Sermon – Food Critics Everywhere
Exodus 16:1-12; John 6:35, 41-51
Farmville Presbyterian Church
8/11/24
I’d like to tell you why something truly special happened yesterday. We had a party for Barbara Smith. She’s 91 years old and on the frail side as the years go. She has had a number of health issues, including being hit by a logging truck, that is personally being hit by one. She taught golf at LU before it was LU and was the coach for a number of national championship years for her girls’ golf team. She was also a big personality in her day. It is less so now, but it still shows up from time to time. She mentioned to me that she had planned to come into the fellowship hall and give some sass or something to that effect. I cannot remember the exact word. She had planned to come in and start laying on us a little bit of Barbara spirit. It didn’t really happen, though, at least not as she had envisioned. Yes, she’s 91 and less robust than she used to be.
She’s also been out of the public spotlight for years, yet loads of people from across the Farmville community and beyond came to share remembrances and wish her well as she plans to make a new home in North Carolina. There was love and tears, laughs and hugs, and lots and lots of cookies. Kudos to the Fellowship Committee!
Here’s what so amazing about that time yesterday, though: it was bigger than Barbara. Each and every day we all have to wake up and go about our lives and make whatever impact we can on the world. On plenty of days, we might come home and feel like we did not accomplish all that much. I’m positive Barbara felt the same way many-a-time. But when you add up years and years and decades and decades of days in community, something amazing happens, it might even seem magical. Life is bigger than you or me or Barbara. That’s what we saw yesterday.
This is not a message about Barbara. I’m working toward a point that relates to Jesus in John’s Gospel. Jesus was trying to show his people a big picture of God’s love and provision and God’s grace through him, and all the people could see was the day-to-day Jesus. Just knowing someone on a casual basis for a month or maybe even a year might not be enough to really be wowed; we might not be terribly impressed in such a short period. But when we add up so many years and times and experiences, we can become so much, much, much more meaningful, even when we might not see it. The collection of life is a gift from God.
Jesus was trying to give his sisters and brothers, his countrypeople, a glimpse of a bigger God and his part of this bigger God’s heart that was his whole life’s work, and they missed it completely. All they could see was bread. Like last week, they were thinking with their stomachs and what they could see then and there. They did not know Jesus other than by reputation. This situation was going sideways in a hurry. They had gone from wanting to crown him king to grumbling against him. It could get even worse.
I want to stick with the grumbling for now, though. Verse 41 begins with grumbling Jews. The “Jews” grumbled because of what Jesus said. They were complaining. This sounds a lot like complaining people in the wilderness with Moses, but there is something else wrong here. They were ALL Jews. Jesus, the disciples, other followers who were still trying to understand Jesus, AND the ones who were disappointed and complaining. They were ALL Jews, so why is John for the very first time labeling “Jews” in a negative way and making them a group that seems opposed to Jesus? This is something that will stick through the rest of his Gospel beginning right here. It is actually something that has stuck through the ages, too. Here the crowd begins to turn, but by the way… John was a Jew, also.
The Gospel of John was written much later than the other gospels, and that partly explains why John sounds different from the other writings, but something else is driving this language. All of Jesus’ followers started out Jews. They worshipped at the synagogue just like other Jews. You would not have been able to tell the difference between Jews who followed Jesus and those who didn’t except for that very fact. History got harder and harder for them. Pressure in a Roman world reached a fever pitch. Their most holy location – the Temple – was destroyed almost forty years after Jesus’ death as one example. The Jews following Jesus and the Jews who did not became increasingly intolerant of one another, and eventually, “the followers” were kicked out. It became an “us versus them” game. The ones sticking to the old ways were the “Jews” and those who were following Jesus would be Christians, even if they were Jewish, too.
John is reading this tension and division back into the text because when he is writing, this has already happened. There is animosity there toward those who could not see Jesus for who he is because they only see him as a day-to-day guy.
So how are we supposed to see Jesus?
He is so, so, so much more than the son of Joseph and Mary. He is so much more than a Galilean builder or even a rabbi. He is someone through whom God has chosen to give us all the bread of life. This is the point of this whole passage, just saying that makes some of us cynical, though. Just saying that makes some of us food critics, also. It did not make a great deal of sense then, either.
We have to remember that bread is not like any other food. It is THE food. In a world back then in which food was not a guarantee, you had to have basic foods that everyone might be able to eat just to survive. Just think about how so many cultures have depended on some kind of grain as a staple food. So many cultures have something like a basic bread. Manna in the wilderness is the ultimate example. It may not have been what we think of bread. In reality, it was probably more like corn flakes without added sugar. Cultures still have special grains. Some countries depend on rice, flour, corn, or oats; some on less familiar ones to us like buckwheat, sorghum, rye, quinoa, or millet – just to name a few. These are the bread of life, however. Without the basic staple food, people don’t make it. Without the basic bread, we don’t survive. It is about what sustains us. Jesus is also what sustains us. This is the miracle.
We might not see it over the course of one day or one week. We might not see it over the course of one month or one year. We might go years without seeing the gift of God’s sustenance – like in the Footsteps poem. We might not see the living “bread of life” as the one who feeds us in spirit through life and love and connections – through good times and tough times, even downright bad times. Jesus is the one, however, who will never forsake us even when everyone else has or at least it feels that way. Whether you realize it or not, he is sustaining you right now.
Do any of you remember what you had for dinner 3 years ago today? I doubt it unless you eat a very regimented diet. Yet, I bet you probably did eat something. You would not be here today if you quit eating. Food has kept you going. Your bread of life is real for you. Now, let’s see what happens if we reframe it in a spiritual sense. Do you specifically remember how you experienced the presence of God three years ago today? I’ll bet that most of our worship services, most of the music, most of the sermons are not ones you can exactly remember. That’s OK. This is like food. Living in God, practicing the presence of God, working and doing for others in the Spirit are all like food. There will be big meals or big occasions that are particularly meaningful, but most of them you could not remember. This is not to say they aren’t important. You would be spiritually starved without a regular diet of true bread of life. This is what Jesus is saying. We must, must, must have him as our daily bread. That means we will never go hungry or thirst in spirit. There will always be something to sustain us. The more and more that we follow him and trust in him, the more fed we will be.
A life is more than any particular day; it is a collection of times and experiences measured by how we have shared in life with others, especially with God. A life is more than your upbringing; it is how you grow in God’s grace for all of your years, no matter how many of them you know. A life is more than meal; it is a collection of times to be nourished in body, mind, and spirit. A life is more than any one of us; it is about sharing in the community of Christ – being the Body of Christ together. Together, we receive the bread most beautifully and celebrate its sweetness. To God be the glory. Amen.