August 5, 2018 | Rev. Graham McCaffrey
Scripture: John 6:24-35, Ephesians 4:1-16
“They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’” – John 6:34
What feeds you? What are you hungry for?
Before I started running I never really thought about nutrition. Food was something I enjoyed, especially sweet and spicy things, but never something I really thought much about. I didn’t think about calories or macro-nutrients or anything like that, food was just something I enjoyed, something that comforted me, something that I often consumed mindlessly. This obviously led to some unhealthy habits – hence why I started running!
When I first began running, I didn’t initially change how I thought about food and it showed – despite running regularly I was often tired and saw little impact on my overall health. It wasn’t until I began really thinking about what I was eating that I began to see results – I began making myself eat more fruits and vegetables, I measured my portions, limited my intake of sweets and junk food and most importantly I kept track of what I ate.
It took my mind awhile to reset what I thought was ‘good food’; it took awhile to stop prioritizing empty and nutritionally lacking food over healthy and nutritionally rich alternatives – no longer did candy or fast food qualify as ‘good food’ but rather it was well-balanced meals, brimming with flavour, full of nutritional goodness, fresh vegetables and fruit.
I know that I am not the only one. Throughout the Western World, there is an obsession with empty food, food that doesn’t truly satisfy, food that ultimately does more harm to us than good. We need only look at the rise in obesity and related health problems to know that there is a serious disconnect between what food we should be consuming for our flourishing and what we are consuming.
What feeds you? What are you hungry for?
Our culture’s relationship with empty and nutritionally lacking food is a good metaphor for the common human spiritual and existential reality too. All too often we seek nourishment from all the wrong places, consuming empty food that leaves us spiritually, emotionally and relationally lacking.
Whether it is obsession with popularity and the approval of others, or the need to be constantly busy and productive, or the need to be constantly entertained, or our attachment to possessions, or our need to be distracted from the realities of life or the need to be superior to others – all too often we seek true nourishment in all the wrong places.
We fill our lives with bread that will not last, that will not give us true fulfillment and satisfaction in our lives. Like our culture’s obsession with junk food and empty calories, we get little meaningful spiritual, emotional and relational good out of them but we keep going back, keep filling our lives with cheap imitations of the bread that will last.
Each of us likely knows the feeling of wanting more in our life, more connection, deeper relationships, deeper friendship, more love, more honesty, more transparency, more goodness. And if we are honest with ourselves we know that we pursue it in all the wrong spaces, we want quick fixes to deep needs and longings.
Even when we encounter Jesus, we are often looking for that quick fix – we want to feel better, we want to be healed, we want to loved – we want bread for today, just like the crowds in our Gospel reading from John this morning.
What feeds you? What are you hungry for?
In our reading the crowd realized that Jesus and the disciples have moved on and so they began following him across the lake in search of something from this renowned teacher and holy man. They eventually found him and seem a little upset that Jesus had left them on the other shore when they asked him ‘Teacher when did you come here?” The crowd was essentially saying why did you leave us, we still want more, we still need you.
And Jesus responded rather curtly “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 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.”
And again the crowd was dumbfounded and asked Jesus for a sign, after all they reasoned Moses gave the Israelites manna in the desert so why shouldn’t Jesus feed them there in that wilderness. Just like the Israelites they were fed the day before and were looking for manna, they were looking for their daily bread, they were looking for their fill of the day. Despite hearing about or seeing Jesus’ miracles, they couldn’t grasp who he was and what he was truly about, they just wanted their needs met.
And Jesus’ response was to tell the crowd “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.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
What feeds you? What are you hungry for?
Jesus is the better manna from heaven, Jesus is the bread of life that doesn’t only last a day like the manna the Israelites collected in the desert. Jesus is the better manna that doesn’t spoil if we try to take too much. Jesus is the better manna that invites us to continue to take and eat, to take more of his life into our lives, to allow him to nourish us over and over again.
Jesus doesn’t just feed us the empty calories of today’s pop culture, he is the bread that satisfies our deepest longings and needs. He is the food which nourishes us and gives us all we need. He is the food which opens for us deeper connections, deeper relationships, deeper friendships, more love, more honesty, more transparency, more goodness.
Each week as we gather at this table, Jesus invites us to take him in, Jesus invites us to receive his life as we break the bread of life and the drink of the cup of salvation in our Eucharistic feast.
Each week as we come to worship all with different needs and different desires, different hurts and different brokenness we all come looking for our daily bread – just as Jesus taught us to pray. And just as Jesus fed the five thousand he can fulfill our daily needs he can satisfy our short-term desires but he offers us more than that – for those who believe in him he offers eternal life, he offers to truly satisfy our need for belonging and community, for love and relationship, for goodness in our lives.
The primary means that Jesus accomplishes this is through the church. The church is Jesus’ body on earth, it is where we learn about what it means to be in right relationship with God and one another. It is where we learn more about God the Father, it is where we grow and mature in our spiritual disciplines.
In our reading from Ephesians this morning we heard about how every member of the church, every member of Christ’s Body is gifted with abilities and talents which are designed for the building up of the body, so that it and we can “row up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.” (Ephesians 4:15-16)
What feeds you? What are you hungry for?
May you be hungry to learn more about Jesus, may you thirst for the living water that Jesus offers. May you be fed by Jesus’ word in the midst of his community. May his life grow inside of you and me as we are welcomed as honoured guests at God’s table and may we in turn seek to share our blessings so that others might be fed, so that others might drink of Jesus’ living water. Let us pray.