The Jesus Diet
Text: John 6:35, 41-51
I wonder, have any of you ever gotten a titch hungry when listening to the Gospel of John? After all, it’s probably been a few hours since most of us have had breakfast. Lunch is slated to be in about an hour… maybe some of you have already planned on going out to a restaurant? Maybe some of you have something at home ready to go in the oven for Sunday dinner? Chances are I’ve already started your stomachs growling for your next meal… which makes it particularly challenging to preach, because now all anybody is thinking about right now is food! Not exactly easy to preach when the whole congregation is thinking about their next meal.
So, I planned for this contingency… here’s something to chew on… (Pass out Timbit boxes)
It seems that a good number of the early stories in John’s gospel centre around food. We have the wedding at Cana, the feeding of the multitude, his conversations about the living water with the Samaritan woman, and the well known statement “I am the bread of life.” (6:35). The Gospel of John opens up with a question, “are you hungry?” Stirs up the pot a bit, and then really pours on the gravy with food metaphors.
Of course, John is talking about a Spiritual food that nourishes and sustains, but he begins with something that everyone is familiar with… the sensation of hunger… and how much that want and genuine need for food parallels our need for God. For John, this would be at a time where everyone would be familiar with the sensation of hunger… because at some point or another everyone has gone through the experience of famine. John tapped into that sense of hunger that people knew well, and brought it along side that sense of Spiritual hunger that was particularly widespread in the First Century.
I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35)
As a 21st Century North American audience, we can relate to food well… but a genuine sense of hunger is something we don’t truly know in a culture of Super-sized Fast Food. If anything, our challenge is that we live in a culture that has an overabundance of food. There is a constant barrage of media reports that tell us that American society is collectively overweight, Canada is not far behind. I remember listening to a special on CBC a few weeks ago that tells us that the only way for food companies to make a profit in a food-abundant culture is to get people to eat more. Up go the portion sizes… super-size me... We have inklings of being hungry, we look ahead to our next meal… but we do not know this sensation of starving…
I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35)
This scene comes after the feeding of the multitude. Yet as John tells it, at least a day had past, and the crowd came looking for Jesus again. While they had been filled on the one day, they were hungry again… and went looking for Jesus again. When they find him, Jesus offers them something different. A relationship with God… something that will sustain them beyond their mortal lives: the Bread of Life.
John uses the metaphor of food to talk about our relationship with God. Yet the people don’t seem to get it… they don’t follow the play on words. They think Jesus is talking about some sort of real bread, bread that will physically fill them up so they will never have to eat again.
Of all the gospels, John makes the greatest use of metaphor when talking about Jesus. Most often we hear this through the famous “I am” statements. There are seven of them… Jesus says, “I am” on several occasions in John’s Gospel, seven of them as theological anchor points… metaphors that give us a powerful insight into what the early Church understood about Jesus. In each case, when they appear, John has Jesus go into these long, heady and rather esoteric discussions about what the metaphor means.
The trouble is, for the most part, we don’t get it. Yet in the most simple of terms, Jesus says, “I am bread… feed on me.” I can’t remember where I saw it, but I once saw a picture of a communion wafer that had the words “eat me” underneath it. It may be a bit crude, perhaps… but it does point us in the right direction: this story is at its absolute best when preached on the same Sundays that we celebrate communion. John is very clearly layering the image of the Lord’s Supper into this passage… Eating the bread, drinking the wine… in doing so we bring Jesus so close to us that he is inside of us, changing us, and calling us into a relationship with one another. In other words… the bread that Jesus offers is the bread that nourishes the soul –he offers himself.
I am bread… feed on me. Come and live in relationship with me, and the spiritual hunger that you have will be satisfied.
I think in some ways, we would have preferred it if Jesus had said to the crowd, “Now that you’ve eaten your fill on my miraculous bread, let me give you a lecture on the essential beliefs of the Christian Faith.” The trouble is, Jesus doesn’t do that. He says eat me, feed on me, take me the same way you would a good meal.
Come together and eat! In its earliest days, communion was part of a shared meal. The community ate together as a part of their worship services… and over the years we have made it far more formal. Yet as a community we still gather together around food. Church potlucks are a way of life… we get together, and we eat. Friendships are built over meals. Relationships develop over common meals… why would we think it any different than our relationship with God?
It is not enough simply to believe some ideas about Jesus; God calls us into relationship with him. I am bread, feed on me… I will be inside you and nourish your soul… This is a very intimate, earthy, fleshy sort of metaphor. Jesus is more than just an interesting idea, more than a belief. He is the bread that we hunger for, to eat, to savour, that satisfies us. We bring him into our lives in a way that is personal and intimate, and our spiritual hunger will be fed. It’s life changing stuff!
