Old Wineskins -- our last Sunday in our church building

Matthew 9:9-17

August 23, 2015

            The church was beautiful once. It was beautiful with its high vaulted ceilings, tall and imposing pulpit, and its ornate altar and communion rails. But its beauty was marred by the scaffolding and tarps hanging to keep people away from the dangerous spots where rainwater had seeped through the battered old roof. In one corner stands a large board with a thermometer painted on it, and the words, “Fix Our Roof.” The lines of the thermometer are an indication of how much money is needed. The lines are filled in with red to show how much money has been raised. The red fill wavers at the bottom, while the empty lines run all the way to the top. The sanctuary, which had the capacity to seat hundreds of people, now hosts only a few parishioners. The nuns who live in the convent attached to the church fill only a few pews.  

            The church was beautiful once, but the neighborhood outside changed and the church had not kept pace. Their neighbors are poor, struggling, and many are indifferent to a church that seems so different and removed from their reality. The church cannot compete with the adult movie theaters and bars that surround it. The streets are not safe for the sisters in the convent, so a large fence, reinforced with wire, keeps the sisters away from the streets and the streets away from the sisters.

            The church was beautiful once, but it is in disrepair, physically and perhaps spiritually as well. It no longer carries any meaning or relevance for the people outside of its walls, and the ones who live inside the walls are safe, but are they really living?

            Everything changes when a lounge singer on the run from Reno shows up at their door, posing as a nun for protection from her murderous, mobster boyfriend. Her presence shakes up the convent, the church and the nuns. She ends up becoming the new director for the convent choir. She not only teaches the sisters how to sing, she introduces the secular into the sacred. The music changes, and when the music changes other things begin to change as well. This lounge sister becomes the bridge between the world outside the convent and the world inside. The convent is shaken up and things begin to happen; new things.

            If you haven’t guessed already, I’m describing the movie, Sister Act, not our church. I have a lot of favorite movies, but this is one at the top of the list. Not only have I watched this movie for the pure entertainment of it, but in the early years of my ministry I watched key scenes from it at different conferences on church growth and evangelism. It was seen as an analogy for the new thing that could happen in churches, especially when you introduce new ways of worship and new music.

            This may be a movie, but the description of the church in the movie sounds a lot like ours, doesn’t it? It was Roman Catholic and we are firmly Presbyterian, but the physical problems with the building resonate with our reality here. It is this reality that is the key factor in our decision to leave this building. It is this reality that is pushing us to do a new thing.

            As I said, Sister Act was often used as an analogy for how church growth could happen. In the movie, once the approval was given for this new style of music to continue, the door of the convent opens – literally and figuratively – for other new things to take place. In a wonderful montage the nuns paint a mural, they go out the street and meet people. They host an outdoor soup kitchen. They create a playground complete with an old VW Beetle for the children to play in and around. The sisters are renewed just as they contribute to the renewal of their church and the neighborhood around them. And the music … the new music continues to bring more and more people to the church. Those empty lines on the thermometer are soon filled to the brim with red. Even the pope hears of the church and its choir and plans a visit while he is in the United States.

            This works great in a movie. Just change one thing and the rest falls into place. But movies and real life don’t always match. How wonderful it would be if these next months were just collapsed into a really cool montage. It would start with yesterday’s packing party and end with all of us in a brand new church, filled with people, young and old. I’ve even been thinking about the soundtrack that would score that montage. I’m hearing it beginning with Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground, then it fades into a mixed Motown medley and ends with a little Jackson 5.

            But real life tends to be montage-free. So leaving this building, moving to our temporary home on Main Street and finally landing in someplace new is going to be a challenge. Just packing up and moving is a challenge, much less the emotional adjustment period we are about to enter into. These next months will not be a neat collection of moments backed by a hopping soundtrack. What we are doing is a new thing. New things are good. New things are necessary. New things are hard. New things usher in grief for the old things.

