BEING FED BY THE BREAD….John 6:35 I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never go thirsty.

 

Two gentlemen who died recently were walking down the golden streets of heaven. There was more beauty around them and more splendor and joy than they had ever dreamed possible. One of them turned to the other and said ISN’T THIS WONDERFUL? “Oh, yeah!” said the other. “And to think we could have gotten here 10 years sooner if we hadn’t eaten all that oat bran.”

Bread is an important component in our diets, even if it is high in carbohydrates, and who isn’t counting carbs these days. Whole wheat is a preferred kind of bread. Multi-grain? Even better! And bread made with oat bran – well that just screams longer life. But of course, we know that when Jesus calls Himself the bread of life, He is claiming that He provides more than just bread for sustenance. This is LIFE, we’re talking about. Jesus is the spiritual nourishment that will see us far beyond our next meal and all the way to eternity.

I was reading about a guy this past week named Daniel Suelo. It seems he has been living in a cave for nearly a decade in the mountains outside of Moab, Utah. He claims that he has not spent or even possessed a penny in all that time. He survives off the land, supplementing that by foraging in the dumpsters in Moab from time to time. What I found interesting is how he came to the decision to live like this. He writes a blog on the internet that he updates at the Moab Public Library. All of this came about because of a few years back in the early 90s, after dropping out of medical school, he served in the Peace Corps in an Ecuadorean Village high in the Andes Mountains.

The people of this Village were being trained by Peace Corp volunteers in more advanced techniques for growing crops, especially corn and lentils, and they were gradually producing and selling more and more and building wealth as a village. They began to buy things they didn’t need, as Daniel describes it. Sodas, refined sugar, noodles, big bags of MSG to flavor their starchy meals. As the profits grew they bought televisions. Daniel watched as, the more they spent the more their health declined. He could measure the deterioration on his charts. His quote was, “It looked like money was impoverishing them.” Obviously, it ended up being a transformative experience for him.

That’s an interesting question isn’t it – how much is too much? It isn’t hard for God’s people to display a blessed unity when they are on the receiving end of His graciousness, as with the story of the feeding of the 5000. Imagine the warm Christian fellowship that carried on that evening. God provides, His people receive, and everybody’s happy and celebrating. But there is much more to God than this story tells us. God is something more than just a benevolent material provider who occasionally smiles upon us with his gifts.

A woman felt compelled to serve the Lord by entering a convent. This happened to be a very strict convent with a vow of nearly complete silence as a way of glorifying God. As a matter of fact, the nuns were allowed to speak just 2 words every 5 years. Well, 5 years went by and this nun went before the mother Superior to speak her 2 words. She said “COLD FOOD.” Another 5 years went by and she stood before Mother Superior and said “HARD BED.” Yet another 5 years passed, she goes before the Mother Superior and announces “I QUIT.” “Good!” the Mother Superior responded. “ALL YOU’VE DONE IS COMPLAIN SINCE YOU GOT HERE!”

Remember the Israelites who came to see God as a benevolent material provider. They traveled all those years over wilderness and desert and a good part of the time would have starved if God didn’t provide manna, bread every morning much as Jesus fed those 5000 on the grassy hillside. But over time, what happened? The free bread wasn’t good enough. Nothing but complaining. Eventually, there was no satisfying them. We want more than just bread.

God in Jesus Christ became flesh, and in doing so became the answer to the human condition. Our common condition cries out for a common Savior and implies a unity among us based on the simple fact that we are all in the same boat. Ironically, though, it is this same common condition which stands in the way of a beautiful, God-blessed unity among all Christians. This side of heaven we will always be constrained by the limitations of our sinful condition and always needing to be wary of a restlessness that can easily transform into hopelessness.

There’s a story about the baseball great Ty Cobb, who was being interviewed by a sportswriter on the occasion of his 70^th birthday. The reporter asked him “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR BATTING AVERAGE WOULD BE IF YOU PLAYED IN THE MAJOR LEAGUES TODAY.” “Oh, I’d hit about .280 or .290.” The reporter was a little surprised, “IS THAT BECAUSE OF NIGHT BASEBALL AND NEW PITCHES LIKE THE SLIDER AND THE COLOR BARRIER BEING BROKEN?” “No, because I’m 70 years old!”

Human limitations. They can be an unhealthy and unproductive driving force in our lives.  Surely, we need to be in touch with and know our limitations. Sin wants to be our great limitation; our great discourager. But God is our bold deliverer. This gift of the Lord’s Supper encourages us each time we partake not to become comfortable with our limitations. Because what God intends His forgiveness to accomplish in the Lord’s Supper is NOT that our slate is wiped clean so that we can go back to our old ways. No, we are empowered by God’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ to, in turn, forgive our brother not once but seven times if necessary. That’s the number Jesus entertains in this morning’s Gospel lesson. This was pretty radical for the typical follower of Jesus to hear. You see, Jewish law taught that one must forgive one’s neighbor THREE times in order to meet God’s legalistic requirements. That’s the law. The 4^th time he fails you or lets you down you can turn your back on him permanently, with not an ounce of guilt!

But Jesus insists that the Lord’s Supper is the very spiritual nourishment we need to be able to throw off the limitations of our own ability to forgive. I’m pretty sure the proclamation of Jesus that we need to be prepared to forgive our brother – or sister – 7 times over is still a pretty radical rule to live by. At what point do we qualify as an enabler when we grant forgiveness to an individual for the 6^th or 7^th time? Well, certainly it seems Jesus is given to hyperbole. For one thing, there isn’t a magical 7^th time either when you are granted the privilege of turning your back on a brother in Christ. Instead, Jesus is calling us to simply grow our “forgiveness aptitude”. None of us are very great at forgiveness. You would think that with all the times God has forgiven you unconditionally and not held your past sins against you that this forgiveness thing would come naturally to us. It doesn’t. We can insist like the Apostles did in the Gospel lesson, “Jesus, you need to increase our faith!” And Jesus will tell us what He told them. You have all the faith you need right now to become really good at forgiving.

We are set free by the power of the holy supper to set our sights on the higher things. You don’t need to move into a cave with Daniel to focus on those higher things – that which matters. God feeds us the spiritual food through worship and prayer and solitude and relationships, through caring for others, through the Holy Supper of Christ’s true body and blood; in all of these ways and many more we receive the good spiritual food. The bread for living Jesus Christ – is the very bread of Life!  AMEN