August 4, 2024
Proper 13, B
Ephesians 4:1-16
Psalm 78:23-29
John 6:24-35
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry,” and ever since he said that, his disciples and later the church, have been trying to figure out exactly what he meant by that. Some have thought he was talking about the sacrament of the Eucharist, Communion, sharing the bread and the wine which becomes his body and blood in the sacrament. Some have said that it’s not about that at all. Apparently there have been legitimate long-standing arguments in the church over this. I once heard a twenty-minute sermon about how Jesus saying, “I am the bread of life,” is all about the sacraments and how we have to receive communion in order to receive Jesus as the bread of life. The sermon ultimately sounded like, “convert to (their) brand of Christianity or you can’t know Jesus.”
It wasn’t a very good sermon, and I didn’t agree with it, but at the same time, I don’t really need to argue against it. With the whole, “how is Jesus the bread of life,” question, do we really have to come up with just one way? Do we really have to argue over it, with who’s right and who’s wrong?
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians tells me, “No, we don’t.” “Speaking the truth in love,” Paul writes, “we must grow up in every way…into Christ, from whom the whole body…promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.”
We are all part of Christ’s body. All of our various churches in our various ways are part of Christ’s body, even the weird ones. You know which ones I’m talking about (everyone’s got a different answer for that, of course). There aren’t multiple Jesuses, Jesi(?). There’s one Jesus. There’s one God. So, there’s one church.
Paul writes about each part working properly, all the different parts of the body. Thank God the church has so many parts, so many ways that we look really different from each other. Like I said, some churches, to me, they just seem weird, and they probably think we look weird in here doing what we’re doing. We need all of these different varieties of churches in the one worldwide Church, because we people are all so different.
A great church with a great worship, and a great way of learning, and a great way of living the life Jesus has called people to live, that kind of church ain’t gonna work for everybody. For a lot of folks, they need a different church that’s also great at those things, just not for everybody. Then you got the weird churches because some of us are weird.
What this means is that there are many different ways we come to Jesus as the bread of life.
So first, let’s look at why we come to Jesus as the bread of life. What are some of the ways we hunger? Well, we get hungry for all sorts of things. Some of us hunger for success. Some of us hunger to prove ourselves. We hunger for security, for enough. We hunger for release from fear and anxiety. We hunger for purpose and meaning in our lives. We hunger to be accepted, to be important. We hunger to be a part of something.
In all of these parts of our lives, with all of the things for which we hunger, Jesus makes the claim, “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.”
So, let’s look at some of the ways we come to Jesus and eat the bread of life.
When we love others, we come to Jesus, we meet Jesus in each other, and we share the bread of life. When we serve others as they are in any kind of need, we come to Jesus, and we eat the bread of life. When we study scripture and we marinate ourselves in the word of God spoken through scripture, we come to Jesus who is the Word of God, and we eat the bread of life.
When we pray, sometimes together with others, sometimes by ourselves, in the quiet of meditation, giving thanks, asking for help, joining ourselves to God in prayer, we come to Jesus and we eat the bread of life. When we join with others in worship, the whole community together, in whatever way we worship, even the weird kinds of worship, we come to Jesus and eat the bread of life.
When we receive communion, when we share the sacrament of Jesus’ body and blood, we come to Jesus and eat the bread of life.
When we take Jesus’ teachings seriously, making the changes in our lives we know we need to take, when we know we’re going down a path that is harming us and harming others, and turn around and ask for God’s help, and begin following again in the way of Jesus who is the way, and the truth, and the life, then we eat the bread of life.
When we seek to do good for others, rather than just trying to feel better ourselves, when we step out of our own stuff for a little bit and we help someone else, we find that we are fed by Jesus, the bread of life, and our stuff isn’t quite as bad as it had been. We are healed when we help heal others.
When we realize that we are Christ’s body, all of us together, each of us individually, we are all Christ’s body, and we give our lives with Christ to be blessings for others, we find that we are feeding others with the Body of Christ, and we are being fed with the Body of Christ.
We find our sustenance together in Jesus, who is the bread of life, and we are bound together as one. We are bound together in Christ as his body. We find our belonging in Jesus’ Body. We find our peace in Jesus’ body. We find the blessings for which we are longing, the purpose God has given us, the acceptance and love we need. As members of Jesus’ body, bound together as one, we find our release from fear and anxiety, we find the fulfilment we need. As members of Jesus’ body, bound together as one, we find that we are fed by the Body of Christ, the bread of life.
