08/02/2009 9th Sunday of Pentecost John 6:24-35 – By Pastor Mark Moore Older Sermons
Asking the right question is vital for getting to the heart of the matter; a single, well-targeted question from a teacher or a student can open up minds and hearts to new possibilities and lead to deeper understanding
The crowd's opening question in this text is not a promising beginning
After we, the readers of John’s Gospel, witness the theophany on the sea, the question of "when did you come here?" obviously doesn't matter Clearly the crowds have "missed the boat," or in more Johannine language,
they have failed to grasp the glory of what has happened
Their search for Jesus is not motivated by seeing the sign, but by filling their bellies
They have been following him around the area, but as we see throughout this chapter, following Jesus and being his disciple are not the same thing
At this point, from our point of view, we might ask would they know what to do with him if the "caught" him?
The image comes to mind of a dog chasing a car. Would it know what to do if it caught the car?
When I was a kid we used to visit an aunt who had a German shepherd named Rennie.
Rennie would chase any visitors car down her long, country driveway, barking and snapping all the way
One Sunday afternoon I begged dad to stop the car and see what the dog would do
She tore the chrome strip off side of our car from the rear wheel all the way to the front, then stood in front of the car clutching the mangled chrome in her bleeding mouth with an attitude of being firmly in control of the intruder in her yard
I don’t know who dad was more angry at, me or the dog, but I’m pretty sure I was the only one who lost their allowance over the episode
The last time the crowd was with Jesus, they were going to take him by force and make him king so Jesus withdrew from them The crowd wants to make Jesus into their image of a leader and Jesus will have nothing to do with that maybe Jesus doesn't want to stop and see what the crowd will do; maybe he had had his own Rennie experience.
The crowd finally catches Jesus in Capernaum , they address him as "rabbi", it is a title of respect, but not a confession of faith
Their question: "When did you get here?" implies that they are not aware of the events on the lake it might also be a question of control: "We want to know exactly what happened."
In his book, “Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers”, William Easum says that the "sacred cow" he is trying to fry in many churches -- is control. Sometimes making decisions and controlling what happens becomes more important than making disciples
In our text I see "the crowd" trying to exert their control over Jesus. They want to make him king by force. They need to know when and how he got to Capernaum?
They want to know:
"What must we do to perform the works of God?"
To me, they seem to be asking, "how can we be in control of our relationship with God"
They ask, "What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you?"
This question seems absurd coming so closely after we have been told:
"They saw the signs that he was doing for the sick" and "When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”
Jesus doesn't answer their question; He makes a statement about their motives;
He seems to answer a different question
The question Jesus responds to is: "Why are you, namely, the crowd, here?"
His answer to that unspoken question is:
"You are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate from the bread and were filled"
The implication is that as long as their motives are centered in their bellies, they will never really discover Jesus
A very interesting suggestion is being made with regard to nature of the church. Experts are saying that a congregation's agenda needs to be set by the needs of the consumer -- the unchurched.
Which begs the question, are congregations full of "consumer" Christians who are involved primarily for what they can get out of it rather than "contributing" Christians who are involved primarily for what they can give to the ministry of the body.
If I push this too far I start to run into some theological conflict with this idea
While I believe that Christianity is centered on what God gives us through Jesus Christ,
the bread of life…
Is it wrong then, to seek Jesus for what we get out of it?
Is it wrong to seek Jesus for something to fill our needs? To feed our emptiness with the living bread from heaven?
To promise us resurrected life when we die?
To forgive our sins?
To give us new life today?
If such selfish motives gets people to Jesus, can it be all bad
Perhaps the distinction is found in properly understanding the word "sign"
A sign is something that points to something else. The sign isn't the important thing, but what it points to - Business pay for billboards, not so that people will be attracted to the billboard, but so that they might be directed to what it points to: the hotel or restaurant or whatever might be advertised on the hunk of woodThe feeding miracle, as a sign, needs to point to something else besides full bellies
Can we generalize that all the good things we receive from Jesus are signs that point to something even more important?
In the final verse of this text, Jesus makes one more attempt to clear their eyes and ears:
"I am the bread of life"
In the discussion with Nicodemus in John 3, Jesus pointed to a birth beyond birth
In chapter 4 and the conversation with the woman at the well, he pointed to water beyond water
Now Jesus points to bread beyond bread to that gift from God which not only comes to the world through Jesus, but is in fact Jesus himself.
Being centered on the belly means more than just seeking to get food.
