Bread for Living
John 6:51-58
Preached August 18, 2024 at West Trenton Presbyterian Church in Trenton, NJ
Watch the service here
Today’s gospel scripture reading is a continuation of Jesus’ “I am the bread of life” teachings.
Shortly following the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, Jesus teaches those who have followed him.
And on the shores of Galilee, he begins to say some very strange things
After telling the crowd that he is the bread of life, Jesus goes on to tell them that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood
Now, without any context it almost sounds like he’s a character in a horror movie
I can just picture Jesus in a stereotypical vampire voice saying “You must drink my blood”
And it doesn’t help the case that Jesus uses a lot of evocative vocabulary.
For example, He keeps using this Greek work “sarx”
Sometimes “sarx” is translated to “body”
But the more accurate translation is “flesh”
Jesus uses this word intentionally.
He wants to create a feeling and paint a picture to the listeners
The term flesh for those early listeners—and for us too—is evocative
It’s visceral and tactile. It might make you think about the feeling of your own body—what it’s like to live in your skin
And the words that Jesus uses to talk about eating and drinking
—“fag-o” and “pee-no”—
are just as evocative as “sarx”
This kind eating and drinking he’s talking about isn’t the kind you’d do at a fancy dinner where you’d unfurl a crisp white napkin and gently place it on your lap.
No
Instead this kind of eating is much less dignified
In the Greek, it’s actually more like chewing and gulping
It’s the kind of eating you’d do after a long hike and you’re salivating just at the thought of food
It’s messy and almost frenzied
Jesus really emphasizes this body and food connection when he compares himself to the mana.
Mana, the food the Israelites ate while they were wandering through the desert.
He says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven!’
Jesus is saying that he’s not the kind of bread that one would like to eat every once in awhile, but the kind of bread you gobble down.
The kind you’re just desperate to have.
The kind you might beg your mom to get on your way home—just hoping and praying she doesn’t say “no! We have that at home!”
All this talk of flesh and bread and eating and drinking, is honestly kind of weird
--even to me—
But I promise it has a point
What Jesus is getting at here is that God cares about this physical world
He uses the food imagery and metaphor to show their importance
To show how God is made known to us
What Jesus is saying here in John is that simple things like bread and blood matter to God
The simple, the ephemeral, the stinky, and the squishy
--they all matter to God
And not only does God care for this world around us, but God also cares for us --in all of our humanness
Including our own bodies
Our physicality and our materiality
Our bodies that are somehow both too squishy and too hard
Our bodies that sometimes smell weird but can do amazing and wonderful things
Like taking us to beautiful places
Allowing us to enjoy a popsicle at the beach on a hot summer day
Or giving a huge bear hug to a friend that you missed so much
The message that Jesus shares here in the gospel of john is this:
Every body in every color size ability is precious in the sight of the one who created it
Christ’s concern and care for our bodies teaches us that they are not just these annoying things we should ignore as we hyper-focus on the sweet-by-and-by
No
Our bodies are meant to be lived in
Because our bodies are how we experience God. Here. Now,
Because God is not some abstract idea
--not some lofty metaphor or thought experiment—
God is something to be experienced
God is meant to be enjoyed and reveled in
And because God so deeply loves and cares for our bodies, we are invited to love and care for our bodies, too
Now, I’m not just talking about going to those yearly doctor’s appointments, taking a multivitamin every day, and getting enough sleep
I’m also talking about how we see and treat our bodies
The words we use to talk about them and the messages we send them
Or even the words and messages we accept from others
God invites us to appreciate and respect our bodies.
To listen to them when they send us messages
To love them and delight in them
God invites us to, using the words of poet Mary Oliver writes, “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves”
This invitation to respect and care for our bodies also includes the bodies of our neighbors and the very world we live in
God’s invitation raises questions about how we live our lives:
Are we intentional about living not just in our heads but living fully in our whole bodies too?
Are we working towards a world in which all people—and all bodies—experience embodied joy and flourishing?
God’s invitation to love our bodies, is also an invitation for us to reflect on issues of justice
Are we creating a world in which all people have life and have it abundantly?
A world where we all have a dignified life? --free from violence and oppression
Are we creating a world where the sacred in each person is honored and upheld?
A world where we all have enough--and enough satisfies us?
When Jesus says, “I am the bread of Life”. Those are the implications
The permission that God’s invitation gives and the questions that it raises may be different for each person
But this invitation can ripple across the waters of our lives and make a profound difference not just in our own lives but all across our communities
And so friends, with all of that in mind, I wish now to leave you with this poem by Mary Oliver
The poem is entitled The Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese,
--harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
amen