More bread

 

A few years ago on holiday my wife Helen and I found some of those cartoon shapes of people where you put your head into a hole and suddenly have the body of a muscleman or a pirate or any number of other things. They were often associated with seafronts and fairgrounds and whilst they’re seen less often now, they remain quite amusing because the head so often doesn’t look right on the body below.

I heard an illustration once which asked what it would look like if Jesus put his head on his followers – on what we call the Body of Christ. Would it look like an amusing misfit or not ?

For the last few weeks we’ve heard a lot about bread – last week we had Jesus saying, ‘I am the bread of life’, the week before that we heard of how he spoke to a crowd about the true bread from heaven, giving life to the world, and the week before that we had the account of feeding the 5,000.

There are really no bread analogies left to use in sermons and I often wonder why all these bread readings come so close together, but then we look at the Bible and see that they all come close together in just one Chapter from John’s gospel (Chapter 6) and from that I think we can begin to realise how important it was that Jesus got this message over to the people listening.

It was a message about people realising their most basic needs – and these were physical certainly as the feeding of the 5,000 showed, but they were also spiritual – people were being called to recognise that a relationship with Jesus was as important, even more important, than any physical bread…

When we heard the passage today (John 6:51-58) it’s very easy to think that it’s beginning to make reference to Communion and to an extent perhaps it is, but then we remember that this reading happened at a time when Communion or the Eucharist had not even started to happen and so the listeners of the day were facing something different…

They were being offered a real challenge to recognise Jesus as the Living Bread, in other words an absolutely essential part of everyday life – and this bread wasn’t bread that would be eaten by mortals who would ultimately die but by people who are invited into everlasting life…

It wasn’t easy then and it isn’t easy now – in many ways I think our Communion service has often taken away the real drama of what is happening and the real relationship that this implies… The Jewish leaders listening to Jesus didn’t understand it but they knew the claims that Jesus was making – the claim that he held the key to eternal life, and that it was through a relationship with him that eternal life would be given.

To recognise that would have been to give up some of their power and authority, and to recognise Jesus as our most basic need is always to do that – by losing our life to Jesus, we are invited into real life – by losing our life to him we are seeking to become more like him and to eat and digest more of his love, which we receive and share; more of his forgiveness and compassion, which we receive and share, and more of his life, which changes us and changes others….

And this emphasis from Jesus on a transformed life is one that again we are challenged to follow and this is something that Paul emphasises in his letter to the Ephesians.

Today we heard (Ephesians 5:15-20) about making the right choice over what we do in our lives – one of the controversies of our time is the damage or otherwise done by social media and sometimes remarks are made, even by Christians or people associating themselves with Christianity that don’t sound very much like Jesus! 

It's easy to throw stones at celebrities or politicians sometimes that don’t seem to be behaving appropriately but the question we’re challenged to ask ourselves is whether our behaviour and our attitudes really look and sound like Jesus – how do we measure up against his standard of love and forgiveness and compassion ?? 

And Paul makes a further point about being thankful at all times and for everything – when Jesus talked about eternal life he wasn’t just referring to a life in the future but a life lived to the full now…

Sometimes I’ve been fortunate enough to meet people from whom the light of Christ just seems to radiate, people who it just feels good to have spent time with, who make you feel a little bit better about everything and I want to be one of those people and each of us, trying to follow the life of Jesus, must be trying to be those people – not just on the surface, but inside as well as we live and enjoy the transformed life Jesus offers…

So today we’re left with challenges to think about from our readings. From the letter to the Ephesians there is that thought about being part of a brighter and better world, about looking more like Jesus to others….  And Paul also says about being thankful – I’m not always good at that… I mean to be but too often I miss the small things, the things that would make a real difference for the worse if they hadn’t happened – being thankful means recognising all the gifts that God gives to us, and that alone can transform our lives…

And in the gospel reading we have this decision to make about following Jesus – about deciding how important he is in our lives, and whether we are really willing to immerse ourselves in his life as we choose to eat the living bread, so that our lives will continue to be changed and, through them, people will know and see the love of Jesus for them.

Recently in the Olympics a few people have been filmed talking about their faith and it’s impact on their careers and their lives. People giving glory to God in the midst of their celebrations are examples of recognising God as the most basic need in their life and being thankful… 

As we leave here today, let’s reflect on what Jesus being the bread of life, our most basic need, means to us…. May we seek to know God more closely each day and seek to be more like him, living thankfully that our lives and our love may reveal Jesus to others. AMEN