Today our reading puts us in the middle of a story, which is one of the reasons it's so very confusing—although I'm afraid it's not the only one. So let's start by stepping back and setting the scene.
We're in Galilee, the poor, hilly farm country north of Jerusalem where Jesus lived. The day before a large crowd had followed his up a mountain, because of signs he was doing for the sick. He fed them—all 5,000—with five barley loaves and two fish. You know that story. Those loaves and fishes had been enough for everyone to have their fill, with 12 baskets of pieces left over.
That evening, Jesus withdrew by himself. So the disciples got into a boat, and started across the sea of Galilee towards a village called Capernaum. The sea soon became rough, and suddenly they saw Jesus walking towards them across the water. They were terrified, but when they asked Jesus to come into the boat, they immediately got to where they were going. The next day, the crowd, who were still on the other side of the sea, saw that Jesus and his disciples were gone. So they went across to look for him. And when they found him they had some questions.
"Rabbi, when did you come here?" was the first. They had seen the disciples leave without him in the only boat. "What must we do to perform the work of God?" Was another. When Jesus said the work of God was to believe in the one whom God had sent, they asked, "What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you?" You know—a sign like the one God gave to our ancestors. When they were starving in the wilderness after Moses led them out of Egypt, God rained down bread from heaven for them to eat. Give us a sign like that.
That's when Jesus said, "It's not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it's my Father who you gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." And then he made that claim: "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."
Some people, understandably, were skeptical. They said to one another, "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?" It was a fair question. Jesus was born in Galilee; they knew his family. He had not dropped down like that manna in the wilderness. And when Jesus answered them, he didn't clear up any of the logistics. He talked about bringing people to the father. He said we was living bread, claiming that whoever ate that bread would live forever. And then he added to this crazy talk by saying that the bread he would give for the life of the world was his flesh.
So folks talked again, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Even followers of Jesus said, "This teaching is difficult, who can accept it?" John says that many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. We can hardly blame them, given this talk about being heavenly bread that makes you live forever, offering his flesh to eat and raising people up on the last day. It must have sounded like the talk of a deluded, religious charlatan—of which there were many in ancient Palestine. A first century Jim Jones. The twelve stayed with him, but others did not believe.
Many still do not believe, and these words are still stumbling blocks. They are a difficult teaching, to put it diplomatically. Sometimes we in the church notice their weirdness, but we've also built up so much liturgy, so many Sunday School lessons, and so much theology around them they don't shock us in the same way. We say they're metaphors—which they are—and take them in stride. Or we ignore them. Or maybe we love them and notice their beauty, but in a vague way. We eat the bread and drink the cup, but as good Protestants we don't think too much about flesh and blood or bread from heaven.
These words no longer shock us, and they also don't move us in the same way. It's a difficult teaching because we're so well-fed. Hearing that Jesus is the bread from heaven—we get it, kind of, but even as a meteaphor it's so abstract. After all, we wouldn't want bread to really come down from heaven: too many carbohydrates, plus we have 73 choices in any local supermarket. If Jesus came and multiplied loaves today, we might be happy for the free snack, but we'd probably turn up our nose at the fish and feel a little squeamish about all the germs. And then go find something that we really wanted to eat.
Now, some of us, and many neighbors, worry about getting enough food, especially at the end of the month. But we're not hungry in the way that crowd who followed Jesus would have been. That crowd would have known an empty, desperate feeling much of the time. They would have worried about the crops and whether they could feed their children and if they'd live through the year. When Jesus said he was the Bread from Heaven and whoever comes to me will never be hungry, that promise would have resonated. To never be hungry again, to have bread from heaven—what a miracle, what a blessing, what a wonderful thing that would be. They knew Jesus was not just talking about physical hunger and bread: but when Jesus said, "I am the bread from heaven," they would have understood what a precious thing Jesus was offering.
Do we understand? After all, we have other kinds of hunger. We hunger for acceptance, from others and from ourselves. We hunger for friendship, and for intimacy. We hunger for serenity and to be free from the fears that have us in their grip. We hunger for peace, and for meaning and purpose. But even as we hunger we find ways to take off the edge, things which keep us from feeling the ache. And we have so many things to help us! We have alcohol and drugs. We have video games and movies and TV and i-Pods. We have ice-cream and potato chips, we have mystery novels and cats, and we have consuming jobs that we can throw ourselves into. We have shopping, we have the gym, we have cell phones, we have the internet, we can watch the news or the weather channel 24 hours a day. Some of these things are destructive; some are harmless; some are even good and worthy. And they all keep us from feeling our hunger, they take off the edge.
They take off the edge but they do not satisfy. We build up our tolerance and need more and more distractions and drugs. We get busier and buy more stuff, but still they do not satisfy. They do not satisfy because underneath all our longing, and hunger, is a hunger for God. The Creator who is the source of all bread, all food and all beauty around us. The Redeemer who forgives and accepts us and calls us to works of peace and justice and kindness. The Spirit that brings us into love and intimacy with God and with each other. Jesus said, "I am the Bread of Life" because in the word and at the table, in the bread and the wine, he promises to be with us and bring us to God. He promises that we will not hunger or thirst again, if we but come to him. But we have to come hungry.
It's hard to do. We don't want to feel hunger or pain. We have to discern those things which bring us true pleasure and joy and comfort and those things which simply deaden pain and longing. But that's the invitation—to come hungry. To let go of the distractions, of the narcotics of every stripe, of those things that dull the ache but do not satisfy. To come with all our pain, all our longing, all our hunger. To trust in the promise that God in Christ will meet us there. To trust in the promise that our longing will be satisfied—not all at once, not magically, not without effort on our part, not completely in this life. Christ says, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again." May we be given the grace and the courage to accept the invitation. Amen.