Lectionary 19.09                                                                      Christ Church , York

We find it in the homes of the rich and famous and we find it in the hovels of the poor and nameless. It comes in a variety of forms and textures, colors and shapes. Since an Egyptian first took yeast and added it to flour and water thereby allowing it to rise into large loves it has nurtured and sustained humans down through the centuries so that many now call it “the staff of life.” This wondrous food called bread, this most ancient of foods, is necessary for so many in our world to survive. Fancy foods they may not have, indeed may never see, but if they have bread then they can live.

It is life that God offered His people in the form of bread. Sustained on their journey through the wilderness, as Jesus reminds His hearers today, the people of Israel had been brought from the death of slavery through the desert into new life in that Promised Land. And then we hear of Elijah, weary and exhausted, on the run from his enemies, literally ready to give up the ghost and call it quits in this life, being urged by God’s angel to eat the cake, this bread, freshly cooked on a hot stone, so that he might have renewed life and strength to continue on the mission to which God has called him. And then Jesus comes, surrounded by the crowd, to also offer life in the form of bread. But this time it is not manna from the sky or hot cakes found on a stone. Instead it is Jesus offering Himself as the bread of life. “I am” He says. “I am light.” “I am the gate to the sheepfold” “I am the Good Shepherd. “I am the way, the truth and the life.” I am! I am! By what name shall I tell the people that I am sent, pleads Moses to that burning bush. Tell them “I am” says God. Now it is Jesus, the very Son of God who comes to say “I am.” “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” In this great “I am” Jesus does not simply describe Himself but instead offers Himself to them – a word to fill their hungry bellies and a word to slake their parched throats. Food and drink – nothing less than the gift of life!

But it is not a word that is well received; indeed it is a hard word for some of those who heard these words of Jesus. For Jesus claims to be not only the bread which will feed them but the bread that comes down from heaven. Like the manna of old which came down to earth from the God in heaven as a gift of life for His people, so now Jesus claims that He is the One who has come down from that heavenly realm to live among God’s people and feed them with this bread. The Jews are outraged and they dismiss Him as nothing more than the son of Joseph and we all know that Joseph was a lowly carpenter, while His mother was that simple child named Mary. That this Jesus should take it upon Himself to make the claim that His real parents were not these two but rather that He was sent from heaven and then further to claim that He was able to speak the holy name of “I” was too much for these Jews. And so they murmur against Jesus, that same murmuring that their ancestors had done in the desert when Moses had prayed to God to send down the manna from heaven for them to eat. They speak against Jesus for making such claims. They question how this could be!

When the Israelites in the desert murmured against Moses, his anger was strong and quick against them. Jesus may be a little more restrained but He is no less firm in His response, making yet more claims for His identity. If the Jews thought to dismiss Him for His lowly origins, Jesus says simply that He has come from the Father, that He alone reveals the Father and that no one has seen the Father except the One who has been sent from the Father. These are astounding assertions on the part of Jesus for He is offering nothing less than a clear understanding of who He is, where He has come from and from whom He has come. While the Jews and others may continue to question His identity, while they may still challenge His origins, there can be no doubt in the words of Jesus that He is the true bread that has come down from heaven. The Word has become flesh, to use John’s earlier description and that flesh is now to die for the sake of the world that it might have life. 

Indeed this is the only reason for the coming of the Son of God, that we might have life in Him and have it more abundantly. More abundantly than those who ate in the desert. More abundantly than those prophets fed by the Lord in their time of need. More abundantly than even those five thousand whose story we heard just a few weeks ago. For this abundance does not feed only in this life but for eternal life. And such abundance is necessary because the people are hungry. Like their ancestors of old, they need food to survive in the harshness of the desert. The desert may be different and the situation may be changed, but the hunger is the same – a hunger for God, a hunger to trust and a hunger for life.

Our hunger for God is evident in so many ways in our world today. Those who study such things tell us that our young people as well as our old are searching for some deeper truth in this life, some meaningful understanding to the complex issues which confront us, to try and answer the ultimate questions that face us – pain, disease and even death itself. In its excess over the past few years the world told us to eat, drink and be merry! But all of that blind optimism ended up in economic disaster for the world and the transitory nature of so many hopes and dreams ended up in the trash can of our own arrogance. We have searched for meaning in the power we have sought, whether that power be economic, political, artistic, athletic or even religious. Success is offered as the answer to the meaning of life. Grasping any one of these offers we hope, will cancel out the urgency of our hunger for God. But the cost of chasing after such success only serves to recall the words of Jesus, that though we gain the whole world, we stand in danger of loosing our souls.

And we hunger for trust. Once again the economic and political systems of the world have taken the trust we placed in them and broken it apart on the anvil of their own greed for wealth and power. Broken as we are, we look to the security of the world around us only to find that we are confronted by fire, famine, earthquake and pandemic disease, destroying our homes, our cities and our lives so that we end up questioning even the goodness of God’s own creation.

And we hunger for eternal life. Jesus knew this only too well, for it is the hope of such life that we humans cling to most dearly in these desperate times. The world is in despair and too many have lost the hope that it can redeem itself. Only the bleakness of pain, heartbreak, disease and death surrounds us in our lives. So we hunger! We hunger for the ultimate assurance – that beyond the pain of this life there will be a life without end, a new life in which all that hurts us and pains us and grieves us will be ended and healed.

It is to feed such hungers that Jesus comes this day. It is to feed our hunger for God, our hunger to trust and our hunger for eternal life that Jesus comes to offer Himself as the true bread that has come down from heaven. And to feed such hungers we eat! To assuage such thirst we drink. And in such eating and drinking we live. That is the heart of our faith in this Holy Sacrament we call the Eucharist – that here on this altar, the very Lord of life once again comes down from heaven to feed us with His own body and blood. And in this eating and drinking we are promised a life that will not grow old, a life filled with healing, a life of unity with the Father through the Son and a life that is eternal. Christ is not present on our altar simply for our adoration or admiration – although praise and adoration and thanksgiving will take place. Rather He is present so that we can be united with Him in a more perfect way by eating of this perfect bread that comes down from heaven, His own body which He gives for the life of the world. Ordinary bread can be found in the homes of the rich and the famous and it can be found in the homes of poor and the nameless. It will feed us in this life but we will still die. Today we share a different bread, a living bread, as Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself once again comes down from heaven to feed us with His own body and blood. And in this most precious gift we are granted a share in the eternal life promised to us by that Lord, for when we eat of this flesh and drink of this blood we shall have life eternal within us. It is with grateful hearts that we come and share this bread so freely offered to us and for us. In this Eucharist we join our voices with all the saints in heaven and on earth in a great prayer of thanksgiving for this gift given to us. And then refreshed and nourished, we go out into the world to share this gift of life with others so that all the world may come to know the love and life that Christ Jesus offers us in this bread, this body and this blood. “For whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” For that great gift we say “thanks be to God. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen