John 6:56-69
[Jesus said,] “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”
Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
I think it was Monday, this week, when I told Pastor Cogan, with great frustration, that we really need to pay attention and be on the lookout for the next time this Bread from Heaven series shows up in the lectionary. If you’ve been counting, you know it’s been five weeks of variations on this same theme. It started in July with the feeding of the 5,000 and it’s been nothing but bread, bread, bread, and more bread ever since.
It’s not that I’m actually surprised about it. It happens every three years, thanks to the lectionary. And every three years I’ve had my fill of bread from John’s gospel, by the time we get to this bit we hear today – sometimes even sooner. Anyway, I suggested to Pastor Cogan that it would be a good time to do a series of our own of some sort, to avoid having to come up with five more weeks’ worth of bread stories … again.
But on Tuesday, Pastor Cogan and I were rustling up a devotion we could use for our Council meeting that evening and, by accident or coincidence, I don’t know; by the power of the Holy Spirit, perhaps; certainly by the grace of God for this preacher with a couple of sermons to prepare this week – and yet one more about BREAD – the Council devotion we found included a poem by Mary Oliver that tasted a bit like a generous helping of bread from heaven.
It’s called Don’t Hesitate and I’ll lay some copies out in the entry if you want to read the whole thing and take it with you later. (It’s worth wondering about in more ways than I’ll do here.) But the poem starts and ends with an invitation and command … to joy. At the beginning, Mary Oliver says, “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it.” And the poem ends with these words, “…whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”
“Don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”
So this week I’ve been wrestling with and resting in the good news of the Gospel according to Mary Oliver … “Joy is not made to be a crumb.” And I decided that maybe that’s been part of the point of these past five weeks and the point of all Jesus’ talk about bread, bread, bread, bread, bread. He’s been wearing us down and filling us up with this relentless teaching about the abundance of God’s bread – and all the love and grace and mercy and forgiveness and joy that bread is meant to be for us and for the world.
But this teaching is difficult for some, it seems – and for me apparently, at times, too. We are surrounded by and bombarded with as many reasons to resist or deny or ignore or just plain miss the joy that tries to make its way into our lives in this world. I know you know what I mean.
The bodies of six Isreali hostages were recovered in Gaza and returned for burial in Israel last week, as that region still reels from the war that’s been raging since early October.
And in Gaza, 70% of the water supply and sanitation facilities have been destroyed, so that children drink from puddles and wade through pools of sewage.
A terrorist killed three people with a knife at a festival celebrating diversity in a small town in Germany on Friday.
Iran is apparently trying to hack their way into disrupting and interfering with our presidential elections, which already promise to be as tense and ugly and divisive and full of lies and ignorance as we’ve come to expect, without that kind of outside help.
So, this bread from heaven stuff? … this idea of God’s abundance? … these “words of eternal life”? … can seem offensive in light of that kind of news … this teaching can be difficult to say the least … and hard to accept at best … just like those first followers of Jesus felt and declared way back when.
I’m not sure if you caught it, but I mentioned a moment ago that I had two sermons to write this week. On Friday, I also had the privilege to preach and preside at an impromptu wedding for a couple I had never met … until Friday morning, about 30 minutes before the small ceremony they hosted in their back yard.
They are friends of some friends who live in Noblesville. They’ve been a couple for a decade or so – she’s 50, he’s 64 – and a week-and-a-half ago this retired, outdoorsy, triathlete was diagnosed with a glioblastoma … a malignant tumor that’s already the size of a golf ball, growing in his brain. Barring a miracle, he likely has less than two years to live. The happy couple could use some bread from heaven right about now – and more than just a crumb.
I reminded them – or they reminded me, to be fair – of something I need to hear more often and what I want to share with you all just the same:
…that God does God’s best work with what is sad and hurting and broken and even dying in this world. That God showed up, in Jesus, precisely BECAUSE the world is a sad, hurting, broken, insufferable kind of place too much of the time. And none of us is ever promised otherwise.
And like that couple whose hard, harrowing news moved them to finally get married after ten years together – to let the good news of their love speak a defiant word of joy into the darkness of that cancer diagnosis – we are allowed, invited, called to do the same:
To hear the words of eternal life that come down from heaven in Jesus. To eat this bread from heaven and be nourished by its goodness, in spite of the hard, hurtful ways of the world around us. To give in to and receive the relentless abundance of God’s love for us, in spite of our struggles and suffering, remembering that that’s the reason for this bread in the first place.
So, (close your eyes for a moment and wonder/remember/acknowledge if you can, in your heart of hearts) in the face of what’s so hard in your life and in this world, where have you found some joy lately … even if it was just a crumb? Where has the bread from heaven made its way into your world? Where might you find it in the days ahead?
May we give in to this joy, this love, this promise of eternal life that begins for us, even now, right where we live. May we not be afraid of its plenty. May even the crumbs of this bread from heaven feel like an abundance. May we baptize babies. May we eat bread and drink wine. May we love and be loved by our neighbor. And may the source of it all find us and fill us, always, until we find ways to fill the world with some measure of its joy, in return.
Amen
Don’t Hesitate
by Mary Oliver
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it.
There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be.
We are not wise, and not very often kind.
And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left.
Perhaps this is its way of fighting back,
that sometimes something happens
better than all the riches or power in the world.
It could be anything, but very likely you
notice it in the instant when love begins.
Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of
its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
