“Jesus said to [the crowd],
‘I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me will never be hungry,
and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’” (John 6:35, NRSV)
He is bread for the living,
the loaf that gives us life,
the bread broken in death so that we may live,
the loaf we share that makes us one in him.
Somehow, in ways we do not understand,
the bread that we bring to this Table,
that we ask God to bless,
that we break,
and that we share,
—somehow—
this bread becomes for us and in us
the presence of Jesus Christ.
Somehow, he comes to us and gives us himself,
so that as we eat this bread become his body,
and as we drink this wine become his blood,
we receive Jesus Christ himself and share in his life.
This is not—it’s never—
just ordinary bread,
no matter what form it takes—
wafer or loaf.
Somehow, by the Father’s working in our midst,
by his blessing of his creation,
by his Spirit blowing in our lives,
this bread becomes the bread of heaven.
This is why Jesus said to the crowd,
“For the bread of God
is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.” (John 6:33, NRSV)
And then, naturally,
they responded:
“Sir, give us this bread always.” (John 6:34, NRSV)
We might wonder at the motives
driving the crowd to pursue Jesus,
to follow him doggedly,
to race along the shores of the Sea of Galilee,
to track him down no matter where he goes.
But whatever the reasons driving them,
in the end, when Jesus reveals
the gift that he is,
the gift that is in him,
the gift that he becomes for them,
they respond—in the end—
with a faith, a trust, a hope
that flows from and returns to God,
known to them in the Word made flesh,
the Word baked in the oven of human life,
the Word broken and shared in Jesus.
And we are like the crowd.
We might not know why we come here.
We might come for reasons we don’t fully understand.
We might arrive with praise on our lips and prayers in our hearts.
We might be here in desperation and fear.
We might show up out of habit.
We might wander into this place in confusion.
We might come seeking truth and life.
But whatever the reason,
when we come to the Table,
and we stretch out our hands
in prayerful silence,
our gestures speak in unison
with the crowd:
“Sir, give us this bread always.” (John 6:34, NRSV)
And God does.
He gives us the bread of heaven.
He gives and we receive.
He feeds us and we are nourished.
And not only that,
we are bound together
with one another in this community,
as we share the one bread, the one body, the one Lord.
And this community, this gathering,
is united with all the other gatherings
across God’s whole Church
as we eat this bread of life
and drink his cup of salvation.
And not only that,
God’s whole Church across the world
and each of us who is a living member
of that Church, that one body of Christ,
is made one through this meal
with all who have gone before us in the faith.
This is the communion of the saints
that we confess each week
as the work of the Holy Spirit.
The people said to Jesus,
“Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness;
as it is written,
‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” (John 6:31, NRSV)
They recalled their past, they remembered their history,
their journey in the wilderness,
following Moses like sheep following a shepherd,
the times when God had worked in the lives of their forebears
to strengthen and sustain them.
“Then Jesus said to them,
‘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.’” (John 6:32, NRSV)
Jesus says to the crowd—and to us—
that the “true bread from heaven”
really does make us all one.
The crowd remembers its ancestors back there and back then,
and what Moses had done in their midst.
But Jesus says,
“…it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven,
but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.” (John 6:32, NRSV)
He proclaims that they and their ancestors are one people.
So when God fed the Israelites manna in the wilderness,
that crowd gathering around Jesus was somehow, by God’s grace,
present before their time in the lives of their own ancestors,
receiving the gifts of God in that wilderness.
And so, in the same way, somehow, by the Spirit,
we find ourselves made one with all of God’s people
when we share this meal,
because, as Jesus says,
“…it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.”
This gift overcomes time and distance,
it binds together all who have lived and died in the faith
with all of us now living here and everywhere.
It creates in our midst the communion of saints.
What can we say in thanksgiving for such a gift?
What can we do in gratitude for this blessing?
Or, to ask the question on the lips of the crowd,
“What must we do to perform the works of God?” (John 6:28, NRSV)
Jesus’ answer is simple,
yet we can spend a lifetime discovering what it means.
He says, “This is the work of God,
that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:29, NRSV)
See how he turns the question around.
The crowd wants to know what it must do.
They want to know what the works are they must perform.
But Jesus tells them there are not works, but just one work.
And that work is God’s work in them.
Just as he gives us the true bread from heaven,
just as he makes us one in Christ through that bread,
he also performs his great work in us,
blessing us so that we may believe in him.
“This is the work of God,
that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:29, NRSV)
And because we believe,
we discover that God changes us,
that he makes us new through his true bread, his Son.
He feeds and nourishes us,
so that we may respond in faith
when we hear his admonition,
his re-ordering of our priorities:
“Do not work for the food that perishes,
but for the food that endures for eternal life….” (John 6:27, NRSV)
This is our true work,
but it is not our work;
it is the work of God;
it is his work in us so that we may believe.
And by his grace, we believe that Jesus is the true bread from heaven.
We believe that he gives us this bread,
and through it, he makes us live and gives us eternal life.
And throughout this life that we share here and now,
we ask him to give us this bread always.
And in reply, Jesus says to us,
“‘I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me will never be hungry,
and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’” (John 6:35, NRSV) Amen.