Yet there is something that scares us here. Like those who grumble in the story, we don’t get it.
I think we would prefer it if Jesus was an interesting idea… As much as I like to think of myself as the academic type, I love delving into stuff, research and learning. I enjoy sharing what I’ve learned with others, and is probably why I enjoy the Bible studies so much. Yet even with all that, I have also learned that most people do not come to faith by longwinded arguments and reason. Personal contact and friendship are what most often bring people to faith. I know from my own experiences, this is true: As much as I enjoy the study, it is in those personal encounters with one another that we encounter Jesus in our midst.
I remember once encountering someone who was part of the staff of the United Methodist Church in the US. I was part of a group that developed a website that would have appeal to, and genuinely nurture faith in those who were solidly post-modern in their thinking. He was a dyed in the wool Methodist, but he had come by it honestly. He told me that one of the things that turned him off Baptist or even Presbyterian denominations is that all that seemed to be required was “intellectual assent to correct doctrine.” His words, not mine. His experience went something like this… if you get all the facts right… that’s all you need… and nothing else changes. While I assured him that my own experience was quite a bit different, I think too often he’s right. What attracted him to Methodism was that sense of personal relationship that was fostered… a personal relationship that inspired and developed genuine change.
John reminds us that the Christian faith is more than a set of beliefs or intellectual propositions. It is a matter of Jesus encountering us, a matter of God getting personal with us, engaging our lives in a way that is far more intimate than we realize. We know that in the early church, the celebrations that would develop into what we now call communion were quite literally congregational meals. It is interesting that in many churches today, people are far more willing to come to a meal than they are the worship service. At one point in our history, there wasn’t a difference… they were the same thing. Relationships are built over meals. In some ways, it’s something we already know deep down, but we often need a reminder.
No doubt, the Timbits I’ve passed out have probably made their rounds… Chances are you still have a bit of that sweet taste in your mouth… that was intentional. It means that many of you will taste and remember… and it may even happen with the next Timbit you eat. Remember what 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.
Remember this whenever you get together around the table with your friends, whenever you go out for food with one another, whenever you share and develop your friendships. In the same way, take the opportunity to develop your relationship with God, and that spiritual hunger will be satisfied.
Amen.
I wonder, have any of you ever gotten a titch hungry when listening to the Gospel of John? After all, it’s probably been a few hours since most of us have had breakfast. Lunch is slated to be in about an hour… maybe some of you have already planned on going out to a restaurant? Maybe some of you have something at home ready to go in the oven for Sunday dinner? Chances are I’ve already started your stomachs growling for your next meal… which makes it particularly challenging to preach, because now all anybody is thinking about right now is food! Not exactly easy to preach when the whole congregation is thinking about their next meal.
So, I planned for this contingency… here’s something to chew on… (Pass out Timbit boxes)
It seems that a good number of the early stories in John’s gospel centre around food. We have the wedding at Cana, the feeding of the multitude, his conversations about the living water with the Samaritan woman, and the well known statement “I am the bread of life.” (6:35). The Gospel of John opens up with a question, “are you hungry?” Stirs up the pot a bit, and then really pours on the gravy with food metaphors.
Of course, John is talking about a Spiritual food that nourishes and sustains, but he begins with something that everyone is familiar with… the sensation of hunger… and how much that want and genuine need for food parallels our need for God. For John, this would be at a time where everyone would be familiar with the sensation of hunger… because at some point or another everyone has gone through the experience of famine. John tapped into that sense of hunger that people knew well, and brought it along side that sense of Spiritual hunger that was particularly widespread in the First Century.
I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35)
As a 21st Century North American audience, we can relate to food well… but a genuine sense of hunger is something we don’t truly know in a culture of Super-sized Fast Food. If anything, our challenge is that we live in a culture that has an overabundance of food. There is a constant barrage of media reports that tell us that American society is collectively overweight, Canada is not far behind. I remember listening to a special on CBC a few weeks ago that tells us that the only way for food companies to make a profit in a food-abundant culture is to get people to eat more. Up go the portion sizes… super-size me... We have inklings of being hungry, we look ahead to our next meal… but we do not know this sensation of starving…
I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35)
This scene comes after the feeding of the multitude. Yet as John tells it, at least a day had past, and the crowd came looking for Jesus again. While they had been filled on the one day, they were hungry again… and went looking for Jesus again. When they find him, Jesus offers them something different. A relationship with God… something that will sustain them beyond their mortal lives: the Bread of Life.