            I also don’t want you to think that my choice of illustrations was a way to say, “If only.” If only we had tried that new choice of music. We have wonderful music in our church. If only we had adopted that new worship outline. I love our worship. If only. If only. If only. It is true that focusing on the if only’s in life will make you nuts. The if only’s keep you from living in the present with gratitude and anticipating the future with joy. Whatever our collective if only’s about our congregation may be, this sermon is not about them. The truth as I see it is that this building is an old wineskin.

            I have heard and read this passage from Matthew’s gospel, as well as the parallel passages in Luke and Mark, dozens of times. New wine into old wineskins was another catchphrase for church growth and renewal in the early days of my ministry. But as many times as I’ve heard this phrase, read it and seen it used, I didn’t know what wineskins were. I certainly didn’t know why new wine would make them burst.

            A wineskin at the time of Matthew’s gospel was made of organic material, such as animal skin. A wineskin was not used just to transport wine from one place to another. It was used to ferment wine. It would have to be made ready for that new wine and fermentation. It would have to be washed and stretched out, and then could new wine be added. Yet the fermentation process was hard on a wineskin. Fermentation made the skin brittle. Once the brittleness set in, it would be unable to stretch to allow for fermentation of new wine. Hence, Jesus’s words about putting new wine into an old wineskin; the old and brittle wineskin will burst if new wine is added. It would be unable to bear it.  

            Our church is an old wineskin. It is beautiful and beloved and our hope is that it will be made into a new wineskin for someone else. But for us it is an old wineskin. We can try and try to make it hold new wine, but what we are experiencing is an old wineskin that cannot be stretched one inch further. It just can’t. That is why we are doing what we are doing. That is why we are taking the bold step to move, to change, to re-imagine who we are as a congregation. But we love this old wineskin. Letting it go is a loss and we are all grieving, one way or another.

            It is easy for me to make the comparison between our building and the wineskin Jesus spoke about. It seems obvious; old wineskin here, new wineskin someplace else. The changes ahead are scary, but we have to leave this old wineskin. But when I envision the changes before us, I think my real fear comes not from the change, not from leaving a building that is an old wineskin. No, I think what I’m really afraid of is that I am an old wineskin. I am afraid that this change will stretch me beyond capacity. I am afraid that I cannot bear anything new. Maybe you have that same fear, whether you have articulated it or not. Change, even when it is for the good, exacts a cost. Not only do we need a building that is a new wineskin, I need to become one myself.

            But the good news about the new thing we read of in scripture, both Old and New testaments, is that this newness does not rely on us. It does not come from us. It comes from God. It comes through Jesus. Do we have to be open to the new thing God is doing? Do we have to trust and have faith that God is actually working this new thing through us? Do we need courage to step out on ground we cannot yet see? Yes to all. But even when our trust is weak, our faith falters, and our courage melts within us, grace abounds. God’s grace doesn’t resign us to being old wineskins. God’s grace stretches our hearts and our minds to embrace and believe in God’s new thing, God’s new wine. It is God’s grace that surrounds and embraces us this day. God’s grace will embrace and surround us next Sunday, and every Sunday that follows. God’s grace embraces us and God’s love supports us. We say goodbye today to our beautiful church, this grand and glorious old wineskin. But we, each of us, this congregation, we are forever being changed into new wineskins. We are being stretched and prepared and made whole so that we can welcome God’s new wine. To be continued.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.

In the Flesh

John 6:51-58

August 16, 2015

            I’ve been thinking about words again. I like to do that. I’ve been thinking about one word, in particular. That word is carnal. Just saying the word, carnal, especially saying it in church, makes me a little uncomfortable. Since the Middle Ages, the word carnal has borne the connotations of lustful and sensual. I hear carnal, I think of carnal knowledge or carnal desires. The first definition listed in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary matches this understanding. It is “relating to or given to crude bodily pleasures and appetites.” From there it goes on to define it as “bodily, corporeal, temporal, and worldly.” Carnal isn’t necessarily a bad word. But my first and foremost association with it is one that relates to lust or fleshly pleasures. I was taught from an early age, overtly and subtly, that if something makes you happy in the flesh, it’s either not good for you or it’s a sin. So imagine my surprise this week when I read the blog of one of my favorite preaching heroes, David Lose, that was entitled, “Our Carnal God.”