It is an attitude that wants to keep the self in control that wants to tell God what to do that wants to work for what I get rather than to receive gifts from God
We work for food
We work hard
We get money for our work
We work for salvation, too we practice virtue, we follow the rules, we do what is required
Sometimes this allows us to think that we actually earn it
Still, we perish
The things that sustain us perish with us
All the physical bread, having once fed us,
feeds the rest of the food chain
The old self, Paul reminds us, deteriorates through illusion and desire
But Moses spoke of another bread manna from heaven God’s promise sheer gift always there like snow on the ground.
Jesus in the fourth Gospel is portrayed as warning us not to work for perishable food.
There is another kind of bread, the bread of our destiny a “food that endures for life eternal”
The people asked Jesus to perform a sign that they might believe in him.
The eternal bread would be his sign the new manna, the new bountiful gift of God.
Jesus himself is to be our sustenance, and that is the work of God
“I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me shall ever be hungry no one who believes in me shall thirst again”
This is not easy to believe, to say the least
It demands a great effort for us to let go of the illusion that we can ultimately feed or save ourselves, but this faith is precisely what Christ requires of us
When the crowd asks Jesus what they must do to perform the works of God he makes it very clear:
“This is the work of God: have faith in the one God has sent”
Our vital labor as Christians is nothing other than our working to believe that Christ is indeed our bread of life, our sustenance.
If there is any pre-eminent task for us as we celebrate the Eucharist then, it is not that we execute it well or work out our different roles helpful as these things may be
Our task is to believe that God, in Jesus, is our very food and drink
The liturgy is not just a meal we have made, not just fellowship not something we have artistically dreamed up. Its reality does not depend upon our ingenuity or virtue
our expertise in preaching or singing; it is fundamentally an act and gift of God
Our act and gift in return is to receive it
to be nourished by it
to believe it
If it is true that we have bought into a culture that rewards consumers
and addresses their needs instead of proclaiming a gospel
that offers us faith in the only begotten Son,"
we might examine more closely how we go about proclaiming the gospel:
are we “good marketers” rather than true witnesses"?
Or is a true witness someone who, like Jesus, tends to the urgency of empty stomachs
even in the midst of responding to spiritual hunger?
Fred Craddock, describes the way Jesus proclaimed the good news:
"Jesus (like a new Moses) offers liberation from every force of evil and oppression,
and....initiates a new order
in which enduring, flourishing communion between humans and humans,
between humans and God
and between humans and the rest of creation
becomes a real, even if elusive, possibility"
The Gospel of John is a challenging text, often referred to as the spiritual gospel
William Willimon is a preacher to whom I am deeply indebted
and always a good source of inspiration and wise caution reminds us that
"the spiritual is incarnational,
tied to the stuff of this life, present, here, now,"
With that in mind, it sounds right to me
that we come to the table hungry in more ways than one
and leave it to feed a world that is hungry in more ways than one,
engaging in worship, youth ministry, urban ministry, mission trips, and so on
Aren't we walking in Jesus' footsteps?
If not on water, at least in our own world and our own time, seeking to bring good news to the poor, and to set the oppressed free?
Isn't that what commitment, loyalty, and solidarity with Jesus look like incarnated?
God's love revealed?
Perhaps the best way to approach this difficult, counterintuitive, countercultural truth is to end with a question.
I heard it suggested that we end our reading with the crowd's request
"Sir, give us this bread always"
If we depart from the lectionary there, instead of ending with Jesus' comforting words the movement of the text from question to answer will be left with a sense of openness....
This fits with how we often feel in the presence of Jesus who is not responding in the ways we expect or understand.
We might find ourselves with the crowd once again hungry for more, hungry in more ways than we know how to express
“Give us this bread always”
is a prayer for a world that is no longer afraid of itself
a world that is not fragmented
but centered in a common humanity
or the Common Human Being – the One we all know and love
whose face we see in the face of our brother or our sister
“Give us this bread always”
is a prayer for a world that is no longer afraid of tomorrow
that day when there will be no bread
that day, like the others we worry and worry about,
that never comes if we break bread together on our knees
“Give us this bread always”
is a prayer for a world that is no longer afraid of gods who make distinctions
based on creeds and rituals,
but trusts in the God who gives gifts to us, not for our personal enrichment,
but for the building up of the organic unity of humanity
that Ephesians calls the Body of Christ
We misunderstand this prayer if we think that once it is answered there is no longer any reason to pray because the magic breadbox will supply our every need
We only truly pray this prayer if we pray it as Jesus taught us to say:
“Give us this day, our daily bread”
It is in the constant renewal of our dependence upon God and in the constant renewal of community so imperfectly effected by the coming together of the Church around the Table
but effected none-the-less.
Lord,
We too follow you home, seeking
because we too are
empty.
We want what endures,
Give us this day
the bread that is you
and we will never hunger.
Amen.