Sermon - Trinity 10 - Bread of Heaven, feed me 'til I want no more

Trinity 10 (Pentecost 11)  John 6.35,41-51

It’s the last minutes of the RugbyWorld Cup, Wales are one point behind the mighty South African team.  The Millennium Stadium was on its’ feeta few moments before when Wales scored a try.  Now there is silence as they wait to see if the try will beconverted, to all but seal the victory. 

There isn’t a sound coming from theWelsh supporters, and the Springboks are wondering how so many people can be ofone mind.  It is almost as if theyare quiet because they are going to ‘will’ the ball between the posts when itis kicked.

The kicker runs up and the ball isstruck, up..up..up..people wait to guess which way it might go, it looks good,down…down…down…the ball is still 20 yards from the posts as the crowd are ontheir feet again.

The try is converted, and the pointstake Wales ahead in the dying moments of the game.  Then, as the visiting team kick the ball back to play, thechorus starts….

“Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven – feed me‘til I want no more, want no more! Feed  me ‘til I want nomore!”

The final whistle is almost drownedout by the singing, and as the players leave the pitch an almighty cheer risesto heaven, fireworks explode, Katherine Jenkins comes back on to sing herversion of my favourite song….and then with a start I am woken up by Ann,telling me that the kids have drawn all over the walls again with crayon, andthe dog has done something awful on the lawn.

Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven – feed me‘til I want no more

I regularly hear the hymn “Guideme O thou Great Redeemer” as the last hymn and it got me thinking aboutthe sermon this week, because the last few weeks in the Gospel readings breadhas been somewhat of a theme.

 Jesus has been changing what people think of him.  The people have been understanding moreand more about his mission and purpose on Earth.

A fortnight ago, we heard about the‘multitude’ following Jesus, and the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 tookplace.  The people were fed, bothphysically and spiritually, and Jesus left to avoid being made king.  Last week, we heard Jesus say “I amthe bread of life”, and the people were thinking he was like a newMoses, bringing manna to the people.

This week however, in our reading,Jesus says “Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that Iwill give for the life of the world is my flesh”

Jesus is telling us ‘weare what we eat’.

The story of Jesus isn’t about miracles,feeding the multitude or healing people, it’s much more important thanthat. 

The people are all cheering forJESUS, they are all singing the song, they know the words, but do they reallyunderstand what the words mean?

It’s a bit like the MillenniumStadium and the rest of Wales singing….

Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven – feed me‘til I want no more.

At the beginning of his life onearth he is described at the ‘word made flesh (the word was made flesh and dwelt among us)’ in John’s Gospel.

Moving forward to the end of theearthly life of Jesus, he breaks the bread and says “this is my body”

We are fed by WORD and SACRAMENT…

Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven – feed me‘til I want no more

So today – we will be fed. Fed by the word (through thereadings and our reflections on them) then we will be fed by the bodyof Christ (through the HolySacrament later as we come to the altar).

A two-course meal?

Moving to the Letter to theEphesians, Paul is continuing to implore the people to not be foolish orself-serving.  Last week he gave alist of things we shouldn’t be doing. This week, he continues by adding the instruction do not get drunk with wine and carry on singing psalms, hymns andspiritual songs.

But, it’s so difficult to do theright thing.

Someone once said that;

Christianity helps us face the music even when wedon't like the tune.

It’s a challenge that we find difficult and is withus every day – but it hasn’t gone unnoticed….

Rabbi Lionel Blue, once wrote;

The real evidence for Jesus and Christianity isin how Jesus (and the Christianity based on him) manifest themselves in thelives of practicing Christians.

The real evidence for Christianityis found in the everyday lives of people like you and me, who try, andsometimes fail to live a life of love.

At morning prayer on the 14^thAugust, we remembered Maximillian Kolbe, who died aged 47 on that day in 1941.

Kolbe was a Franciscan friar whoprovided shelter to refugees from Poland, including 2,000 jews, whom he hidfrom persecution in his Friary.

He was arrested by the Gestapo andimprisioned in PAWIAK PRISON and then in May 1941, he was transferred toAuschwitz as prisoner number 16670.

At the end of July 1941, threeprisoners disappeared from the camp, prompting the commander to pick ten men tobe killed, by starvation, when one prisoner cried out, Kolbe took his place,after two weeks, he didn’t die by starvation, as the other nine did.  He was killed by lethal injection.

When he was later about to be made aSaint by the Catholic Church, there was a controversy, because he was martyred,not for the faith, but because of racial intolerance, and his act of humankindness.

The suggestion was that he would bea Martyr of Charity.  However Pope John Paul II decided tocanonize him and overrule the commission which he himself had established.

He then made one of the mostimportant statements of his office. He said that the Systematic hatredof whole categories of humanity is in itself an act of hatred.

The whole Nazi regime was inherentlyan act of religious hatred.

Kolbe has quotes for us today, whenwe think about the Bread of Life wereceive at the altar, he says;

"Goddwells in our midst, in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar."

And,when we think about the word made flesh, and how there isthat conflict to ‘do the right thing’,he says;

"No onein the world can change Truth. What we can do and and should do is to seektruth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the innerconflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hetacombs of extermination camps,there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil,sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we areourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?"

Kolbeunderstood that we need to be fed by the wordand sacrament, and be sent out in tothe world to do the word of GOD. That doesn’t stop us caring in certain places, or in certain ways, it isfor all our lives for all we do and for all we say.