            What?! Our carnal God?!  I just felt the earth move. Was that an earthquake, or was it the sound of generations of my deeply devout, Protestant ancestors spinning in their graves? Our carnal God? Maybe Dr. Lose used this language knowing that it might generate that kind of shocked response; or he knew it would be titillating and grab people’s attention. But the truth is, whatever our connotations are of the word carnal, his use of it was spot on. Our God is a carnal God. Why do I say that?  Because there’s another word that has carnal at its root; incarnation. Obviously, as a church of believers in Jesus Christ, incarnation holds a vastly different meaning for us than carnal. Jesus was God incarnate, not carnal. Jesus was the incarnation of God into the world. To my ears, incarnation is far more spiritual, ethereal and godly in tone. Jesus was the incarnation of God into the world. It sounds almost lyrical. But what it really means is that Jesus became God in the flesh. You’re probably thinking, “Of course he did, Amy. Isn’t that the point? Isn’t that why we’re here?”  But think about what we’re really saying when we speak of Jesus as God incarnate. Think about that reality. Jesus was the flesh of God. But it wasn’t some super-powered flesh. It wasn’t flesh that looked like ours, but it was actually just an illusion or protected by a supernatural force field. It was our flesh. The same flesh that I wear, that you wear. Jesus was the flesh of God.

            The word that is translated as flesh is from the Greek word sarx.” This is also the word that John uses in Chapter 1. “The Word became flesh…” Sarx is an earthier, grittier word than soma, which is translated body. And when Jesus speaks of eating, this isn’t some sort of gentle nibble. This is about chewing, crunching; some translators use the word, gnawing.

            John’s gospel has such a poetic quality. His use of metaphor and layers of meaning is incredible. But these verses are about as hardcore, raw and explicit as any I’ve read. Jesus is speaking to a deeper meaning of what true bread, living bread really is. But the language he uses to describe what it means to partake of this living bread is vivid and graphic.

            “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will lift them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”

            In other words, if you want Life, you have to chew on my flesh and drink my blood. Now what would happen if someone were to come in here right now who had never heard of Jesus or John? Would this person think that John’s gospel was ahead of its time in the Zombie/Vampire craze of our culture? Or, would this person assume that Jesus was promoting cannibalism?

            When he speaks these words to the crowd around him, it’s not difficult to imagine them taking a step back and saying a collective, “Well, would you look at the time? It’s been nice talking to you, Jesus, but we have to go now.”  Although we don’t read on to verse 60, the disciples sum all of this up quite neatly when they say, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” That’s the understatement of the millennium. Yes, this teaching is difficult. It’s challenging. I have to be honest, I have never preached on this passage from John before, because every three years when it rolls around in the lectionary my first response is always an unequivocal, “Ick!”

            These words of Jesus sound icky. I can’t help it. That is my gut reaction. And yet for the next three weeks we will celebrate communion together. Our liturgy for communion comes from Luke and from Paul, but when I hold up the bread what do I say? “The body of Christ, the bread of heaven.” And the cup? “The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.” Do I say those words literally? No. In our denomination, we don’t believe in transubstantiation, which is that the common bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. We believe that the spiritual presence of Christ is with us, but not the literal. However, other denominations do believe this. Years ago when I attended a Catholic Junior College, a friend of mine who was Catholic said that whenever he took communion he just shut his mind off to what he was doing. He was raised to believe that it was the body and blood of Christ, but he didn’t want to think about that while he ate it.

            It would be very easy to turn this sermon into a discussion on communion, and the different ways different denominations perceive and observe it. That kind of discussion is important, but as much as I see communion in this passage, I think the crux of it goes back to David Lose’ “carnal God.”

            The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God took on our flesh, our skin, our bones. God became incarnate in the very tissue and sinew, arteries and blood that make up each of us. God became our flesh. The Law forbade the eating of any kind of meat with blood in it, because blood was the life source. To take in something else’s blood was to become like that creature. The blood was the essence and the life of every living creature and human. It seems to me that when Jesus tells the people that they have to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he was trying to get them to understand that in clinging to him, in recognizing God in him, they would take on the life source of God. They would become like the One who sent him.

