5 August 2012

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time B
John 6:24-35 / Ephesians 4:5
5 August 2012


In a couple of weeks, we’ll once again be having our church picnic. You’ll note in the bulletin announcement that it’s a potluck, bring something to share (salad or dessert) and, if you want, something for the grill, and something you’d like to drink.
And then there’s that next paragraph … labeled “activities include” … and we get our choice of badminton, croquet, horseshoes, trampoline, swings, or just ‘bonding in the shade.’
It’s a great example for us of a meal that means much more than just … a meal. I mean, the food is usually very good at our church picnic (as it is at the other events we have here at Nativity) but the afternoon is about more than just the food. It’s all that other stuff … “activities included” … that makes the picnic a good, memorable time for those who go.
And that is the way it is, when we share meals with others. We can have the same food every time we get together … picnic fare, spaghetti, pizza, ice cream sundaes … Sunday pot roast … whatever … but each time we get together, there can be a different meaning, a different purpose, different memories for us.
Sometimes it’s a celebration. And sometimes, it’s a comfort and a consolation.
This Sunday, we’re on week two of our “bread” texts from John chapter 6 … last week, the Bishop led us through the story of the feeding of the thousands, the miracle / sign which is so important to the story of Jesus for his followers that all four gospels include it.
In John’s gospel, that feeding story is definitely most about “sign” … the sign of Jesus feeding so many with so little, and the baskets of crumbs left over … that right there serves to point out that Jesus is SomeOne Different … and this miracle / sign takes its place in John’s gospel with the others … water turned to wine … blind man given sight … the raising of dead Lazarus … these signs are proofs, to readers and hearers then, and now, of Jesus’ being sent by his Father- God to earth to be about something new here … God as a man … yes … and a man who can and does show the world Who it is he points toward, embodies, en-fleshes.
But we can’t help hear that feeding story … Jesus takes the bread, gives thanks, gives it out again … we can’t help hear this story and think, Holy Communion … the meal for us, gathered together by, for, around Jesus. The “work of God” that we would believe … all gift to us, just as in Baptism, the Flowing Streams of Living Water for Us … in Holy Communion the “work” is all God’s, and we simply receive it as part of our life together as Jesus’ followers, disciples, forgiven and freed children. The Meal …it is what we as God’s baptized do, plain and simple, each week as we walk wet to the table of our Lord, gathered in Jesus’ name to eat and to drink.
This week’s Gospel moves us into the aftermath of that miraculous feeding … the crowd follows Jesus and the disciples to the other side of the sea of Galilee, then finds them … and Jesus, trying to move the crowd beyond the physical feeding they’ve just experienced, beyond just the temporal and temporary bread to something else … says “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.”
And so we are called, too … called to move beyond just the physical feeding as well … in our recollection and reception of the story, staying focused on the food-stuff of Holy Communion … the bread, the wine, the juice, wafers or bread … that’s not the point of all this. There’s not enough here for us to eat and drink to physically sate us, that’s for sure. So we must look at, AND beyond it.
And when we look beyond the physical nature of this meal, we will see that … just like any other meal we share with others … it has a multi-faceted beauty, to and for us … just as our other earthly meals can and do have greater meanings beyond the physical eating and drinking, so too Holy Communion has this for us.
In other words, Holy Communion can, should, does have different meanings to different people who receive it at different times and different places in their lives.
We’ve been reading a bit of Martin Luther’s Small Catechism each week, in this year of Baptism reflection and renewal for us at Nativity … but today, I’d also like for us to hear Luther’s catechism words on Holy Communion … namely, his answers to the question, What is the benefit of such eating and drinking?

The words ‘given for you’ and ‘shed for you for the forgiveness of sin’ show us that forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation are given to us in the sacrament …

We Lutherans have focused for a long, long time on the ‘forgiveness of sin’ part of Holy Communion. And certainly that’s important … Jesus says so in his words which are said every time we celebrate this meal together.
But Luther rightly points out that there are two other aspects of this meal that we shouldn’t forget … namely, that life and salvation also come to us through Holy Communion.
This is so important for us to hear, to receive today, as we have this text before us. Jesus says ‘I am the bread of life’ and so he comes to us, for us, in this meal, to eat and drink … but like any other meal, it does not always carry the same meaning for us.
Meaning that, maybe this week you really, truly need to hear, to receive, to eat and drink on the Word that you are forgiven by Jesus, forgiven and freed from all your sins and shortcomings. And so you are … the body and blood of Christ, the bread of life, given and shed for you.
But perhaps that is not your need this week. Perhaps you are so full of thanks, rejoicing over something that has happened, to or for you, to or for someone you love, that you come to the table asking Christ to be part of that thankfulness and rejoicing. And so he is, for you … the body and blood of Christ, the bread of life, given and shed for you, for life.
Or maybe you have had the opposite kind of week … one full of much sadness, need, neglect, caring for others, emptied out, spent, needing re-filling, re-creation … you come to the table asking Christ to come and share that burden, relieve that burden, and grant you comfort, rest, energy, peace, calm, steadiness … salvation, not just for hereafter, but for here and now. And so he is, for you … the body and blood of Christ, the bread of life, given and shed for you, for salvation.
And this is not just for us singly, individually. This is not a “me and Jesus” moment ... it’s a WE AND JESUS meal. Christ comes to each and to all, all who are gathered here at this hungry feast, and he brings to each and to all, forgiveness, life, salvation.
This is the meal that means more than just forgiveness. Or even, one kind of forgiveness.
He comes … he comes, the bread of life, comes in the bread and wine, and brings forgiveness, life and salvation … in as many ways as there are of us, of all who have gathered and will gather today around the many tables which are the One Table of the One Lord who meets each of us here, each of us, ALL OF US, just as we are, and gives us himself … come down from heaven and giving life to the world.
Sir, give us this bread always.
And so he does. And so he does. For you and you and you and me, for us, and them and them and them and US.
Come and eat, come and drink, come to this hungry feast and dine on the Bread of Life.
Amen.