First Reading: Proverbs 9:1-6
1Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars.
2She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table.
3She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls from the highest places in the town,
4“You that are simple, turn in here!” To those without sense she says,
5“Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.
6Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”
Psalm: Psalm 34:9-14
Those who seek the Lord lack nothing that is good. (Ps. 34:10)
9Fear the Lord, you saints of the Lord, for those who fear the Lord lack nothing.
10The lions are in want and suffer hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack nothing that is good.
11Come, children, and listen to me; I will teach you reverence for the Lord.
12Who among you takes pleasure in life and desires long life to enjoy prosperity?
13Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from lying words.
14Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
Second Reading: Ephesians 5:15-20
15Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, 16making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, 19as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, 20giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Gospel: John 6:51-58
[Jesus said,] 51“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.” 52The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
CHILDREN’S SERMON: Aesop and Bread
Once, Aesop’s master was going on a journey. All the Servants, including Aesop had to carry sacks on their backs. Aesop selected a sack that contained bread. It was also the largest and the heaviest sack. The other Servants laughed at him for choosing the largest sack. All the Servants carried their sacks on their backs. After some hours, everybody stopped for lunch. Aesop was asked to distribute bread from his sack. He distributed the bread to all and this lightened his burden by half. They all started walking again. Soon, it was time for supper. Aesop was asked to distribute the remaining bread to everybody. He did so and this emptied his sack. For the remainder of the journey, he had nothing but the empty sack to carry. The other Servants’ loads seemed to get heavier and heavier at each step. Now they approved of Aesop’s clever decision!
If you were going on a journey, what would you carry in your sack or suitcase?
Let us pray. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the words of my lips be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.
SERMON
For four weeks we have been pondering our Gospel texts from the Gospel of John. John does not organize his letter like Matthew, Mark and Luke. John organizes thematically, not chronologically. He is famous for sharing seven of Jesus’ “I am” statements that give us pictures for understanding our God incarnate. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life,” “I am the light of the world,” “I am the door,” “I am the good shepherd,” I am the truth and the life,” and finally “I am the true vine.” Each image challenges us on how we understand and how we relate to our God. We focus during the Pentecost season on the meaning of our faith to our life. Like Aesop in our Children’s sermon, we each carry a sack or a load as we walk through life. As we have been watching the Olympics, I have pondered the hours of dedication and focus and for sure talent each competitor brings to the games. Of course each was born with talent, and each had a “master” and support system that guided them on their journey as they worked to be ready for Paris 2024. That’s is a given but the person’s dedication and drive are also big factors. We too choose how we are tackling our lives and the type of loads we carry.
Today we come to the climax and summary of chapter 6 of John and John’s first identification of Jesus as the “living bread.”
Let’s stop for a minute and think about our favorite bread. For my children the answer might be “chapatis,” a flat bread from Kenya. It’s kind of like a tortilla or a nan but of course, we think much better. Whether we ate it with beans or greens or meat goop, the chapatis made the meal a feast. Bread has a living quality as it expands and rises, as the aroma of its cooking wafts through the house, and as it satisfies our hunger and relaxes our whole being. We would buy fresh hot bread at Paul’s bakery but at least one loaf would never make it home as all in the car wanted a chunk. Bread is just good stuff and Jesus compares himself to bread, not to a steak, not to apple pie, and not to a soda. Jesus says,
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven.”
In our children’s sermon today, did you notice that the master gave his servants a choice of what sack they would carry on their journey. Aesop chose a sack full of bread that seemed heavy at first. There are many kinds of bread in our world today. All are tasty and all have lots of people that eat them. Even so John spoke into early Christianity where there were many religions and temples to many gods. Some of the temples had prostitutes offering pleasures and gods that offered to watch over harvest time and abundance. All gods offer enhancement to our lives and in some way make life worth living. Many might identify the Christian sack as a heavy sack because faith is seen as satisfying an angry God who is distant because of our sins. The weight of the Law, the Ten Commandments, seems impossible to carry. There seems to be so many rules and having an all-seeing God, watching our every move is a bit scary. Jesus does not talk about a distant God watching from heaven to keep track of our good or bad deeds but Jesus self identities as “the God who came down from heaven.”
Jesus compares himself to manna, the bread God provided for the children of Israel as they crossed the desert from Egypt to the Promised Land. Let’s quick review that story found in Exodus 16. The children of Israel were two months into their journey after the Red Sea. They had not yet reached Sinai and the giving of the Ten Commandments. In other words they were fresh on the journey of faith and discouraged. Growing in faith is not easy. They reached the desert of Sin (sounds a bit poetic) and were hungry. They grumbled against Moses and Aaron, their leaders. They had forgotten about the pain of slavery and were remembering all the tasty foods of their former lifestyle.
Perhaps some of you can identify! There are those day before I became a widow, those days when the kids sat around the dining room table eating chapatis, and those days when I could jump out of bed in the morning and tackle the day. I admit I cry as I remember the good and forget the struggles. The people blamed their leaders and so Moses took the grumps to God. God sent quail at night to eat and the next morning the people woke to something covering the group that they called “manna,” meaning “what is it?” They did not know the bread God was providing nor did all follow the rules surrounding it. They were to gather only enough for each day and double on the sixth day so they could rest on the seventh day.
Like the manna in the wilderness, God’s bread, Jesus’ words, gives us sustenance and direction for today’s challenges. He tells us that what will sustain us is to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, with all our soul, with all our strength and with all our mind. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. That’s the overview, the manna laying on the ground that we collect but how we cook it, how we digest that bread also has a personal factor. Loving our neighbor involves forgiveness, sharing, not killing. I suspect, though, that like the lawyer we are often guilty of replying, “Is that other my neighbor?” We question how. We promise, tomorrow we’ll be good. Jesus offers us bread for our soul and life but we choose and it is hard to chew and digest.
