11th Sunday after Pentecost
Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15
Psalm 78:23-29
Ephesians 4:1-16
John 6:24-35
Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from the one who is the bread of life. Amen
“We must grow up”
Paul tells the Ephesians
“We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…”
Across our readings today
we see people at various stages of growing up in faith,
maturing in God,
and we see God taking care of them all along the way,
even as God is sometimes exasperated by them.
We have the Israelites in Exodus,
think of these particular people as toddlers in faith.
They have witnessed God do amazing things,
bring the plagues on Egypt,
part the Red Sea which they walked across on dry land,
brought them out of slavery into freedom.
You’d think that witnessing,
let alone participating in
any one of these logic defying signs
would be enough to convince the people to place their trust in God,
and yet here they are after just a month and half in the wilderness
complaining against Moses
(and therefore against God)
about how hungry they are
and that they would rather the Lord have just killed them in Egypt
because then at least they would have died with full bellies.
It’s a bit dramatic but their point is made,
they do need food to survive,
and God knows that,
so God tells Moses that God will provide bread in the morning
and quails in the evening,
and they will have full bellies
and know that the Lord is their God.
so “in the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, ‘it is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.’”
Can’t you imagine it:
“Mooom, I’m hungry”
Mom fixes dinner,
a new recipe of an old classic
which she places in front of the hungry child
who eyes the plate suspiciously
and says in an accusatory tone: “What is it?”
implying that if they can’t identify it right away
it must be yucky,
you want me to put what in my mouth mom?
“What is it?” or Manna in Hebrew,
subtext, this isn’t what we asked for
it must be yucky.
The Israelites complain to God
and treat God’s offering with suspicion,
and yet God gives them what they need to live
and continues to give them what they need in the wilderness
as they mature as a people,
and it takes them 40 years
before they are mature enough as a people
that God deems them ready to enter the abundance of the promised land.
Growing up takes time.
Now compared to that first generation,
the crowds that are following in Jesus
have it all figured out.
At least that’s what they would tell you if you asked them-
they’re more like teenagers in spiritual maturity.
The crowds in John first witnessed Jesus doing healing signs
and realized that this guy was something special
so they followed him.
They followed him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee
where Jesus fed them all with five loaves and two fish
and when they saw the twelve baskets leftover
and the magnitude of the sign Jesus has done
“they began to say, “This indeed is the prophet who is to come into the world.’
and they are so convinced that they know who Jesus is
they move to make him their king.
Jesus eludes them,
first up a mountain
then by walking on water to rejoin the disciples,
but they track him down
and when they find him they ask:
“Rabbi when did you come here?”
subtext, why did you sneak away?/
aren’t we such good disciples for finding you?
But instead of congratulating them on their cleverness
or their faithfulness
Jesus tells them the motives for their actions are insufficient-
he knows they came to find him because they ate their fill of the loaves-
Jesus knew they needed to eat,
that’s why he fed them,
but now Jesus wants them to see
that he is so much more than a healer or provider of food,
God has sent him to give them something even greater: himself.
But when he tries to get them to think beyond their stomachs,
telling them to work for the food that will endure for eternal life,
that he will give them
and all they have to do is believe in him,
the crowd still misses the point-
“what sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you?”
and they suggest that if Jesus is going to be another Moses
that he should also give them bread from heaven to eat.
No, no, no, Jesus says,
you’re still not getting it,
first off, it wasn’t Moses who gave the Israelites food,
it was God,
the same God who is your God, my Father,
the one who gives life to the world
the one who sent me,
I’m not Moses,
I’m the bread.
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
As commentator Alicia Myers states: “He is the “bread of life” given so that all who consume him—who believe, remain with, trust him even when he says scandalous things—will participate in God’s type of life. ..God certainly knows our daily needs, but through Jesus, God also shows us that our preoccupation with our needs can prevent us from seeing the “greater things” God is doing (1:51) and that God wants to do through us (14:12). God’s will isn’t for temporary sustenance, but for ongoing life. And this living only happens when we allow our expectations to be reshaped and we receive the living bread given to us.” (https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-18-2/commentary-on-john-61-21-7)
Jesus cares about our basic needs, yes,
but he is about so much more than us as individuals,
he has come for the sake of the world.
In John 10
Jesus will summarize his mission from God
that he has been trying to communicate all along,
he tells the disciples “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly”
Jesus invites us into that abundant life,
and the mission of the abundant life,
calling us to see beyond our own stomachs,
to look up and out at the world that God loves
and to help spread the abundant life throughout the world
abundant life that is more than just the basic needs
(though that’s often a good place to start)
it is working for peace between people and peace between nations,
it is encouraging the flourishing of all creation
living in harmony so that all may thrive.
This is more than doing the right work,
it is a way of being.
A way of being that takes time to grow into,
to grow up to,
and while we’re growing up,
while we are coming “to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God,
to maturity,
to the measure of the full stature of Christ.”
Jesus, the bread of life,
feeds us with himself,
sustaining our bodies
and calling us to live in ways that create abundant life for all. Amen
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