            Whether or not, we think of communion as a literal changing of the elements into body and blood, as a sign of the spiritual presence of Christ, or as a remembrance of Jesus and his life and death, I believe that communion is a way for us to take in God. It not only helps us to remember that Jesus’ flesh was tortured and killed for the sake of the world, it also reminds us that God put on our flesh. God became incarnate, in the flesh, in our flesh so that we might become more like God.

            Brent told me a story a few months ago about the astronaut, Buzz Aldrin. Neal Armstrong may have been the first man to walk on the moon, but Buzz Aldrin took communion on the moon. As I understand it, he had the elements blessed by his minister and smuggled them on board. And on the moon he took communion. I’m not sure what his motivation was for wanting to do this, but it is powerful to think about a man standing on a whole other planet, in our mindboggling big galaxy, in our even more mindboggling big universe and partaking of the ritual that reminds us that Jesus was God in the flesh. In the enormity of space, in that moment when our technology was expanding far beyond anyone’s imagination, Aldrin ate the bread and drank the cup and remembered that Jesus was God in the flesh.

God, our carnal God, our incarnate God took on our flesh with its flaws and frailties so we could take in God. God became like us so we could become like God: compassionate, creative, merciful, loving. God became incarnate out of love so that we could learn how to love. God became like us, in the flesh, so we could become like God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.

Come to Jesus

John 6:35, 41-51

August 9, 2015

            The movie, Remember the Titans, tells the story of the integration of two high schools – one white, one black – in Northern Virginia in the early 1970’s. The students were integrated. The teachers were integrated. The football team was integrated; both players and coaches. Coach Yoast, the white coach who was in line for the head coaching position was instead made the defensive coach. The man who had recently moved to the city to become the coach at the black school was made the new head coach: Coach Boone. The integration would officially begin with the new school year. But the football team was integrated at football camp in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The players tried to segregate themselves, but Coach Boone forced them to be together on the field and off. There is tension and resentment from everyone, but eventually they get to know each other and like each other. As in all great sports movies, they become a true team.

            But the people back home didn’t get the memo. School starts with protesters at the gates. There are outbreaks of fights in the halls. The team is almost torn apart by the conflict, but they pull together – and start winning games. Not everyone is convinced. One night after a game, a small group of the players are hanging out together. One player, a white kid who had transferred to the school from California, wanted his friends – all black – to go to a local restaurant for something to eat. One of the black players resists, insisting that they would not be welcome. The white player doesn’t agree, so they go in to the restaurant. Just as the black player predicted, they were told to leave. The owner didn’t serve black folks or hippies.

            When they go back outside, the white player, the “hippie,” tries to apologize. “I didn’t know.” Humiliated and angry, the black player who had initially refused to go in starts yelling at his white friend. “What do you mean, ‘you didn’t know?’” “I told you, didn’t I?!” “I told you.” The white player, who is obviously stunned by what has just happened, keeps saying he was sorry and that he didn’t know. The night is over. They part ways. End of scene. 

            I love this movie and there are a multitude of memorable moments that I could draw on for sermon illustration after sermon illustration. But this one stands out in my mind because of the white player’s insistence that he didn’t know. It seems ridiculous that he says that. His black friend was right. He told him that they would not be welcome. He told him that it was not a good idea for them to go in to the restaurant. Yet the white player really didn’t know. 

            What does it mean to know something? My first response is to think of knowledge solely as an intellectual process. I’m given facts and information. I process them. I memorize them. I learn them. I know. So why didn’t the black player’s facts and information about the racist response they would receive in the restaurant result in the white player’s knowing? Maybe it is because knowledge is more than just a memorization game. Knowledge is intellectual, but it is also experiential. That white player did not know. He could not fathom or imagine what his black friend was trying to tell him. He didn’t know because he had probably never experienced blatant racism like that. But the black players knew. They knew to the depths of their beings that they would not be welcome in that white establishment. They knew it because they had lived it their whole lives. They knew. Their friend and teammate didn’t. But once he experienced it, he knew it too.

