12th Sunday after Pentecost
Text: John 6:35, 41-51
Pastor Jean M. Hansen
It’s bread month! You may not be as aware of that as I am. For five weeks the focus of the Gospel reading, at least on the surface, is on bread. This happens every three years, much to the preacher’s chagrin. Do you recall the time I encouraged everyone to submit religious bread cartoons just to lighten the theme? I think it helped…but may have ended up getting tedious…which seems unavoidable.
Anyway, this bread month began the week before last with the familiar story of Jesus feeding a crowd of thousands with only five loaves and two fish. In the Gospel assigned for last week, which we did not focus on due to a special music Sunday, Jesus chastised the crowd for searching him out only because they wanted more free food. He pointed out that they should not work for food that perishes, but for that which endures for eternal life, bread that is given by God and comes down from heaven to give life to the world. (John 6:24-35)
Jesus then described himself as the bread of life, which is repeated at the beginning of today’s text. It’s interesting that the Judeans began to complain not about Jesus calling himself the Bread of Life, but that he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven”. (vs. 38) Once again it was a case of familiarity breeding contempt; it was Jesus’ earthly relationships with people they knew, in a town that was familiar to them, that got in the way. How could he be from heaven if they watched him grow up? It does not make sense; he’s just like them.
They cannot absorb what Jesus said, which is that it is God who sent him and God who teaches and speaks to people, drawing them to the Son. In other words, God is the active agent, drawing them in, but the people’s familiarity with Jesus as the son of Mary and Joseph got in the way of their responding to that truth.
You may recall that Martin Luther was quick to explain that even faith is a gift of God, not something we can stir up within ourselves. Or, as commentator Brian Peterson says, “Faith is not simply a human choice to be made but is the activity of the Father drawing people to Jesus.” He goes on to say that the Greek word translated as “drawn” in verse 44 is the same word used to describe fishing nets being hauled into the boat, with all those wriggling fish trying to get out. “We must be dragged into faith by God,” he says, “there is no other way to come.” (1)
Yet, there’s free will, so the grumblers in this text, as well as people we know, and perhaps even ourselves as well, can resist faith. Yet, Jesus comes as the Bread of Life and he does not stop being the Bread of Life even to the resisters.
It’s a good thing that God teaches and speaks to people, drawing them to the Son, since Jesus so often used metaphors that require contemplation to uncover the meaning. For example, why bread? One answer is that by comparing himself to bread, Jesus makes himself as necessary to us as the food we eat.
Commentator Peter Claver Ajer writes this about Jesus, “He is our food, enabling us to live our life’s call, to be alive, our source of spiritual energy when exhausted, our consolation when we are troubled, our strength when we are weak, Jesus, the bread of life, sustains us and restores our vigor and exhausted energies. Our search for material bread continues – the desire for more increases even as we have a lot of bread. The present bread does not fulfill our hunger or quench our thirst, but that which Jesus gives does.” (2)
The truth of this statement can be difficult for those who believe to grasp, and it is nearly inaccessible to those who do not believe.
I had an interesting experience when I gathered with my cousins in Philadelphia a few weeks ago. Our host, my cousin Andrew, has an amazing garden so he invited us and some of his friends to enjoy food and connecting in those wonderful surroundings. Evidently, he told one of his friends that I’m a pastor, and the gentleman peppered me, with sincere interest, with question after question about my role as a pastor.
The more he asked, the more I realized that anything church-related was an unknown concept to him. It was like I was speaking a foreign language, and that was about concrete things like how I write a sermon and the source of my income. Then, there was the challenge of explaining that what often is portrayed as being a Christian or the church in the news or through televised preachers is not who I am, or who we are.
Can you imagine what would have happened if, at that garden party, I would have quoted John 6:51, spoken by Jesus? “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.” May I suggest that quoting this section of the Gospel of John may not be a starting point?
Yet, this passage is significant because it proclaims that God sends Godself to us in Jesus, draws us in and teaches us. As commentator Chelsey Harmon notes, “Up, down, side-to-side, God is at work in every direction to corral us for himself….” (3)
God provided forgiveness and eternal life to the world through Jesus, and will raise us up on the last day, but God also continues to nourish and sustain us now. And, thankfully, that drawing in is on-going in the lives of those around us. Who knows what part we may play in that process? God is constantly active so that hearts and eyes, including our own, are opened to new possibilities, fed by the Bread of Life. AMEN
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“Commentary on John 6:35, 41-51” by Brian Peterson, www.workingpreaching.com
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“Commentary on John 35: 41-51” by Peter Claver Ajer, www.workingpreacher.com
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“John 6:35, 41-51 Commentary” by Chelsey Harmon, August 8, 2021, www.cepreaching.org