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Sermon - August 2nd, 2009
What Feeds Your Soul
Rev. Gwen Drake
Scripture: John 6:24-34
Prayer of Preparation: We give thanks, O God of sacred stories, for the witness of your word today. Through Scripture you challenge our assumptions, increase our awareness, nurture our imaginations, and touch our feelings. Bless the hearing of the word today. Speak to us and grant that by the power of your Spirit we may be hearers and doers of your word. Amen.
Jesus gives a lot of speeches in the Gospel of John. He performs some miracles. He feeds the five thousand, he walks on water, and he has this crowd that keeps following him around, looking for him, asking him questions, wanting answers and solutions to their lives. They are hungry and Jesus gives them bread. They want him to be their king, like King David was. They want him to be the deliverer, like Moses was. But Jesus keeps telling them that he is something else, something more that a deliverer and a king. Jesus is telling them that they are not understanding who he is and why he has come. They don’t get it. Jesus tries another approach. They don’t get it. In Chapter 5, Jesus says, “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life…yet you refuse to come to me to have life. I do not accept glory from human beings.”
Of course, when I read the Gospel of John, I have trouble getting it too. I prefer a good parable. I like stories. I like something I can identify with.
Jesus walks around with this crowd following him, talking about his relationship to the Father. He avoids being their leader, their king. He doesn’t answer their questions very well. He feeds them bread and then tells them he is the bread of life. Many are not satisfied with his answers. Some complain and plot against him. But Jesus keeps walking and talking and telling them that his teachings are not his but of the one who sent him.
I love bread. Bread is one of my favorite foods. My first year of seminary, I lived in student housing and ate at the cafeteria. My work study job was to make the bread every morning. I’d never made bread before-- successfully. So, I thought, this is my chance to learn. So, I did. In huge quantities, with the help of this gigantic mixer. It was easy…a lot of flour, a little yeast, a little sugar and salt and oil, and what ever else I felt like throwing in. You know, raisons, sunflower seeds, rye flour… I would throw in the ingredients, let the mixer do the work, and then leave it rising and the chef would do the rest. At lunch, I would come and there was my bread, fresh and warm, like magic.
I really enjoyed eating in the cafeteria. Not only was the food good most of the time, but I made friends there…good friends. Then I got married and it was harder to maintain those friendships I had made my first year in the cafeteria. I live in married student housing and we only ate in the cafeteria once a week.
There is something about breaking bread together at the same table. There’s something about sharing a meal. It’s a great equalizer—all eating the same food, sharing the same experience, sitting together. While we are chewing our food, it gives us time to listen when someone is talking. We pause to eat everyday. And when we do that with others, well, a relationship begins. And that is what Jesus wants more than anything else…relationship. Life is about relationships. Jesus is the bread of life. He isn’t talking only about feeding our empty stomachs. He is talking about feeding our empty souls with real, honest, genuine, down-to-earth relationships—when you listen to one another, share experiences together, for no other reason but to be in a relationship. Isn’t that what truly feeds our souls?
Michael Jinkins, dean and professor at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary writes, addressing his daughter, “To love God is not to love what God can do for us. To love God is not to treasure the benefits God can deliver us. Loving God, in other words, is not just a religious version of self-interest and self-preservation. To love God is to delight in God.” I believe that this is the kind of relationship that feeds our souls and that we yearn to have this kind of relationship with one another. To love one another is to delight in one another, acknowledge one another, listen to one another, encourage one another, believe in one another—not expecting anything in return.
There is something about our human nature that thinks that we are alone--that we are the only ones that experience what we experience. Well, it is true we each are unique, only one of a kind. But we are not alone. We are all in this thing called life together. We are never alone. There are other seekers, pilgrims on this journey searching to understand. It’s a journey that leads all of us to death. And if we don’t understand that our life leads to death, then perhaps Charles Dickens is correct when he wrote, “then nothing wonderful can come from this story.”
It’s one of those paradoxes about life. Facing death brings us life. Michael Jinkins took his daughter to visit her great-grandmother when she was 12 or 13. His daughter went in to talk to the his dying grandmother while the rest of the family gathered in the hallway discussing and debating whether or not they should tell her that she was dying. The daughter asked her great-grandmother, “Grandmother, do you know you are dying?” And she replied, “I know, honey.” Her great-grand-daughter said, “ But they are all out in the hall discussing whether to tell you.” And the great-grandmother said, “I know. It’s hard for them.”
Relationships can be so difficult, full of secrets and lying, manipulation, control, misunderstandings, assumptions, betrayal, denial. Jesus knew all this, and he also experienced it. He knew that some people would take what he said out of context. He knew that a crowd that seemed devoted to him, hanging on his every word, would just as easily turn away and follow someone else who sounded good or said what that wanted to hear. He knew some would go to the extreme when he didn’t do what they wanted him to do.
What is remarkable is that he was true to himself and others and God’s purpose to the very end. He was not here to be a superstar…not in the way people wanted anyway. He was here to be a real human being, wanting to be in relationship with real people, and wanting people to be in relationship with each other in a way that gave life, not take it away. Perhaps that is why communion and breaking bread and being together at the same table is so important—because here at this table is no ulterior motive. We are sharing what keeps us a live—a little bread, a little grape juice, and an awareness that everyone who shares these gifts are in this life together—seeking the same thing—something with substance and meaning and depth.
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Amen.