            What does it mean to know something? What does it mean to know someone? In this particular moment in this sixth chapter from John’s gospel, “the Jews” think they know Jesus. One thing that I have learned about John’s gospel is that when he refers to “the Jews” he isn’t necessarily implicating an ethnicity or a people. The Jews as John refers to them are the religious leaders and authority figures that were in opposition to Jesus. I say that because his use of that term has been misread and misused to justify anti-Semitism. I don’t think that John was anti-Semitic in the way we understand it. But I do think the he was highly condemning of the religious leaders who worked and plotted against Jesus. I also know that when John uses this term, conflict is close at hand.  We’ve gone from hearing about the “crowds” that surrounded Jesus to “the Jews.” There’s a storm brewing.

            The first verse we read today, verse 35, is one that we read at the end of our passage last week. It is a bridge verse. Then we skip to verse 41 and read that muttering and murmuring is happening among the religious leaders. It’s not clear to me why verses 36 through 40 are skipped, because they provide the impetus for why the authorities are beginning to complain. Jesus tells them that “I have come from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.”

            Okay, now I get it. Now I see why a chorus of grumbling is rising. Jesus has just asserted that he has come down from heaven. He has claimed to be the Son of the Father. He has claimed to be the one who opens the door to eternal life.

            What? This guy says he has come down to us from heaven? That he is the Son of the Father, Father as in God? Isn’t that Jesus? Isn’t he the son of Joseph? We know his father and mother. We know where he comes from, and it’s not heaven. I can understand their skepticism. It would be like me running into that obnoxious, whiny kid, Philip, the one who lived down the street from me, and the one I smacked in the head with a hairbrush – that’s another story; I was 9 and he deserved it – saying to a crowd of people that he was the Son of God and had come down from heaven. Knowing where that kid came from, knowing his mother and father, I would have an extraordinarily hard time believing him.

            The authorities listening to Jesus think they know him. They know the facts about him. They know where he comes from. They know his family. They know him. Jesus responds to them by saying, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me.” In other words, “Hush up.” Those grumbling and griping against him obviously don’t know Jesus. They have not yet been drawn to him by the Father. They don’t come to him because he is the bread of heaven, the bread of life. They are there to see what he’s up to. They don’t know him, because they have not experienced him as anything more than Joseph’s son. They don’t know him as the One God sent from heaven; they don’t know him and until they do, they cannot experience him as the bread of heaven.

            They .have not yet come to Jesus. What does that mean? What does it mean to say, “Come to Jesus.” Whoever comes to Jesus will never by hungry or thirsty. We realize that this isn’t physical hunger or thirst. But it is a longing for something. It is an ache for something. It is a recognition that something within you is missing. Jesus says I am the living bread. When you come to me, when you eat of this bread, that longing will be answered, that ache will be soothed. Someone in the YMCA Bible study once said, “We are born with a longing for God.” It seems to me that Jesus is speaking to that longing. He is speaking to that innate need within each of us for something … more. His answer to that longing is to come to him. In him they will, we will, find the living bread.

            But again I ask, what does it mean to “come to Jesus?” Is it an answer to the alter calls I experienced growing up; when the choir would softly sing, “Just As I Am,” over and over again, while Brother Bob would beckon all who wanted to give their lives to Jesus to come, come. Does coming to Jesus happen the moment a person reads a familiar passage of scripture, maybe one that she has heard countless times before, but this time it reads differently? Suddenly the light of understanding flashes on and she understands a meaning in the words she hadn’t understood before. Is that what it means to come to Jesus?

            In the Amplified version of the Bible, verse 35 reads like this, “Jesus replied, ‘I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to Me will never be hungry, and he who believes in and cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me will never thirst any more (at any time).”

            He who comes to me, who believes in me, who cleaves in and trusts and relies on me will never be thirsty again. Believes. Cleaves. Trusts. Relies. When you come to Jesus, when you believe, cleave, trust and rely on Jesus, you experience the Bread of Life.

