Sermon for Pentecost 11/Proper
14, Year B
St. Barnabas Episcopal Church,
Denver, CO ~ August 12, 2012
John 6:35, 41-51
35Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me
will never be thirsty.
36But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 41Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. 44No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
(I can’t
believe I admit watching that). The show
featured a capable and sensitive woman who was
very publicly looking for her “Mr. Right.”
Since we
were unavailable the exact
night that the last episode aired,
we “streamed”
the episode the next day on the
station’s website. This
meant the show was punctuated by two,
30-second commercial clips. The same
ads, every time. To watch
the show on the website, we were
obliged to see the ads over and over.
And
over. Has
anyone else experienced this?
Both
commercials positioned their product next to
food.
The first
commercial began with the
image of a kind woman’s face –
softly,
out of focus, while Al Green’s song,
“Let’s
Stay Together” played in the background:
“I, I'm
so in love with you / Whatever you want to do / Is all right with me”
As the
song played, the
image of Lays potato chips appeared.
We heard
the refrain lyrics, straight
from the Gospel of Al Green:
“ 'Cause
you make me feel so brand new / And I want to spend my life with you…”
The
advertisers cleverly positioned the
ordinary potato chip with a familiar love song.
What
stood out for me was this
explicit linking of love and food…
to let
it “do what you want to do” because
it “makes you feel so brand new.”
It was a
bit ridiculous, aligning
potato chips and love …
The
second commercial began with the
image of a bank’s logo
flashing
across the screen. Quickly,
the image transitioned
to a
soft black-n-white video. We
watched two very cute five- or seven-year-olds
run
towards a booth at a diner, their
father in tow trying
to keep up behind them.
They slipped
into a booth, laughed, and folded
their fries
before
stuffing them in their mouth for a
fun time with their dad.
Meanwhile,
Thin Lizzy’s song, “The
Boys are Back In Town”
played in the background. You know
the one:
“The
boys are back in town /the boys
are back in town….”
Very
quickly, the logo of the bank re-appeared
on the screen with the words,
“Not
every meal is about food. ” We saw
the father paying his check with
that bank’s preferred credit card. The
narrator closed the commercial by saying,
“Why not
make lunch more than just lunch? With our card you get two times the points at every
meal…not
every meal is about food / With our
card you may be tempted to say
yes to more meals than you thought.”
The
advertisers cleverly positioned the
ordinary credit card with a take-the-kids-out-for-lunch
scene.
What stood out for me was the explicit
linking of family love, product and food.
So
that “not every meal is about food” I
wondered – who says
that every meal is only about food anyway?
Both of
these commercials included
food to position their product. Why?
Elementally,
we humans hunger. We need
to eat, physiologically. We have
hungers and thirsts, physiologically
and metaphorically. Advertisers
know that. They connect
their product to satisfying
that hunger. This approach
has been going on for
hundreds of years.
Even
Jesus, in today’s Gospel reading. When Jesus
said, “I am the bread of life” he connected
the people’s elemental hunger – what was
needed for life – to himself.
Jesus turned
things upside down (once again) by raising
at least three key issues:
Who is “I Am,”
Who and
what is “The Bread” and
Who
draws people to Jesus.
Jesus’ statement
“I am the bread of life” was a
bold self-revelation. Last
week, Dennis explored fabulously how in that
bread we find Jesus – the one
who we meet at the Communion table. Today’s
reading opens with this statement “I am
the bread of life.” It’s
kind of the biblical version of Jesus’
logo flashing across our screen.
Just so
you know, this
won’t be the last time Jesus says “I am.”Spoiler
Alert!
Five
times in the Gospel of John we read
“I am…the
light of the world.”
“I am…the
gate for the sheep.”
“I am…the
good shepherd.”
“I am…
the resurrection and the life.”
“I am…
the way, the truth and the life.”
In so
doing, Jesus used common symbols of ancient
Near Eastern religious and
human
experiences. In these
“I am” statements, Jesus
declared how religious and human longings are met
in him. He used
a variety of symbols because not
one of them
can
totally describe who Jesus is. Each one
presents a different lens through which
Jesus meets human longings.
The loaded
phrase “I Am” must
have resonated with the
scholars and Jewish people gathered there. They
probably knew their Hebrew Scriptures and knew
Exodus 3,
when
Moses asked God what
name to use to describe God to the Israelites?
“God
replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” … “Thus
you shall say to the Israelites,
‘The
Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is
my name forever, and this
my title for all generations.”
So when
Jesus said, “I am…
the bread that came down from heaven,” he aligned
ordinary bread with
himself and with the
scholarly name for God (I AM) from texts
of his tradition and his people.
Bread, made from the ingredients of
the earth (flour,
water, salt and yeast) and
prepared
in three steps (mix, rise and bake), which people
ate daily.
Bread, that people also used in the religious
rituals of meaning and in offerings
to God.
Bread, like the manna that
their ancestors ate in the wilderness (but died).
Bread, in the person of Jesus, was different
than that old time-limited manna.
Jesus,
as The bread of life – was God’s
once-for-all living gift to the world.[1]
See, the
people of this synagogue were
familiar with how Rabbis were supposed to act and when
“proper” teaching about God’s heaven was not
being followed.
They
knew “about” Jesus – they said,
“Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph,
whose
father and mother we know? How can
he now say, ‘I have
come down from heaven’?” They
complained about his statements …“coming
down from heaven,” –
how can
he say that? That didn’t
fit who they understood Jesus to be,
the son
of Joseph.
We can
all relate to this shock they must have felt. How many
of us have known someone in one
context, only to learn about them in
another context and been flabbergasted at who
they then became. Like me,
taking a yoga class from my sister –
my
“little” sister – who is a
really gifted teacher!
The Jews
gathered there murmured gna gna gna... So Jesus
responded to them,
“Do not
complain among yourselves.” Then, he
elaborated. There’s more going on
here.
“No one
can come to me unless
drawn by the Father who sent me…”
Jesus
diverted the attention away from himself to God,
the source and power of life.
“No one
can come to me unless
drawn by the Father who sent me…”
What did
Jesus mean, “drawn by the Father”? Augustine
has helpful words to say about this:
“See how
he draws. Not by imposing necessity” but by
grace – enabling
the “inner palate” of the soul to find
it’s greatest “pleasure” and “delight” in
partaking of the truth. It is not,
Augustine cautions, for us
to judge who is drawn and who
is not, but rather to realize that our
preaching is only noise to the ears unless
listeners are drawn
by [God’s]
love to hear it.”[2]
In other
words, God draws hearts to Love. God draws through grace. God satisfies our inner palate.
What is
really behind that hunger & longing?
Is it to
be enough? accepted? understood? forgiven? loved?
In
Jesus, the I Am, we know God. In
Jesus, incarnate and ordinary as bread, we know
God. By the
grace of God’s drawing, our
palate is satisfied in Love.
As
members of this faith community, we are
called to love others as we are loved.
Today’s
good news reminds us that we
are called to invite others to know God, just as
we are drawn to know God. It is
not for us to convert or to
change others, simply to invite.
We know
Jesus in this messy, ordinary, incarnational
human experience. Jesus,
the bread of life that comes down from heaven, continues to feed our hungers
and our thirsts.
Maybe
this week, for St. B’s, Jesus is
the peach of life – juicy, messy, tasty.
Can you
invite Jesus to satisfy you?
Can you
invite others to
experience the Love of God found in this place?
Perhaps
the advertiser has got it right –
sometimes
a meal is not just about food.
Can we
join in this meal of ordinary bread and wine, and
together, through Jesus, be drawn closer to Love.
Amen.