Year B

John 6:35, 41-51

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Everlasting Bread

The German theologian Helmut Thielicke told of a hungry man passing a store with a sign in the window, “We Sell Bread.” He entered the store, put some money on the counter, and said, “I would like to buy some bread.” The woman behind the counter replied, “We don’t sell bread.” “The sign in the window says that you do,” the hungry man replied. The woman explained, “We make signs here like the one in the window that says ‘We Sell Bread.’” But, as Thielicke concludes, a hungry man can’t eat signs. Life sometimes fools us too. Bread isn’t always found where it seems to be.

Like the man looking in the wrong store for bread or like the crowds looking for something else in the gospel text today, we can miss the point when God offers us everlasting life in Jesus. For those who accept the offer and believe, eternal life is the result of believing. Bishop Frank last Sunday, in his sermon said that we have the choice to choose to eat the Bread of Life or the bread of the World. The bread of Life brings fulfillment in God and the bread of the world, brings continued hunger. Jesus is the only bread that satisfies and enables us to live forever.

And today he is inviting us to accept the good news he brings; to choose to enjoy eternal life, just as he invited the crowd that day long ago. He wants his hearers to understand that God desires them to have the fulfilled life, the nourished life, and that can only come by faith and trust in him. The gospel today picks up where we left off last week in John chapter 6. Jesus has fed the five thousand or more. To the people this was a sign of the kingship of Jesus and they wanted to make him their political messiah to oppose their enemy Rome. But, this was not what Jesus had come to do, so he withdrew to the mountains with his disciples.

Later the people find him and continue to question him about signs and works, Jesus tells them that the bread of God comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They ask for this bread and Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”.  For all who believe in him, whoever eats the bread he gives and drinks the water he gives will become in them a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life. According to John, that spring of water that bubbles up starts here and now; it is a quality of living that enables us to live this life differently.

There is a new self in Jesus; who provides nourishment that does not originate “from earth” or from within; nourishment that satisfies hunger and enables us to deal with hunger. There are millions of Americans, many here in Vidalia and others around the world who don’t have enough food to eat. Our new selves through Jesus seek to help and rid hunger, but for those who have not known poverty, hunger can come in other forms. We hunger for righteousness, love, peace, and tranquility. Jesus enables us to deal with these hungers by asking us to come to him. The only way we can ultimately be satisfied for the things we hunger for and be empowered to help others with their hunger is to hear and adhere to the voice of God through Jesus who has known thirst while hanging on the cross.

He suffered for us and now we have a connection to the God of forgiveness for eternal life. If we want to be filled with love, hope, joy, and comfort we must come to Jesus. And yet, the reality in our world is that many crave other things not realizing that there is no substance in these things, as King David did. The OT story today describes one of the most troubling events God declared David would experience, the death of his son Absalom. The bread that David expected to find in his son did not happen. The story of Absalom and his disastrous revolt is one to the great narratives of the OT. Today’s text deals with the tragic ending of his attempt to usurp his father’s throne.

David, having lost the contest, is forced to flee into exile because his son Absalom has humiliated him and has become leader of Israel. David needed to restore his kingdom given to him by a loving and steadfast God as a gift. So in his pursuit to reestablish himself as king over Israel, David does not take the same path of his bloodthirsty generals. Rather, he looks forward to a reunion with his estranged son, and orders his generals “For my sake, protect my boy Absalom.” Upon hearing of Absalom’s death, David laments, “Oh, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you! Oh, Absalom, my son! My son! What should have been good news, that the rebellion had been stopped, is the worst possible news for David, both he and the nation paid a terrible price.

David had sinned but God saved him, redeemed him from exile and reinstated him as the head of Israel. His former life, a life of selfishness, revenge, and murder, ended. God redeemed him. He is given new life and extends that new life to others as a gift of forgiveness in the same way God forgives us in Christ. As David then sought to imitate God in his personal actions and commitments – God is love, God is just, God keeps promises and forgives, – the Christians Paul writes to in his letter to the Ephesians, are to become imitators of God by putting God’s love into action. They are to live and walk in the love of God.

Those who have an ongoing encounter with the living, loving God in Christ Jesus, the bread of life, are called to be imitators of God. The nature of love is to love and to grow in that love. We put away our old selves for new life in Christ who beckons us as he did those that day on the mountain, to return to God fully through him. Everyone, Jesus says, who has heard and learned from God comes to me. We have been invited to eat the living bread and drink from the life-giving stream and when we do we can only bear witness by giving the very best of ourselves to God and for God’s kingdom.    

Those who choose to accept the good news Christ brings will have fulfilled lives; lives that are generous in love, lives that have certainty in the face of doubt and endurance in the struggles and hardships of life. We will never thirst and our hearts will be comforted. This is why those who eat the bread God offers and come to Jesus will live forever.