“Bread from Heaven” – Sermon on Aug 12, 2012
August 12, 2012
Scripture: John 6: 35, 41-51
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Sermon: Bread from Heaven
by Rev. Doreen Oughton
This is a really confusing one for me, and though my research helped me to understand a lot of things about the passage, I am still not sure what the point of the passage is, what the message is we are to take from it. So perhaps it is not meant to be clear, and we are each to bring our own perspectives and experience to find the meaning for ourselves. What I will do then, is go through it piece by piece and share some of what I learned about the lines and ways to understand them, and let you tune into your own heart to see if something resonates.
We start with the verse that closed last week’s reading, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me (or faiths into me) will never be thirsty.” This line is included again so that we know what it is that has set off the complaints. We are told it is the “Jews” who are complaining, but that translation doesn’t really make sense, as Jesus and all his apostles are Jewish. Although this gospel has been manipulated at times in service to anti-Semitism, it is important to remember that Jesus was not against Jews. He and his disciples and all the early Christians were Jews. The debates were taking place within Judaism, between different Jewish factions. A better translation would be “the Judeans,” those of south Israel, where Jerusalem and its temple are, in contrast to the Galileans, those from northern Israel, like Jesus and his disciples.
The gospel writer John used this term not so much as a geographical one, but to indicate a certain mindset or world view, one very temple-focused. The Judeans do not “faith into” Jesus. It is possible, likely even, that the Judeans in this passage are from Galilee, but have a Judean mindset. A clue that they are from Galilee is that they know not only Jesus’ father, but his mother, something that usually would just be known to the locals. And it is in part this familiarity they have with the family that makes it hard to “faith into” Jesus. How can the kid from down the street be the bread of life, the bread come down from heaven?
Jesus hears them grumbling amongst themselves and interjects. He says that no one comes to him unless drawn by God, and that he, Jesus, would raise up on the last day those who come to him. It seems to me that he has no interest in trying to persuade the Judeans of anything. He seems almost dismissive, like, “if you can’t see it, it’s because God doesn’t want you to. God hasn’t drawn you to me, so that’s that. And, oh, you won’t be raised up in the end either.” I hear this as a statement meant for John’s audience rather than the Judeans. John seems to be telling his readers, look, THEY don’t get it, but YOU do. God has drawn you in, right?
Then Jesus refers to a Hebrew scripture passage from Isaiah, “And they shall all be taught by God.’ It is not an exact quote, though. The passage from Isaiah actually says, “All your children shall be taught by the Lord,” and it then goes on to talk about eating and drinking. The Jewish listeners would likely be familiar with these passages, and the theme of eating and bread would resonate between the scripture and Jesus’ words. I wonder if he is saying that those who faith into him are taught directly by God, instead of by rabbis or scripture study. I wonder if he is trying to loosen the devotion to Temple law and the rigidity of it. Because he says everyone who has heard and learned from God comes to him. So of course those who do not come to him have not heard and learned from God. This seems like another way for John to make his persecuted early Christian community feel special, as if he is saying, “You have faithed into Jesus, you have been taught by God’s self.”
Next Jesus seems to be clarifying something – just because someone has heard and learned from God does not mean he or she has seen God. Only the one sent by God has seen God. I wonder why that is in there. I wonder if it connects in some way with the last line of this passage, which we’ll get to in a moment. And then Jesus returns to his opening point – those who faith into him will have eternal life. The term translated as “eternal life” means not only living forever, but also living in God’s world in the present. By faithing into Jesus, one can live in the kindom now and forever.
He says again that he is the bread of life, and contrasts this bread which is him with the bread sent to the Jewish ancestors – the manna. Again this contrast between what Jesus is offering and what the Temple teachings, the Judean perspective, has offered. He says again, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” My research didn’t address this, but the last line of this passage, “the bread I give is my flesh,” is resonating for me, and it makes me wonder again about that line that “no one has seen God except the one God sent.” John’s gospel is the one that starts out, “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus is the bread sent from heaven, and the bread that is given here is his flesh. The bread from heaven is flesh, God in the flesh, God incarnated. Jesus is the son of God, Jesus is God.
I’m not sure why this excites me, but it does. After all, this idea of Jesus as God, God as Trinitarian in nature, is a basic tenet of the Christian faith. But it is a basic tenet that is very confusing. I’m not sure this passage does an awful lot to clear it up, as it is still difficult and confusing language, but it is, to me, one of the strongest statements Jesus makes claiming his divinity. Now we don’t know that Jesus actually said this, of course. It could just be the strongest statement by one of the gospel writers. But there is something about the metaphor that resonates for me. “I am of God, I am God. I came to feed you, to become part of you, to be taken in by you. I took on flesh to do that. You take me in by faithing into this incarnated God.” To me that is so much more powerful than, “I am a wise man in tune with God and I have something to teach you.”
For me, this has been a breakthrough. Does this mean I’ve just been taught by God? See, it’s never too late. Maybe the Judeans came around after all.
