John 6:35, 41-51
Like many of you I’ve been following the Olympics lately. I love sports in general and I always find it amazing to watch people do incredible things. I like to play ping pong, but watching Olympic ping pong is just astonishing. And I’m amazed to watch gymnastics. I’d be lucky to walk across a balance beam without falling and then I see someone like Simon Biles jump incredibly high, do a bunch of flips midair, and land perfectly on her feet. They just seem superhuman. And then there was the Turkish pistol shooter Yusuf Dikec who captured the world’s attention after he and his partner won the silver medal in pistol shooting. Viewers loved how casual and chill he seemed. Other competitors had special gear and shooting stances; this guy walks up nonchalantly with his hand in his pocket and fires like it’s no big deal and wins the silver medal. Even though he later said that while he looked calm, on the inside a storm was raging, people just loved his apparently calm, chill attitude. The thing that was so appealing about him was just how casual he seemed, how average and ordinary.
In the Gospel reading we heard today, Jesus talks about something very ordinary too. Bread. Last week I shared how bread is such an important and special part of human civilization, but there’s also no denying the fact that in our culture bread is incredibly ordinary. Now Jesus seems to really like bread. At least he really likes it as an explanation of how God relates to him and how he relates to us. The text we heard this morning is a continuation of what we read last week: Jesus’ discussion about the image of the Bread of Life. Jesus had said he was the bread which came down from heaven. And the people listening clearly didn’t get it. Some of these people apparently knew Jesus from before his ministry began. They knew his parents and may have grown up with him. How could he say he came down from heaven?
The theme of bread from God is actually a common Old Testament theme. God sent the bread-like substance called manna down to the Israelites when Moses led them through the desert. And in the first reading today God provided a cake for Elijah to strengthen him for his journey. So the Israelites knew these themes of God providing bread and nourishment to God’s people. But how could Jesus compare himself to being that provision and nourishment? In fact, how dare Jesus compare himself to being that provision and nourishment! These people knew Jesus from when he was a boy! They knew his parents! They knew he wasn’t bread from heaven! He was too ordinary, too much like them.
The crowd thought Jesus couldn’t possibly be from God because he was so familiar. He was so basic. He was just another guy. They knew him, and they knew he was like them. An ordinary human being, nothing special. But you know what? Maybe that’s the whole point. God became incarnate in an ordinary looking human being and God uses average, ordinary things to communicate God’s self to us.
God is not just present in the other worldly, transcendent realms. God is present in the material, in the physical. God is present here and now, in ordinary things. And God works through the most unlikely of things, the most ordinary stuff! We know from the mystery of the Eucharist that God is present in bread and wine. But God is also present in trees and dirt. God is present in garbage and waste. God is present in and throughout all creation. There’s a fancy theological word you might have heard: that God is omnipresent, meaning God is everywhere. You may recall that Martin Luther used an even fancier phrase: the ubiquity of the Corpus Christi. That is, the universality of the body of Christ. The idea that Christ is everywhere and in everything.
Jesus communicates divine truth to us using something very basic and tangible. Jesus Christ didn’t want to limit the experience of God to only well-read theologians. And so instead of just talking about God in words and ideas, Jesus wants us to touch and taste this bread and wine to connect with God. And that’s the same reason why God sent Jesus. Jesus is the Incarnation—God who we can be touched and felt. A real person we can connect with. God may seem so mysterious and out there, but Jesus is so close and personal. That’s why we needed him; and that’s why God uses ordinary things like bread and human beings to teach us about God.
The eternal Word became incarnate in an ordinary looking man and comes to us in ordinary looking bread and wine. And this important observation should instill in us a great sense of reverence for all things. The crowd listening to Jesus didn’t think God could possibly be present in this ordinary man, this one who said he himself is the bread of life. And, like them, we also have to watch ourselves if we ever think there’s no way God could be present in a certain person, place, or thing.
On the contrary, everywhere we go and in every person we meet we should EXPECT to find God! God is fully present everywhere! So we should expect to see God in our neighbor. Expect to see God in the poor and needy. Expect to see God in those in prison. Expect to see God in people with different beliefs. Expect to see God in the most ordinary places. Expect to see God in the most unexpected places. Because Jesus was both ordinary and unexpected. And our God works through the ordinary, the unexpected, the secular/material/physical realm to reveal God’s self to us. That’s the mystery of the Incarnation. That’s the mystery of our Sacraments: God working through the physical to reveal God’s self to us.
And then, when we learn to recognize God in the unexpected—we will see God calling us in new ways. We will see God calling us to care for the poor who bear God’s image, to care for those children of God who are marginalized or oppressed, to care for those God so loves who literally do not have bread to eat.
In our world today people are literally starving to death. And not because there’s not enough food in the world. There’s plenty of food to feed everyone. There’s just not enough motivation to get food where it’s needed most. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that the US wastes 30-40% of our food. Large grocery stores throw away almost half of the food on their shelves, while on the other side of the world children are dying because they have literally nothing to eat. We live in a world where we have the brains to send a man to the moon and video chat with someone across the ocean, but we don’t have the heart to make sure nobody starves. We have a lot of soul searching to do as a society, and we really need to allow Jesus’ teaching to influence our priorities.
Feeding the hungry is something the Bible tells us to do over and over again. It’s very clear. And it’s something that everyone, whether they’re Christian or not, American or not, liberal, conservative, or apolitical can get behind. But when it comes to asking why there’s still world hunger and advocating for world leaders to spend more funding to grow and deliver this food where it needs to go, then we might face criticism. Then we might rock the boat. Then it might sound like we’re crossing the boundary into business or politics. But if we really want to follow Jesus’ call to feed the hungry, then maybe that’s what we need to do. Work with existing organizations to alleviate world hunger, and advocate for policy changes to eliminate it.
As I mentioned last week we can partner with Grace Lutheran Church in Hartford to help provide food for our neighbors in the city. And we can also work with organizations like GHIAA, the Greater Hartford Interfaith Action Alliance to advocate for policy changes to ensure that all people in Connecticut have access to good, healthy food. And we can expand that work to national and global organizations that provide food for those who are hungry throughout the world, and call on those who have way more than enough to share with those who have way less than enough. By participating in ministries such as this, we can join other Christians in helping share bread with the poor and hungry, living out our call to be the Body of Christ: and feed a hungry world.
Jesus Christ is the true bread which came down from heaven. He is our provision and nourishment. He reveals God’s presence to us in ordinary things like bread and wine, in each other, and in our hungry neighbors. He feeds us and strengthens us so that we may love and serve the world, and dedicate our lives to giving bread to the hungry, care for the sick, and justice for the oppressed. God uses ordinary things like bread to nourish us physically and spiritually; and God uses ordinary people like us to be God’s hands and feet to change the world.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Pastor Brian Rajcok | August 11, 2024 | Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
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