John uses the metaphor of food to talk about our relationship with God. Yet the people don’t seem to get it… they don’t follow the play on words. They think Jesus is talking about some sort of real bread, bread that will physically fill them up so they will never have to eat again.
Of all the gospels, John makes the greatest use of metaphor when talking about Jesus. Most often we hear this through the famous “I am” statements. There are seven of them… Jesus says, “I am” on several occasions in John’s Gospel, seven of them as theological anchor points… metaphors that give us a powerful insight into what the early Church understood about Jesus. In each case, when they appear, John has Jesus go into these long, heady and rather esoteric discussions about what the metaphor means.
The trouble is, for the most part, we don’t get it. Yet in the most simple of terms, Jesus says, “I am bread… feed on me.” I can’t remember where I saw it, but I once saw a picture of a communion wafer that had the words “eat me” underneath it. It may be a bit crude, perhaps… but it does point us in the right direction: this story is at its absolute best when preached on the same Sundays that we celebrate communion. John is very clearly layering the image of the Lord’s Supper into this passage… Eating the bread, drinking the wine… in doing so we bring Jesus so close to us that he is inside of us, changing us, and calling us into a relationship with one another. In other words… the bread that Jesus offers is the bread that nourishes the soul –he offers himself.
I am bread… feed on me. Come and live in relationship with me, and the spiritual hunger that you have will be satisfied.
I think in some ways, we would have preferred it if Jesus had said to the crowd, “Now that you’ve eaten your fill on my miraculous bread, let me give you a lecture on the essential beliefs of the Christian Faith.” The trouble is, Jesus doesn’t do that. He says eat me, feed on me, take me the same way you would a good meal.
Come together and eat! In its earliest days, communion was part of a shared meal. The community ate together as a part of their worship services… and over the years we have made it far more formal. Yet as a community we still gather together around food. Church potlucks are a way of life… we get together, and we eat. Friendships are built over meals. Relationships develop over common meals… why would we think it any different than our relationship with God?
It is not enough simply to believe some ideas about Jesus; God calls us into relationship with him. I am bread, feed on me… I will be inside you and nourish your soul… This is a very intimate, earthy, fleshy sort of metaphor. Jesus is more than just an interesting idea, more than a belief. He is the bread that we hunger for, to eat, to savour, that satisfies us. We bring him into our lives in a way that is personal and intimate, and our spiritual hunger will be fed. It’s life changing stuff!
Yet there is something that scares us here. Like those who grumble in the story, we don’t get it.
I think we would prefer it if Jesus was an interesting idea… As much as I like to think of myself as the academic type, I love delving into stuff, research and learning. I enjoy sharing what I’ve learned with others, and is probably why I enjoy the Bible studies so much. Yet even with all that, I have also learned that most people do not come to faith by longwinded arguments and reason. Personal contact and friendship are what most often bring people to faith. I know from my own experiences, this is true: As much as I enjoy the study, it is in those personal encounters with one another that we encounter Jesus in our midst.
I remember once encountering someone who was part of the staff of the United Methodist Church in the US. I was part of a group that developed a website that would have appeal to, and genuinely nurture faith in those who were solidly post-modern in their thinking. He was a dyed in the wool Methodist, but he had come by it honestly. He told me that one of the things that turned him off Baptist or even Presbyterian denominations is that all that seemed to be required was “intellectual assent to correct doctrine.” His words, not mine. His experience went something like this… if you get all the facts right… that’s all you need… and nothing else changes. While I assured him that my own experience was quite a bit different, I think too often he’s right. What attracted him to Methodism was that sense of personal relationship that was fostered… a personal relationship that inspired and developed genuine change.
John reminds us that the Christian faith is more than a set of beliefs or intellectual propositions. It is a matter of Jesus encountering us, a matter of God getting personal with us, engaging our lives in a way that is far more intimate than we realize. We know that in the early church, the celebrations that would develop into what we now call communion were quite literally congregational meals. It is interesting that in many churches today, people are far more willing to come to a meal than they are the worship service. At one point in our history, there wasn’t a difference… they were the same thing. Relationships are built over meals. In some ways, it’s something we already know deep down, but we often need a reminder.
No doubt, the Timbits I’ve passed out have probably made their rounds… Chances are you still have a bit of that sweet taste in your mouth… that was intentional. It means that many of you will taste and remember… and it may even happen with the next Timbit you eat. Remember what 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.
Remember this whenever you get together around the table with your friends, whenever you go out for food with one another, whenever you share and develop your friendships. In the same way, take the opportunity to develop your relationship with God, and that spiritual hunger will be satisfied.
Amen.
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