Jesus continues to clarify. Not only is he the life giving bread but he adds
Whoever eats of this bread will live forever,
Jesus is now challenging Moses and the Jewish deep spiritual reality. The people would agree that manna was provided in the wilderness but the people knew that the conditions surrounding manna, that it had to be picked fresh each day. We too would encourage daily devotions and the eating of God’s words. Jesus is claiming that as we eat what he offers, the results will last into eternity…forever! Jesus is not offering daily bread. He is offering bread with eternal side effects. He does not just want us to make it through the day. He wants us to live for eternity. He’s talking about the ripple affect.
The disciples have not yet come to the cross. So we are not talking about salvation. Like the Aesop story, we are talking about how we carry our load and give away the bread we have, how our daily choices in life affects making life lighter so we are more able to walk the journey with our Master. Let’s think of an example.
Let’s say an “other” offends me, perhaps even hurts me. I am faced with a choice. I can choose revenge of some sort or I can choose to turn the other cheek. Revenge comes in many forms. Perhaps I give the person the silent treatment. Perhaps I choose to cut them out of my life. Perhaps I just kill with gossip. A choice of revenge in some way kills relationship and any potential future fades. That choice becomes like a heavy sack on my back as I hold on to the incident and refuse to let God handle “justice.” Forgiveness that is the manna from Jesus, the Jesus way, is just plain hard and often we have to turn to God for help. As we chew on the perceived offense in light of our faith and are confronted with the call to forgiveness, as we turn over the situation from our platter to God’s hands, our load becomes lighter and the future we step into is changed. We do not need to plot revenge for that is in God’s hands. We continue to walk on the Master’s journey with the other person. I believe that the choice to eat Jesus’ way creates ripples as the result of life’s experiences impacts the way forward and can lighten our load.
Perhaps another way to look at it is to reflect on Jesus’ invitation, “Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest.” And so we must ask ourselves if there are areas of our lives that are not life giving. If so, are we eating the bread of life or are we struggling along trusting our own strength and wisdom? When the Master called Aesop to journey, Aesop was allowed to choose the bag he would carry. We partner with God as we journey. We are not robots. Jesus is the bread of life that will strengthen us to live into eternity. We choose to obey.
But now we come to the hard part of the passage. Understanding Jesus as bread, as food for our soul is not so hard. We are inspired by many people that encourage us and give us words of wisdom to live by. We may even be willing to admit that choosing to live life Jesus’ way has eternal repercussions. Then Jesus adds an additional clause that challenges us to think. He continues by saying,
and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Now we are down to the “meat and potatoes” of our passage today. The people could include a new prophet in their list of heroes, especially if he would heal them and fill their stomachs with bread. They could even flock to the river Jordan to get baptized and to try and repent of their useless deeds and so have a better life. Following Jesus would bring life because he was the living bread. But then Jesus talked about what sounded like cannibalism — eat his flesh and drink his blood. Today we see these words as a foreshadowing of the sacrament of communion, We hear the words, “This is my body. This is my blood. Take and eat. Drink for the forgiveness of sin.” Christians argue about what exactly is happening. We have fancy words like consubstantiation and transsubstantiation. Lutherans call it real presence, a mystery. We do not believe we are actually eating and drinking Christ. We do not believe we are just remembering and memorializing some event. We believe these words to be sacramental, “self evident” truths that the bread is the flesh and the wine is the blood in someway we cannot understand. It is a spiritual given. Forgiveness is pronounced not because of the depth of our repentance or because of the holiness of the pastor but because God said it and so it is somehow true.
Jesus was prophesizing his death that would bridge the separation between God and all the people we encounter. Somehow in his actual human flesh and blood, Jesus would walk through death, opening the way for us to follow. Jesus could say he was bread that we have the choice to eat. Even as bread strengthens our bodies, so Jesus strengthens our lives. Even as blood flows through our bodies bringing oxygen and nutrients so to the wine flows through our souls bringing life. When we do believe and obey what he commands, he will create life and not death. But he is also now saying that the bread he is offering is not just for us as individuals, not just for the Jewish nation who knew Moses and David, but for the whole world.
This is a revolutionary statement. Jesus died not just for the Christian’s in Ukraine but also for the Orthodox Russians. He died for the criminals on death row, the prostitutes and those who perpetuated the evils of today. He died for the Republicans and the Democrats. It is so easy to slip into thinking that Jesus died for me and my way of thinking but our Gospel text today challenges us to think “glocally.” Jesus is pushing us from the truth of the local setting to the truth of the global setting. Jesus is for the whole world.
Aesop’s Master was going on a journey. Our Master Jesus is on a journey of creating the Kingdom of Heaven. Each disciple has a sack to carry. We all are called to play a part in this journey. Aesop chose the heavy one filled with bread. We today can also choose what we put in our sacks. We can fill them with memories of wrongs and injustices or we can also choose to focus on God’s word. As we do and as we live by Jesus’ teachings, the living word, we become strong. As we give away to the whole world the love and the truth God has given us then our load becomes easier to carry and the world becomes a better place. Let us put our palms together in front of us and say,”He’s got the whole world in his hands. He’s got the whole world in his hands. He’s got the whole world in his hands. He’s got the whole world in his hands. He has you and me in his hands.”
Let the people of God say, “Amen!”
On the Way to Wonder 