Grace Made Visible: John 6:35-51 - Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

³⁵Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.³⁶But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.³⁷Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away;³⁸for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.⁴⁰This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day."
⁴¹Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven."⁴²They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?"⁴³Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves.⁴⁴No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.⁴⁵It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.⁴⁶Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.⁴⁷Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.⁴⁸I am the bread of life.⁴⁹Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.⁵⁰This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.⁵¹I 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."

Give us this day... by Kris Litman.  Creative commons image on flickr

One of my fondest childhood memories is visiting my grandmother’s house on the weekend—and the sweet smell of turkey or roast beef in the oven.  Even now I’m blessed, not only because I’m still enjoying Grandma’s cooking, but because I get that same sensation at Mom and Dad’s—and when I come home from work.

It’s not the taste of the food that’s so precious (although it is delicious!).  The food itself is the embodiment of love.

This is the same reason why birthdays, holidays, marriages, and funerals are all celebrated around a meal.  This is the reason why we celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday.  Nothing says “I love you” like food. 

This is all fine and good when there’s an abundance of food.  But what happens when food is scarce?

Today’s Gospel takes us back to the fallout following Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand.  Initially, after the crowd had eaten its fill, they were prepared to take Jesus by force and make him a king.  But acclaim became skepticism when Jesus began speaking of himself as bread that gives life to the world.  The way the people saw it, they’d gladly trust Jesus as long as he kept the loaves and the fish coming.  And who can blame them?  Most of them faced the danger of hunger every single day. 

But now, skepticism is giving way to hostility.  The religious leaders are arguing that Jesus can’t possibly be divine—because they know where he’s come from.  They know his parents.  And as I’ve said before, the problem of the people’s food insecurity is unresolved.  Doubt is now becoming more abundant than the fish and the loaves they had eaten. 

Most of us can relate, particularly when we do not see Jesus doing anything to resolve the evils in the world.  Illnesses don’t go away.  Loneliness persists.  Time and money become scarce.  Who honestly wants to hear all of Jesus’ gobbledygook about him being the bread of life?  What we do want to hear is, “what does believing in Jesus get me?”  Where or how will I get the abundance I need simply to live?

Last weekend, the three of us ate at the Golden Corral for the first time—a restaurant chain with the tagline “help yourself to happiness.”  I can’t think of this so much as a restaurant as I can an amusement park for food.  For $9 admission, you’re entitled to “all the food you can eat,” or the way I saw it, “all the food you can take.” 

Wouldn’t it be something if Christianity worked that way?  Faith and obedience become the currency through which you earn your way into the abundance of everything good that could ever be desired.  Wouldn’t it be great if Jesus said to the sick, the lonely, the broken, and poor, “Come to me and help yourself to happiness?” 

But remember: the suffering, pain, and mortality of humanity is no matter of indifference to God.  That is why God is in the world, drawing people to Jesus Christ.  And Jesus is more than just a solution to a problem or even a lifetime of food. 

To the hungry and poor; the friendless and fearful; the sick and the dying; Jesus says “I am the bread of the life.  Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.”

The abundance of life is not measured by what or how much we get—but by who Jesus declares himself to be.  This is where faith comes in—and without faith, Jesus will be to you what he was to the religious leaders: an unremarkable person from unremarkable origins who isn’t worth the time of day.  Make no mistake—faith isn’t something we can just conjure up of our own will.  Faith is the work of the Holy Spirit.

It begins with the invitation Jesus speaks to a hungry world: come, eat, and live. 

It begins in Christ who comes into our world; right into the middle of poverty, brokenness, and fear.  From the cross he gives his body as the bread through which he speaks the words “I love you.”

Ultimately, the abundance of God’s goodness comes to us in what is, by all appearances, mundane: a morsel of bread; a thimble-full of wine; a 2000-year-old book; or even an un-air-conditioned church inhabited by a small crowd of ordinary people.  Sometimes God’s abundance begins in the invisible; with no more substance than mere words.

If you put your faith and trust in who Jesus is and what he promises, the abundance of God’s grace will become visible.  You will awaken to rebirth as Jesus comes alive in you through your baptism.  Eat and drink the bread and cup of salvation, as Jesus nourishes you to live your life for the sake of what matters to God.  By faith, you will see the goodness of God—and you will do the goodness of God.  Out of the abundance of whatever God gives, Jesus will send you to bring life and healing to the world. 

Those who taste that the Lord is good will see that the Lord is good.  We will belong to Christ and each other.  Together, with all that we have and all that we are, the abundance of God’s goodness and grace will become visible and undeniable.

“Here we can know, not by someone else telling us, but by our own experience, just how much God loves us.”