Bread

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

August 5, 2018

13 Proper B

          To celebrate my grandmother’s 80^th birthday, my dad threw a family reunion.   Our family wasn’t large.  My grandmother had two sons, my dad and his brother, both of whom were married and had three children. Some of the grandchildren were married but none of us had children of our own yet.  So, by the time we added a few other relatives, about 15 of us gathered at the Capital Hotel in Little Rock to celebrate the birthday.  We had a wonderful time reuniting with relatives we had not seen in years, telling stories, enjoying a wonderful dinner, laughing ourselves silly, and in general feeling like one big happy family.  Our grandmother soaked up the love and attention.  Whae all left the next day wanting more, wanting to have another reunion, wanting to have the same experience all over again, and wanting that same feeling of being nourished beyond the food.

          I think the people in this morning’s gospel lesson may have experienced something similar.  Last week, we heard the story of the feeding of the 5000, which immediately precedes today’s gospel reading.  In that story, a little boy offers his lunch of 5 barley loaves and 2 fish, and Jesus turns that small offering into a meal that fed thousands.  The people will be talking about this experience for years.  My guess is that there was much excited chatter as the people saw what Jesus had done, and people who came as strangers left as friends.  Perhaps people shared stories about previous encounters with Jesus and wondered what Jesus might do next.  In my imagination at least, the people left with the sense of unity that comes from a shared meal. 

So this morning the people have followed Jesus across the sea wanting more.  They would like another miracle.  They may want that feeling of community that is created when something extraordinary happens.  Perhaps they just want to be with Jesus.  The people are looking for something to fill their hunger and their thirst, the longing in their lives, and they hope another meal of bread and fish will do that.

Jesus is not interested in recreating the Feeding of the 5000 to satisfy a hunger that will only reappear over and over again.  Jesus tells the crowds that he is the Bread of Life and that whoever comes to him will never be hungry and whoever believes in him will never thirst.  How can that be? Jesus is not talking about physical hunger and thirst, which cannot be permanently satisfied.  Jesus is talking our deep spiritual hunger, which often gets mistaken for physical hunger.  Jesus wants to give us that sense of unity with him and with each other which comes from having our spiritual appetite satisfied so that we are not driven by our physical appetites.

          I wonder if the little boy who offered his bread and fish is the one person in the story of the feeding of the 5000 who recognized Jesus as the Bread of Life.  The little boy must have known something of Jesus, otherwise offering his small bit of lunch would have been a waste among so many people.  In our story from 2 Samuel this morning, David forgets that God is the source of the bread that satisfies forever and we are reminded of what happens when we are driven by our physical appetites.  Last week, we heard the story of David and Bathsheba, in which David has an affair with Bathsheba, who is married to Uriah, who is off at battle.  When David finds out that Bathsheba is pregnant, he tries to manipulate the situation so that Uriah appears to be the father.  But Uriah is far too ethical a person to sleep with his wife when his soldiers are out in the field.  So, in order to protect himself, David has Uriah deliberately killed in battle, then takes Bathsheba as his own wife.  This morning, we hear God's fury and God's hurt.  David's actions will have consequences that will extend for generations to come and David will be publicly shamed before all Israel.  What David thought he did in isolation to satisfy his own desires ends up having consequences that will hurt many.  David has forgotten that the deep hunger inside us can only be satisfied by God.  He has sought to satisfy that hunger himself, with disastrous consequences.

On the other hand, the little boy who shared his lunch lived much more in keeping with the reading from Ephesians.  The writer of Ephesians begs us to live "with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."  The writer goes on to say "But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love."  The Bread of Life nourishes us to be that body, which is hard work, as we put our individual desires and needs aside and use our gifts for the greater good. 

          Jesus calls us to believe that he is the Bread of Life who satisfies our deepest hunger and greatest thirst.  Jesus also calls us to live out that belief.  If we believe that Jesus is the one who satisfies our hunger, we can more easily live with humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another in love.  If we believe that Jesus is the one who satisfies our thirst, we, like the little boy who offered his lunch, can know God’s abundance and can live with glad and generous hearts.  When we know Jesus as the Bread of Life, our question is transformed from “What can Jesus do for me?” to “What can Jesus do with me?”

                                                                                      Amen.