John 6: 24-35
August 2nd, 2009
“The Bread of Life”
1 Corinthians 11:28 tells us to “examine ourselves before we eat or drink of the bread and the cup.”
Basically, we need to examine our hearts, our minds and our lives before we take the sacrament of Holy Communion. We need to confess where there is sin and then change through the power of the Holy Spirit our lives and thoughts as God directs.
So today, through, our Gospel lesson from John, I hope to help us all examine our lives.
The question this Scripture asks is “What are you feeding your soul on?”
The setting of our Scripture today is important to helping us understand it. Our story today takes place the day after Jesus fed the 5000 with 5 small loaves and 2 fish. He departed the area of that miracle overnight and walked on water to get to the boat His disciples were in. The well fed crowd followed Him the next day and that’s where we pick up the story in verse 24.
The crowd had tried to force Jesus into being their King the day before but Jesus had escaped. When they found Jesus they asked Him “when He got there.” Now in the original language there is a double meaning here.
The question could mean “when did you get here to Capernaum.” But it also could mean “When did you get here on earth?”
The crowd really came seeking an earthly King, not a heavenly King; a King that would meet their physical needs for food and a free nation.
Jesus recognized this – that they were merely feeding their souls on earthly bread. They were materialistic in their outlook, and their expectations for the Messiah were more on the lines of a bread machine than the living Son of God, the bread of Heaven.
Jesus recognizes this and answers their questions. Not the ones they spoke, but the ones they held in their hearts. They asked “when he got there.” He replies instead and states emphatically “You are looking for me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of loaves.”
Sometimes reading John can be confusing because it seems almost like two unrelated conversations are taking place, but what Jesus is doing is drawing the people into a deeper understanding of the words and actions going on at the moment.
Physical nourishment for the soul is what Jesus addresses first, so we need to examine this in our lives. For physical nourishment is not enough.
One Saturday I was listening to Dr. Dean Edel on the radio for about two minutes. In his talk he mentioned a boy who developed rickets from eating a diet of only pizza dough and some other type of bread. It was the first case of rickets in years in the United States.
Physical bread alone is not enough for our bodies much less our souls to keep them healthy. But so often we make it that way in our lives.
Again I ask you “What are you feeding your soul on?” Is it a steady diet of work, work, work that keeps you from feasting on Jesus? Does your job generally keep you out of worship, bible studies and personal devotions?
Does your job or something else keep you from fellowshipping with other Christians? Examine your life. Jesus says in verse 27 “Do not work for food that perishes but for food that endures to eternal life.”
The call here is to make Jesus, the Bread of Life, the center of our lives. The call here is to make Jesus the source by which all other activities in our life are judged and we decide whether or not to participate in them. Our faith and the practice of it is not an addition to other things in life. Our faith is the touchstone by which we judge all other activities we bring into our lives.
Do sports and outdoor activities keep you from the things of God? Do other wholesome positive activities keep you from the things of God!? In the Middle Ages communities gathered to build great cathedrals to the glory of God in Christ. Today communities marshal their efforts to build huge sports and arts complexes. What is worshipped? What brings people ultimate meaning and purpose?
Things don’t necessarily have to be evil to draw you from God. Jesus himself had compassion on the people and provided them bread and fish. But that wasn’t his sole purpose of being here. Jesus fed the people but did not let that define who he was.
Someone once said that to discern the will of God it is often not a choice between good and evil, but a choice between good and a lesser good!
The material blessings of our society we can rejoice in. The cars, the homes we live in, the clothes we wear and the food we eat, but if that is only how we define life and the good life we are vulnerable indeed.
The recent events in our national and world economies have clearly demonstrated our vulnerability in depending on materialistic things for our ultimate meaning. It wasn’t moth and rust that destroyed people’s lives, fortunes and 401k plans; but greed, theft (think Madoff), subprime loans and oil speculation, corrupt politicians etc.
It has left people without bread and hope, but not those who have lost much but have been fixed on the Bread of Life-- Jesus.
And there are many material things in our society that people fix their hearts and lives on that clearly are not good and draw so many away from God, slowly and inevitable. I’ll mention a few:
Pornography – I know a man who’s lost at least twelve years of his life following fantasies that keep him from any true relationships and the Church. He inherited and lost two small fortunes in his pursuit of his addiction.