            I don’t think there is one answer to what it means to come to Jesus. I think there are many answers. I think for some it begins as an answer to an alter call; for others, it begins as a mindful recognition of a deeper truth. But whatever way that moment happens; either in a moment of great emotion or a moment of intellectual assent, a person who comes to Jesus knows him in a new way. It is experiential. It is both head and heart. One cannot preclude the other. To come to Jesus means that somehow, in some way, both our hearts and minds have been opened to knowing him. When we know him, we believe, we cleave, we trust and we rely on him. The good news is that we never know him perfectly. We are never perfect at believing, cleaving, trusting and relying. At least I’m not. But not knowing him perfectly in one fell swoop is okay. It is good news. Because that means we have opportunity after opportunity to come to Jesus. We have a lifetime of moments to know him. Knowing him is being in relationship with him, in community and in communion with him. Relationships don’t happen all at once. They happen every day, in many, many moments. How wonderful it is to know that we are called to come to Jesus again and again, and that our knowledge of him, our relationship with him has room to deepen and grow. No matter how you come to Jesus, just come to Jesus, just as you are.  Let all of God’s children know Jesus, come to Jesus, and say, “Alleluia!” Amen.

Food That Endures

John 6:24-35

August 2, 2015

            There is a joke that says there are only three things that will survive a nuclear holocaust: roaches, Twinkies and Cher. I don’t know about roaches and Cher, but I can believe that about Twinkies. For years I heard that Twinkies have a shelf life of several years. You could discover a bomb shelter built in the 1950’s, and if there were Twinkies stored there, you could rip open a package and get to eating. In reality, or at least according to Wikipedia, Twinkies do not last indefinitely. They actually have a shelf life of about 45 days. It used to be 35, but the formula – I mean ingredients – were changed to add ten extra days. Yet whether a Twinkie is good for 35 or 45 days, that is a long time for a food item to remain edible.

             Food is the key word. Twinkies may be classified, technically, as food. But I think that whether they are or not is a matter of opinion. I don’t want to commit libel against Twinkies or the manufacturers, but I think we can agree that a Twinkie would not be your first choice of a nutritious snack. A so-bad-for-it’s-good kind-of snack yes, but nutritious? Technically, a Twinkie is a yellow sponge cake with a creamy frosting-like filling. Sounds simple, but I don’t have to read the label to know that anything that can last on the shelf for 45 days has preservatives and ingredients with names I don’t recognize and would struggle to pronounce. Twinkies may be a yummy, guilty pleasure, but I’m not convinced they are real food. Even if they are, they are not a food of substance. If you refer to someone as a “Twinkie,” you’re implying that said person is flaky, shallow, perhaps fun to be with and easy on the eyes, but not a person of depth. Twinkie the food is kind of the same way. It may last a long time. It may taste good in the moment, but that’s about it.

            But bread, now that’s a different story. Bread, real bread – not the stripped down preservative-filled stuff you can buy relatively close to where the Twinkies are sold – is substantive. After all, no odes have been written about Twinkies. You don’t hear, “A big ole Twinkie, a jug of wine, and thou.” No one comes to your door with a box of Twinkies and proclaims, ‘Twinkies, so your house will never know hunger.” Realtors don’t recommend leaving Twinkies on the kitchen counter to someone trying to sell a home so that the house will feel more like home. But it is recommended that a seller bake a loaf of bread before a showing. Because that aroma of fresh baked bread evokes memories and touches all the senses of a potential buyer. Twinkies are generally not considered to be the staff of life. But bread is. I know that there is controversy about gluten. But I wonder if that isn’t due more to the processed and preservative filled bread produced in our country. Real bread is joy in a loaf as far as I’m concerned.

            Again, I’m not trying to take on the food manufacturing industry. My kitchen is certainly not preservative free. Nor do I want to make a compare and contrast statement about Twinkies versus bread. But bread is the theme of this chapter in John, and we will be talking about bread today and for a few more weeks. Last week chapter 6 began with Jesus taking just a few real loaves of bread and real fish and feeding 5,000 people with them. John does not refer to this as a miracle that Jesus performs, but a sign. It is a sign of who Jesus is and why he is in their presence. However miracle or sign, Jesus actually feeds people – a whole lot of people. Now that the actual feeding has happened, he wants the people to understand the deeper meaning of this sign. He is more than just a magician who managed to fill the stomachs of a large crowd. He not only gave them bread for the bodies, he is the bread of heaven that will nourish their souls.

