Bread that Sustains
Preacher: Marcia C. Wilkinson

August 13, 2006

John 6:35-51

Many of you know that prior to coming to All Saints’ I had the privilege to serve as canon missioner at the CCA in Birmingham.  When I first arrived there, our ministry to the homeless consisted of handing out sack lunches at our backdoor.  But something was missing.  It was impersonal.  We were not sharing Jesus Christ, and we weren’t personally involved.  So we started meeting in the garden to get acquainted, and to share a thought for the day.

Before long people dropped in to the outreach office for prayer, to tell personal stories, and ask for help in the everyday basics.  Then something wonderful happened.  While the garden was closed for work, we met inside the church for worship.  Folks were shy at first, but the comfort level grew, and eventually a small Bible study was started.

One morning we were shocked to learn that one of our members had been murdered. She would be taken to the pauper’s cemetery.  But she was a faithful believer and a friend to us, so we wanted to give her a full, proper Anglican service in the cathedral. That service changed our life together.  In the grieving there was beauty and celebration, and without saying it, we knew we had become a community.  God had taken us from separate lives to exploring God’s word, to breaking bread together.  We became family who gathered to share the spiritual bread of life.  We were bound together as brothers and sisters in Christ.  Although many lives were changed drastically, some have never kicked their addictions, or their mental disorders.  Most remain poor.  Yet, the bread of life who is Jesus Christ was and is sustaining them, giving them hope, and they know that their lives count, with God and yes even at the CCA, and on the streets of Birmingham.

I’ve told this story because this is the incredible gospel message for us today.  John links the source of all life, to Jesus the bread of life.  What the writer tells us throughout John is; we cannot accept God’s word without understanding that Jesus was the word from the very beginning of time.  Nor, can we accept Jesus as our Savior without receiving the fullness of God’s word.  The word and the person of Jesus are totally integrated.  They are inseparably linked, do not and cannot contradict each other.

In the first verse of chapter one in John we read:  “ in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God…”  Nothing was made in creation that Jesus didn’t fully participate in.  When God gave the law to Moses at Mt. Sinai, Jesus was there.  When God lead the people of Israel into the wilderness to save them from Egyptian slavery, bread from heaven called manna, was given daily to sustain her.  Jesus was there. When God told the prophets to speak his words to the people to bring them back to obedience and to turn from other gods, Jesus was with God.  There never was a time when Jesus was not.  He and God, the Father are one.

So, Jesus told his disciples that he was the bread of life.  He was the manna from heaven.  Those who received him received the bread of life.  He would sustain all who came to him, and they would never be hungry again.  The disciples had a difficult time understanding these things.  Jesus would teach them again and again, do miracles, tell his stories, and still someone would ask:  “how can this be?” 

We’re the same today. We hear the words of Jesus but there seems to be discrepancy between what Jesus said and the realities of living.  We live between two truths. The physical reality we know to be true is one realm.  And the second realm is living the spiritual, the inner life we believe, and hold as truth. These two worlds, two realities are in constant tension in our lives, commanding our allegiance.  I think it is fair to say that we should question ourselves if we do not experience tension between these two worlds. 

We never seem to get it right, because we cannot live in two worlds simultaneously that seem opposed to each other.  We need to find a way that we can live in the imperfect with the imperfect self, yet hold to the ultimate, the spiritual- in other words, the Word and realm of God.  I call this the thin space.  The thin space is the way of life we yearn to have, yet know we cannot do for ourselves.  The thin space is our daily sustenance.  It is Jesus.

Jesus said I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me shall never hunger. 
Yet, we know people are starving every day, at least go to bed hungry.   In this particular discrepancy, Jesus has given us an answer.  Those who follow him can give out bread to the hungry, pure and simple.  Yes, the poor will always be with us.  But that is not the point.  We are Christ’s hands.

A story emphasizes this truth.  Outside a church in Germany is a statue of the compassionate Christ, but the arms were destroyed in a bombing during the war.  A sign rests against the statue that says “we are now the hands of Christ.”  In the name of Jesus we must tend to physical hunger, and reach out with compassion, and, in the feeding tell them of the bread of life.  Physical bread and spiritual bread from the source of all life can be given together.  So, it doesn’t matter whether we are in Europe, Birmingham, Chevy Chase, or Washington D.C.  Our hands and the love of Christ go together.

We see another potential discrepancy when Jesus gives the Beatitudes, at the Sermon on the Mount.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.  All we need for spiritual living is available in Jesus. How can this be, we ask?  We can be followers of Christ but evil surrounds us and pain and dysfunction still hang on in our lives.  Life remains difficult and personal connection to God can seem distant.  Also, our most natural, human way of thinking often leads us, while our spiritual self follows behind.  How, then, do we understand that the spiritual reality surpasses the natural order of things?

Therefore, even though we follow Jesus as the sustenance of life, the best we can offer will always be inadequate.  There is this discrepancy in life because of sin and broken lives, even though we have faith that is strong. But the one important reality of Jesus’ words in our gospel today holds fast:  The fullness of life has come in Jesus, and all will be made perfect in Him, but not fully realized until that future time when believers in Christ and Jesus come together for eternity.

Jesus is telling us that what we need for our lives is available in him- even though life is still broken and will always be imperfect, and, even though some may appear all together, and others know they carry all sorts of conditions that leave us still floundering.
Jesus promised that he would lose nothing that the Father had given to him.  That means Jesus will not let go of us. To believe in Him now as the bread that sustains us, is to begin living into the eternal life that never ends.  So, whether physically alive, or when we physically die, if we are in Christ Jesus, we live!

Oswald Chambers gave this thought:
“My human experience is only real when Jesus Christ and his salvation for eternal life have been worked into my conscious life.  When I am identified in Jesus Christ, then, I am led beyond myself and my experiences are no longer the basis of my reality.  The worth of my experiences is that in Jesus Christ, I am held to the source of truth.”

Is God drawing us to Himself this morning?  Will we respond to the gift of his Son, whom God has sent to us?  Will we come to him?  Do we want to want to have this bread for life?  Do we surrender to him, placing our faith in God’s way, in God’s truth?  Do we want to have this bread of life for life?   

Amen