Gambling – I know families who’ve lost their homes through gambling. Others have committed suicide over their losses and the cause of Christ has suffered with the fantasy that people often tell me they say that “When I win big, then I’ll really support the Church.”
If all the money that was wagered and lost gambling by Church members wound up in the church I don’t think we’d ever have a fund short fall.
Drugs and alcohol many turn to for comfort, solace and peace. The destruction that this type of nourishment for the body and soul creates goes without speaking.
And today for any who struggle with such things Jesus says, “come to me and believe and you will not hunger or thirst.”
Examine yourselves what are you feeding your souls on?
Next in our Scripture Jesus addresses false preconceived religious ideas as bad nourishment for the soul.
In verse 28 the people ask “What must we do to perform the works of God?”
At first this seems a great question! How can I serve God? But what they were really asking is what can I do to earn my salvation? They believed you must do certain works and follow certain laws to earn their salvation.
This was the false preconceived idea that Jesus was addressing that you had to work to be saved!! You had to be “good” in a certain way to be saved is an idea still prevalent today. How good is good enough to get in?
I can almost hear Jesus say in reply to this, “Work, Ha! You don’t have to work just believe in me!” Verse 30. The crowd, though, in reply to this says “Oh really who the heck are you?”
“We want a sign,” a better sign than just feeding 5,000. We want you to feed our entire nation just like Moses did for forty years!!
The implication was ‘bring back the Manna from heaven.’ Their preconceived religious notion of the Messiah was that when he came he would restore the gift of Manna.
Jesus, though, kept right on and in verse 32 reminds them it wasn’t Moses who gave them bread it was God and God was doing something even better in Jesus. The bread they ate yesterday was just for a day. The bread the Israelites ate in the wilderness was just for a lifetime and all who ate it died.
The true bread from heaven God gives life today and if you believe you will live eternally. Jesus is the bread that grants life forever not just a day or even forty years.
The question our Scripture asks today is there any preconceived religious ideas in your life that you need to cast away?
Do you have preconceived ideas for what the Church “ought to be and ought to do” and yet God has called it to be something else? Do you have preconceived ideas about pastors, ministries, music that need re-examined? Are you standing in judgment of the work of God rather than have it stand in judgment of you?
It concerns me when people sometimes seem more loyal to me then to the church. One young man who later became a marine told me once, “If you leave this church so will I.” I am flesh and bone and not the Messiah, so I can guarantee you that one day I will do something that will disappoint you and I being a United Methodist minister will move. Don’t follow me or any other person. Follow Jesus as revealed in scripture.
Are you trapped in understandings of our faith you’ve learned in childhood and not examined or grown in since? For many people the last formal education in the faith they had happened in childhood. Would you trust any professional who said they ended their education in the 6th or 7th grade? If you haven’t studied the faith since then can you trust what you believe?
Do you still like a little child believe you’ve got to be good to get into heaven? Or have you grown to where Jesus would take you in our scriptures, “that you only have to believe in him?” What ideas are you nourishing your soul on? What teachings? Do you need to be in a Bible Study to grow? Do you need to commit to a ministry to grow? Only you and God can answer this. I just inconveniently ask the question.
Our Scripture concludes with two great claims by Christ. In verse 33 Jesus claims, “he is the bread of God that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
Jesus is God in the flesh here on earth and will give life and does give life to all. Whoever would come to Him and believe will never hunger and never thirst. Jesus will satisfy all the longings of your soul.
Jesus is who we should nourish our souls on. Jesus Christ is the proper answer to the question of this sermon.
What are you feeding your soul on?
So now I give you time in silence to pray. Examine your hearts, examine your lives. Determine to cast out all that you nourish your soul on that does not lead to life. That does not lead to Christ that does not lead to God!
Then come, come to the Table of the Lord. Come to the Sacrament of Holy Communion and feast on our Lord so that you may never hunger and you may never thirst.
Let us pray now in silence. Close your eyes. Open your hearts. Open your minds. Open your lives and let God examine them. What are you nourishing your soul on?
Silent prayer.
Any who feel called to believe in Christ and make a commitment to His Church indicate that to me when you come forward.
Kneel and pray and make that commitment before Christ’s altar then join me in two weeks at our membership luncheon.