            Today’s particular story begins on the day after Jesus fed the multitude. Jesus and the disciples were not in the boats that came from Tiberias, and when the crowd of people realized this, they got in boats and went to Capernaum, looking for Jesus. As soon as they find him, they question why his presence there. He responds saying, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”

            Jesus knows that the crowd wasn’t looking for him because of this wondrous sign he effected in their presence. They want to find him because the bread and fish they ate the day before were great, but they are hungry again. Hunger is an ongoing issue, then and now. If Jesus, this rabbi, could feed them once, he could do it again.

            Again, Jesus wants them to understand that this feeding was a sign of greater import than sating their hunger. They have a deeper hunger, and he has come among them to meet it. Jesus tells them that their work for bread that perishes will not sate the hunger he addresses. Instead they should work for the food that endures for eternal life. They still don’t get what he’s talking about. So they ask what works of God they must do. Jesus’ answer is simple, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” Believe. That is the answer. That is the work they must do. They must believe.

            But the people press Jesus for more. You say that you are the Son of Man, the one God sent, but what sign will you show us that this is true? What work will you perform? We know all about God providing bread, because God provided manna in the wilderness for their ancestors. That manna was “bread from heaven to eat.”

            It would be understandable to read the tone of Jesus’ response to them as scolding. “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who 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.”

            Perhaps he was scolding them, but I don’t think that Jesus was angry with the people for not recognizing the sign of God’s bread from heaven already in their midst. I think he was disappointed. After all, they were given a pretty significant sign with the multiplying of the loaves and fishes the day before. What more do they need?

            Yet just as the woman at the well asked Jesus to give her the water of life, thinking that she would no longer have to schlep heavy buckets each day, the people want to receive this enduring bread. With this bread, they would never know hunger again.

            Jesus answers with I Am. “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

            Jesus says I am the food that endures for eternal life. Believe in me and you will feast on this bread from heaven. Always. It sounds so easy. Just believe and you will receive enduring, life giving bread; heaven’s bread. But I suspect the people listening to Jesus could not quite wrap their minds around the words Jesus spoke to them. I suspect that they could not separate the literal from the figurative, the metaphor from the surface meaning. They wanted food that endures.

We do too, don’t we? We want the food that endures. However it seems to me that the problem lies in the fact that we end that sentence too soon. We want the food that endures. Jesus spoke of “food that endures for eternal life.”  We just don’t want to be hungry anymore. Jesus knows that our bodies must be nourished, life depends on it. But we are also heart hungry, soul famished. We need food for our bodies, and food for our beings. Believing in Jesus gives us the food that endures for eternal life. But we get confused and seek out food that endures. The result? Twinkies. We want food that endures so we create Twinkies as a food product. But Twinkies as food that endures is also a metaphor. How often do we feed our bodies with stuff that really doesn’t nourish? How often do we try to feed our hearts with stuff that doesn’t nourish either? We want food that endures and our answer to that need is a Twinkie.

But Jesus offers a different food for our hearts. Jesus offers himself as the bread of heaven. We just have to believe. This does not diminish our need for real food. Food insecurity and gnawing hunger is a reality – not just in poorer countries around the world, but right next door. We know this. You only have to work one meal at the Salvation Army to know this. Jesus’ first act was to feed the hungry. This was a sign of his true identity. This was a sign to call them and us to belief, to faith. We receive the bread of heaven when we believe, but our response to that bread is to feed others. Yes, we are called to evangelize, to proclaim the good news that Jesus is the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation. But we are called to feed the physical hunger in others’ first. The mind and the heart and the soul cannot be fed until the body is fed first. Jesus fed the hungry crowds, then Jesus offered himself, the bread of heaven, as nourishment for their souls.

What food do we partake of this day? What nourishment will we give our bodies and with what will we feed our souls? No bread by our hands, no matter how wholesome, endures forever. Even the bread we share in communion will eventually perish. But as we share the bread and the cup this morning, remember that what we really share is the bread of heaven, the food that endures for eternal life.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.