This is the first of three sermons I preached in St Louis between internship and my first call at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, a church discerning its future. Its Holy Closure came in spring 2025.
Grace and peace to you from God, the source of all love, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus, who is our Christ. Amen.
“The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Today’s reading from the sixth chapter of John is as close as we get to John’s presentation of the Sacrament of the Table. The words we hear every week during the meal are found in the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and are repeated by Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians. John, as you know, is the unconventional gospel. It’s filled with signs that point us to Jesus as Messiah. And John is seasoned with seven “I am” statements Jesus used to equate himself with THE “I AM,” God.
After introducing himself as the Bread of Life in last week’s Gospel passage, Jesus continues to break it out, to riff, as it were, on that “I am” statement. “I am the living bread from heaven.”
Jesus knows his crowd. These Jewish followers knew their Torah. They would have known that the “living bread from heaven” was manna, the daily bread that sustained the Israelites in the wilderness. By referring to himself as living bread, the astonished onlookers would hear that Jesus was saying he was not only “God-sent” but “life-giving.”
Jesus was manna for a hungry world: He had their attention.
Jesus was manna for a lost people: He had their hearts.
And then, Jesus told them something was about to happen. Unlike the manna that disappeared when the Israelites reached the promised land, this manna would remain. HE was becoming their manna. For Always.
“The bread I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
How many of us seriously wonder about the Life of THIS world? Listen to the news for just 10 minutes, scroll through your social media feed, or just go to any gathering. Without being the least bit political, people from every walk of life worry about how they will afford the basic things they need to live. They wonder why people don’t seem to care that what they do affects others. They see some folks getting rich off others’ poverty.
And I don’t think I’d be going out on a limb too far to say that our world isn’t all that different in those respects from the First Century world in which Jesus lived. When Jesus told the crowd the parable of the woman who lost a coin and searched diligently until she found it, they understood people who were barely getting by and needed every coin they had. When Jesus stopped and spoke with Zaccheus the tax collector, they knew Jesus was challenging him to think about the people of his community and collect taxes fairly and equitably. When Jesus pointed out the widow who was dropping two small coins—everything she had—into the temple collection box, he wasn’t applauding her faith. He was criticizing a system and a faith community that should be taking care of her, not taking everything she had
“The bread I will give for the life of the world” is my flesh.” Jesus was foreshadowing that he would eventually lay down his life for this world. He would be the catalyst, the change agent for a different way of living. His followers, and those who would follow those followers, including you and me, would be baptized into a new way of living. Today, our baptismal commitment to be “bread for life of the world” sounds like this:
- To live among God’s faithful people,
- To hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper,
- To proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed
- To serve ALL people, following the example of Jesus,
- And To strive for justice and peace in all the earth.
Holy Trinity, you know about that. Watering the butterfly garden. Shopping and dropping off extra food or sundries for one of your missions. Joining together for fellowship or to assemble a quilt – Holy Trinity, that’s being bread for the life of this world.
But so is showing up to care for your next-door neighbor. Being kind to the person in front of you at the store who is fumbling to find their debit card. Encouraging the parent whose little one is having a melt-down in the restaurant. In all those ways and so many more, every day, you are the manna this world needs.
Did you notice the direction of travel though? It begins inside, living among God’s faithful people, and sharing this meal together. Experiencing Jesus’ presence with us every Sunday as we come together to feast on this simple meal of bread and wine. Hearing the gospel proclaimed. And then we are sent out, to do the work of Christ out there. To be grace and God’s hands and feet to a world in need out there.
So tell me, Holy Trinity, how have you been the manna this world needs recently? Manna – not full loaves of bread – just tiny little flakes of bread that were gathered together daily to sustain God’s people. What little acts of love and grace have been your manna to the world?
(Take comments… Repeat them on mic.)
I know this congregation is in a season of discernment right now. You are talking and praying about your next steps. You are thinking about your 65-plus years of loving and serving and being the bread for the life of the world here in South County. And I pray as Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus that you would be wise, and together you would come to understand what is the will of God for your future.
I want to assure you that as you abide in the love of Christ, sharing that love with the world in great and small ways, that you ARE that bread for a hungry world. People hungry for kindness. For justice. For compassion. For healing. No matter what the next step looks like, Holy Trinity. No matter how the Spirit guides your way. Your baptismal vows lead you out there. To people who are starving for that kind of community. Just as Jesus was bread for the life of the world, now as the Body of Christ, that role has passed to you.
And the people of God said… AMEN.
No comments:
Post a Comment