A COMMUNION MEDITATION

TEXTS: John 6:24-35 and Ephesians 4:1-16

 

Come in, come in and sit down,

you are a part of the family.

We are lost and we are found,

and we are a part of the family.

 

There’s life to be shared in the bread and the wine;

we are the branches, Christ is the vine.

This is God’s temple, it’s not yours or mine,

but we are a part of the family. *

 

I think Jim Manley’s joyful song is the perfect opening hymn—especially for a Communion service.

“Come in, come in and sit down …” Why?

Because “you are a part of the family.”

Families are great, aren’t they? At least, most of the time, they are. But then, there are those relatives who …

Well, there are relatives like my brother-in-law Tim. When our son Samuel was six years old, somehow or other Iris and I thought it would be a good idea to leave “uncle Tim” in charge of him for a day.

So, what happened? Well … it’s like this …

For lunch or dinner or some meal (I can’t exactly remember), Tim decided they should both go to a restaurant.

To what kind of restaurant would you take a small child? Chuck E. Cheese? McDonald’s, perhaps? Or Denny’s?

Tim took Sam to a very high-end eatery. You know—the kind of place where you’re met at the door by a maître d’.

Yeah. I’m surprised they’d let a six-year-old boy in to a place like that. It’s not exactly “family dining.”

Anyway, to make a long story short … Tim wanted to expose Sam to some of the finer things in life. So he ordered a plate of escargots. That’s right. Snails. Sautéed in garlic butter.

I have to say … I am 70 years old now, and to this day, I still have not been able to bring myself to try fried snails. Call them by whatever elegant French name you want to, I immediately think of slugs in the garden! And that puts me off.

Apparently, Sam wasn’t too keen on the idea, either, at first. But then uncle Tim offered my son the one thing he’s never been able to resist: cold, hard cash! Tim told Sam he’d give him a toonie if he’d try one—and that was all it took. Down the hatch went the sautéed snail. And then another. And another. Turns out Sam really liked escargots! Who’d have guessed it?

Fried snails instantly became Sam’s favourite thing. He would actually ask for them—and beg to go to places where we could get them. I think they remained Sam’s favourite thing until he started having to pay for them himself.

Do you know how expensive those things are? A saucer with four fried snails in it can cost you 20 bucks!

THANKS A LOT, UNCLE TIM!

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.”

Jesus does not say, “I am the escargot of life,” or “the rich semisweet dark chocolate of life,” or “the medium rare standing rib roast of life.” Nor does he compare himself to a bucket of KFC. No. Jesus says, “I am the bread of Life.”

Bread. Certainly not disgusting. But nothing fancy, either. Ordinary, everyday bread. Every culture, it seems, has some kind of bread. As a dietary staple, bread is common—and yet it is also uncommon because it has so many varieties. There’s white bread, whole-wheat bread, pumpernickel, French, Italian, pita, tortilla, sourdough, gluten-free … and the list goes on and on. Say the word “bread” and chances are some pleasant image—or taste, or smell, or texture—quickly comes to mind.

But listen carefully to what Jesus says:

“Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal … 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. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world … I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:27, 32-33, 35).

All of those other breads will quickly grow stale and mouldy. Even the manna from heaven that fed the Hebrews in the wilderness was temporary.

Remember that story from the Book of Exodus? In chapter 16, we read about the miraculous bread that fell from heaven to sustain the children of Israel in the desert. And it didn’t cost twenty dollars a plate! It was free for the asking—but God warned the people not to try to hoard it or keep the leftovers until morning. If they did, the Bible tells us that “it bred worms and became foul” (Exodus 16:20).

Jesus came offering a new and different kind of bread—bread that will not go bad or get stale, bread that is not temporary, bread that nourishes perpetually and lasts forever. This bread encourages and preserves hope. Where there is life, there is hope. The bread of life is the bread of hope.

Human beings have always craved the bread of hope. We still do. And yet, so very many people today live—or rather, exist—without the bread of hope. So very many of us live hope-deficient lives. We all know people like this. Their spirits are pale and gaunt from lack of sustenance. Some of them suffer from eating disorders as they try to fill their empty lives with food that does not satisfy.

Others search endlessly for “Prince Charming”—or “the girl of their dreams”—to bring the delicacies of romantic love that will make all their loneliness and insecurities disappear. Still others gorge themselves on material possessions only to discover that more is never enough.

Like starving children with swollen bellies, they live as if they were simply waiting to die. They live in a state of desolate alienation: estranged from family and loved ones—estranged from their parents, or children, or spouse; estranged from old friends; estranged, even, from themselves. But, most of all, estranged from God. Hopelessness breeds this kind of alienation—and alienation, inevitably, starves the human soul.

