Plan B. I find in writing this that I can’t even convey what these people were facing. In short, there was no Plan B. No way to leave the village, no government plan for relocation, no natural resource nearby that they could easily tap into for a new source of income, no way of connecting with other communities to generate enterprise. No capacity for a new start at all...
At the centre of this community was a building that told the story, literally in concrete terms, of the way things were and where they were heading. It was a communal oven where the women would gather once a week to bake all the bread for the village. It stood cold and unused. There was no longer anything to burn in order to bake the bread – the inhabitants had picked the landscape bare of natural wood and had burned everything else they could put their hands on and could spare from their homes. No one could afford to buy firewood from somewhere else. There was no longer any bread.
Jana says, “I’ve been living a host of questions ever since this experience.
As Christ in the world, when and where and how is the church called to keep the fires burning in the bread ovens of the poor?
How is the church called to dive below the surface of power and hold the forces that can shut down the ovens accountable to the hungers they cause?
What does the bread of heaven require of these who are well-fed?
What does it offer to all who hunger in any way?”
So what does this story have to do with us?
I feel that we are present, on that hillside, with so many others, daring to hope that life can be different, that all our hungers can be satisfied by this One we follow.
We, like the little boy, have something to contribute. It may not feel like much, but the abundance of God multiplies what we have into what is needed and more.
This is why we come to the table. To be fed.
This is why we come to the table. To offer what we can.
This is why we come to the table. To participate in the unbelievable that happens in the presence of the One who is fullness, and grace, and abundant life.
The Bread of Life.
Alleluia, Amen.
|
