"The
Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven." We are given this mysterious bread
every week at the Eucharist. And we're going to hear about this bread for at
least the next month in our lectionary, as the Gospel lesson for each week of
August delves more and more deeply into John 6. So it's probably a good time to
ask exactly what kind of bread Jesus is.[1] Is he the little round
communion wafers that children often confuse with cardboard? Is he crispy flatbread
or supple pita? Or could he be a delicious French baguette or even a flaky, buttery
croissant? How about cornbread made in an iron skillet, with those delightfully
crispy buttermilk edges? Could he even be rich pumpkin bread, with cranberries
and walnuts? Or a fresh Challah loaf, slathered with sweet honey?
Mmmmm,
I'm getting hungry! Well, not hungry really, since I ate a nice breakfast this
morning. But my mouth sure is watering. I'm afraid that my mouth waters more
readily for fresh-baked bread than it does for God. What would it be like, I wonder,
to tremble for God's sweetness? To drool over the bread that gives life to the
world? Jewish Midrash tells us that the manna God gave to the Israelites in the
desert could have tasted like whatever each person wanted it to taste like. Remember, in the Exodus story, the Israelites
were lost and fearful out in the desert. They were hungry and wishing that
they'd never left home. They bickered and whined. So God graciously rained down
flakes of manna for them, just enough for each day, and it sustained them. According
to the later rabbis, then, if someone had a hankering for Joella's hot chicken,
that's what they tasted in God's gift. If someone else preferred a salad, then
the manna flakes tasted to them like the freshest greens. For the rabbis, God
didn't just nourish the unhappy travelers—God delighted them with God's deep
and abundant goodness. In our Gospel, Jesus compares himself to this manna—the bread
from heaven, the generous gift of God. Jesus compares himself to food that not
only nourishes but delights. Food that satisfies our deepest, truest desires.
The
difference, of course, between a croissant
au chocolat and the bread of life, is that Jesus' bread doesn't go stale.
Manna only lasted for the day, and if you tried to hoard it, then it would turn
bad and sprout worms. Croissants get dry, cake gets stale, and real baguettes
get so hard after a half-day on the counter that you can use them for baseball
bats. The same thing goes for the other worldly delights with which we try to nourish
ourselves in God's stead. Many years ago, at a difficult time in my life, I had
a recurring dream. I was in a dark, empty room filled only with a mini-fridge
right in the center. It was the kind of small fridge that you put in a college
dorm room. I was hungry in my dream—really hungry--and there was no food in the
house at all. Hoping to find something to eat, I knelt down in front of the
little fridge. As I opened the door, bright light from inside the fridge poured
out into the darkness of the room. And yet, inside, the shelves were empty,
except for a couple of unappetizing containers of moldy leftovers. It was at
that point—hungry and dejected, but unwilling to close the refrigerator
door—that I would wake up.
It
doesn’t take an expert to explain that dream: In the busy distress of my daily
life, I was spiritually starving. Whatever stores of joy and meaning that I had
previously packed into Tupperware containers and saved in my spiritual
refrigerator, they had sat for too long uneaten and untended. I had gathered up
only the food that perishes: possessions, acclaim, Facebook friends, dreams of
perfection. What I hungered for was the bread that endures—the bread of life that
Jesus offers us: the food of love, forgiveness, and grace.
The
Good News is that this bread of life isn't hard to find, once our mouths are watering
and our eyes are open. Not only do we receive it in our hands every Sunday at
the altar, we find it hidden in the most ordinary places. The kind of bread
that Jesus knew—the kind of bread that Jesus used to feed the multitude in last
week's Gospel—is plain peasant food; rough, commonplace barley bread. I had
some once in Europe, the kind of bread that shepherds stick in their pockets to
take up into the mountains for weeks while they pasture the cows. A small chunk
of this bread is heavy enough to use as a paperweight. It scratches your throat
going down, and when you cut it, you have to saw it like a piece of wood. It's
a gray-brown color, the color of earth, the color of humble things, the color
of the wooden cross. This bread might not always delight, but it can be counted
on to withstand any hardship. It is, as Lauren Winner says, "bread that
sustains oppressed people on their journey through dangerous terrain."[2]
We
need this kind of Jesus bread, too. By God’s Grace, God has planted reliable
nourishment for our souls deep within simple, common things—deep within our own
imperfections, too. As we look around the world, hungry and restless, can we spot
the strange God hidden in the ordinary? Hidden in the people and places that we
so easily overlook? Hidden outside the safety of our walls? Hidden beyond the
boundaries of propriety? Part and parcel of our own most hated flaws? Within
the heavy silences of what seems like unanswered prayer?
Yes,
Jesus is both daily sustenance and extraordinary delight. But I'd like to close
with just one more bread image. Last year, I gathered two preschoolers and a
first-grader on a Saturday morning at church to prepare them for their first
Eucharist. As part of the lesson, I decided that we would make bread together
to use on Sunday. I looked up a recipe and gathered the ingredients, and we got
to work. The children took their task seriously. They scooped and measured
flour; they tirelessly stirred and poked, shaped, and patted. And patted. And
patted. The dough got dry, so I added some water. It was sticky, so I added
some oil. Then it was still sticky, so I added more flour. When we finished, we
had flour and doughy fingerprints everywhere. But we also had six small flat
loaves of communion bread, each carefully marked with a cross right at the
center. I breathed a sigh of relief.
The
bakers among us can probably guess what happened during the Eucharist the next
day. That bread was as hard and dry as a hockey puck. Parishioners chewed valiantly
on Jesus. Even worse, when we broke it and gave it out, that bread crumbled
everywhere. It went in the chalice, on the fair linen, on the kneelers, on the
floor, even down the front of people's shirts and in children's hair. Everywhere!
Little crumbs of eternal life, Christ's body broken to bits, scattered in messy
abundance all over the sanctuary. Luckily, I didn't get fired and probably
won't try that recipe again. But it did look like we'd had a party up at the
Altar rail that Sunday, a party in which love was thrown around joyfully like
confetti, falling from the plump hands of children into our mouths, down our
shirts, and out into the world.
I
invite you now to close your eyes for a moment and imagine what kind of bread
you most desire Jesus to be…… What would delight your heart and enliven your
mind? What would sustain you in the wilderness? What would call you to yourself
and set you forth on a wild search for God? What crumbs would you scatter in
your wake? For what kind of bread would you exclaim, like the disciples, "Sir,
give us this bread always"? When you come forward to the altar at the
Eucharist, hold out your hands for this bread that you desire from God. Taste
and see, trust and delight, in the goodness of the Lord.
[1]
The following riff, and much of the sermon, is inspired by Lauren Winner's work
in Wearing God and the class that I
took with her this summer at the School of Theology, The University of the
South. See Lauren Winner, Wearing God (New
York: HarperOne, 2015), 94f.
[2]
Ibid.,113.
Photo credit to Robin Garr!