In our text from John, we follow up on last week’s reading, where Jesus fed 5,000 people with five barley loaves and two fish. Remember? Now these people were sticking to him like glue. The miracle of the loaves reminded them of the manna in the wilderness. “Could this man be the new Moses? Could this guy work wonders for us?”

So they demanded that Jesus prove himself by making some bread from heaven rise up on the spot. Jesus ignored that request, and instead he offered them … himself.

But this was not at all what they had in mind. A relationship with this traveling preacher? What good is that? They were thinking more along the lines of escargot, prime rib, and semisweet dark chocolate. They wanted good food and great wonders. They wanted miracles on demand. They wanted that bucket of KFC!

So Jesus tries to correct their faulty suppositions. He tells them: “It was God—not Moses—who gave the manna in the wilderness, and it’s God who gives the true bread from heaven, the bread that gives life to the world.”

“Give us some of that bread!”

“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).

Unfortunately, that remark just confused them. But maybe we are confused, also. How exactly is Jesus the bread of Life? And how is Jesus like—and not like—the manna in the wilderness?

Well, Jesus is like manna in that, through him, God reminds us that we live because God provides! Not necessarily what we want—but exactly what we need: some food, some love, some breath, some water. More than that, God offers us a relationship with the One who is the bread from heaven. And here’s where Jesus is markedly different from the manna in the wilderness; because it is through this relationship that he sustains us. In Christ, God comes to reconcile us to himself. In Christ, the Holy Spirit works to heal our alienation—to put an end to our estrangement.

There are all kinds of reasons people become estranged from one another and from God. None of us are immune to broken relationships. And yet relationships are as necessary for life as is bread.

That’s how we have been created. We need to be in relationship to be fully human. Yet—as we know all too well—the fabric of relationships can be as thin as tissue paper.

God knows this, too. God knows how fragile our relationships are—how fragile our very lives are—and he knows that we need to be fed continually. That’s why God sends the bread from heaven in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

In Jesus, God comes as the Bread of Life: as sustenance for the sickly and sequestered; as a banquet for the bereaved and bottomed-out; as a feast for the forlorn and forsaken.

In Jesus, God leaves a trail of breadcrumbs leading out of the desert of hopelessness and estrangement—and into relationship, into community; a trail of bread crumbs to guide us home.

When we start picking up and eating those tiny bread crumbs of life, something astonishing happens.

When we partake of the hope, and peace, and unconditional love that is Jesus Christ, we come to realize—maybe for the first time—that the very presence of this bread means that there is no disagreement, no argument, no sin big enough or bad enough to make God stop loving us.

This bread is not only an invitation to life, it is life! This bread gives us life because it is our hope. It is the very life of God made real in our human experience.

• Wherever there is humility,
• Wherever there is gentleness,
• Wherever there is patience,
• Wherever there is unity in the Spirit,
• Wherever there is peace,
• Wherever there is truth spoken in love …

Wherever—as Paul said—we are called to one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism … there … in that place, we feast upon the bread of life (Eph. 4:1-3).

Wherever love triumphs over human sinfulness, estrangement, and hopelessness—wherever the walls of alienation are broken down—there is the bread of life, there is God’s own life given to us and for us.

And if that’s what God has done for us in Christ, if that’s how God feels about us—if God is truly unwilling to let sin and estrangement be the focus of our existence; if God instead chooses to feed us the bread of life … How shall we respond? How shall we live?

Will we let petty differences undermine our relationships? Will we let our disagreements cause separation and estrangement? Will we nurse grudges and coddle resentment and chew upon controversy like so much worthless gristle?

Or will we live lives worthy of our calling, imitating the One whose overcoming love rises like bread?

In Jesus Christ, the bread of life rises. It rises to overcome everything that would separate us from God and from one another. In him, the bread of life rises to conquer even death itself.

Even now, the aroma of freshly-baked bread is wafting down from heaven’s kitchen. And soon, a breadcrumb trail will lead us out into the world.

May we be nourished and empowered by this gift of bread—this Bread of Life.

May we rise up and live out the unconditional love baked into our souls through our relationship with Christ.

For in Christ, God has proclaimed a feast of the heart. In Christ, God provides the Bread of Life to nourish and sustain us—in all of our relationships, at all times and in all places … in this world and the next. What greater blessing could we ask for? Amen.

___________________

* “Come In, Come In and Sit Down” Words and Music by James K. Manley. Copyright ©1984 James K. Manley