Next time I’m down at the MilenniumStadium for the Autumn internationals and the people start singing, Breadof Heaven, Bread of Heaven – feed me ‘til I want no more, my prayerwill be that they will be FED, and we will be FED TOO, so that we can all bethe people God wants us to be, and live a life of love.

      

Don't forget Wednesday

We are celebrating the feast day of Mary, Mother of Our Lord. All welcome at ASC 7.30pm

Sermon - I am the Bread of Life - 10th Sunday after Pentecost - 9th Sunday after Trinity

Sermon

10^th Sunday after Pentecost - 9th Sunday after Trinity

All Saints' Cyncoed 1030

Proper 13

5th August 2012

Jesus said to the crowd “ I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”

In last week’s reading, Jesus fed the 5,000 and left before they forced him to be “king”. 

He sailed away to Capernaum with the Disciples, and the crowd have got into boats and followed him, I suspect that this had taken a couple of days.  Eventually, the multitude arrived.

In the reading we hear someone ask the question…“Rabbi, when did you come here?”

As I read it, I thought it was a bit odd.  Wouldn’t it have been funny if Jesus said “about ten minutes before you chased me up this hill with your mad multitude” Of course he knew when Jesus got there, he was feeding the 5,000 then slipped away, and they chased him to Capernaum.

It isn’t a “how long have you been here” though, it is deeper than that – it is a question to Jesus about who he is.  “Who are you?” It’s a bit like in the superhero films, like The 1989 BATMAN film (the first of many remakes of the story) when the baddie is subdued for the final time, he has been fighting a man dressed as a BAT off and on for days, the newspapers call him BATMAN, the people call him BATMAN, everybody knows him as BATMAN, and then he asks the question “who are you?”.  It’s a bit obvious really. 

Just like the question asked of Jesus - it’s a question and a statement, it is “who are you REALLY?”, and a statement “We have underestimated you”, we have “failed to understand what you were really all about”.

That’s where the similarities between Jesus and Batman end though.

It got me thinking that Jesus should have taken the opportunity to be a little more cryptic really, after all, God said “I am who I am” after all.  Ehyeh asher ehyeh (more literally translated “I shall be what I shall be”).

The discussion that follows asks whether Jesus is acting as the new Moses when he feeds the 5000 in what appears to be a reworking of history. But as I said last week, Jesus is not another Moses: his time is present, past, and future all at once; so later on in John’s Gospel, he will declare: “Before Abraham was, I am.”

Jesus invites us to a point of intersection between earth and heaven, where time is captured and transcended by eternity. He uses historical language and symbolism to reveal new meaning and new life that is not bound by history — life that is whole and perfect, like God.

So, from the stories of Israel’s past, the manna of the exodus is now the bread of life, the water from the rock is the spring of living water welling up to eternal life, the Shepherd of Israel is now the Good Shepherd who lays down his earthly life in order to give eternal life to his sheep.

Asking what time Jesus got a ferry across the Sea of Galilee has begun to uncover some of the complexity of who Jesus is. He does not simply reminisce or retell old stories from the past in a new and relevant way. His actions use already potent symbols and language to break out of time into eternity, out of death into life.

The Gospel reading today gives us one of the most important statements to be found in John’s Gospel, if not the whole of the New Testament.

John’s gospel gives us affirmation, that whatever our understanding of salvation is, that expectation is fulfilled (and corrected) by the unique revelation of GOD in JESUS.

There is a characteristic division in the Gospel of John.  The first half of the Gospel is concerned with describing Jesus as the one who is ‘from above’ and the second half focuses on Jesus’ return to be with the Father.

The Gospel has Jesus claiming to be speaking for God.  Jesus is seen in the imagery as God’s agent on earth.  This would have been clearly understood by the community at the time, because in Jewish law, the Agent has the authority to function as though he were the sender.

In the reading, amid the murmurings and the questioning of the Jews, the statement “I am the bread of life” stands out.  It would remind the community of the manna sent to the Jews in exile; and God, in the Old Testament, known only as ‘I AM’.

“I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry, whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” is a well-known Christian slogan.  So well known in fact, that it has appeared in the last two Sundays in the lectionary. 

I must be honest, however and say that it always confused me.  As I see horrific images of perfectly good Christians suffering in other countries for want of food, I needed to unpack the meaning of the phrase, and try to discover what it means to us 2,000 years after Christ was born.

At a baptism preparation recently, I was reminded about the awesomeness of being a Christian, and being in communication with God. 

To one of God’s Children is to be eternally in touch with God, through Jesus Christ.  It is ever present.  Similarly, as we are baptised, we are in touch with all other Christians, and we must accept the responsibilities that that entails.

For me, the Bread of life is not merely the Holy Sacrament that we meet to share this morning, it is a link between me and the one who created me; AND my link to you, my church community.  It is the knowledge that I am not alone.

St. Paul, in the letter to the Ephesians that we heard today says just that “for we are members of one another”.  He gives guidelines for a Christian community based on honesty, generosity, peace and forgiveness.  He says “be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you”.  He is encouraging the community to be an offering to God, en masse, to provide a model for society, all being fed with the Bread of Life.  This appeals to me, and as you will know, I am keen not to forget the importance of community.

Therefore, I truly believe that the theology of personal salvation on it’s own, is not enough, unless considered in the wider context of Christian community.

When I come down from the pulpit, it’s an important day for my son.  He is to receive communion for the first time.  He will receive communion as one of the baptized, as a member of this church family, and as someone who has some understanding of the mystery we all enter into when we stand or kneel at the altar rail.

And my prayer for us all is that we too can be taken into the mystery again.

In the name of Father: Son and Holy Spirit – AMEN