Bread, Bread, Bread, Bread, Bread

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.”

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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.

Gluten Morgen, Baby

John 6:35, 41-51

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.”

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

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Some of you have heard me mention one of my new, favorite theologians, writers, and poets, Pádraig Ó Tuama. A few years ago, maybe in response to the Covid Quarantine craze of sourdough-bread-starters, I’m not really sure why, but he shared a favorite bread recipe online. And because he’s a poet and a theologian, his recipe for bread hits a bit differently than most cook books I’ve seen.

First of all, he calls it “Irish Wheaten Bread (aka: Gluten Morgen Baby),” and he acknowledges that it came to him by way of a friend who got it from someone else who learned it from the TV chef, Delia Smith, and that the details of it all might have changed along the way. After listing the ingredients, which I will share with anyone who actually wants to give this a go (I’m looking at you Joyce Ammerman/Sue Weisenbarger/Linda Michealis), Ó Tuama, offers up the following instructions, among others:

First, he suggests that every bread-baking session should begin with a reading of “All Bread” by Margaret Atwood. “It’s the rule,” he says.

Then he says to “mix the whole meal and plain flour together with the bicarbonate of soda – and sieve them. It helps the bread rise while it’s cooking.

Then add in the pinhead oatmeal, wheat germ, salt and buttermilk. Mix it up.

He says, “I throw in some nice sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds, too. Whatever feels good. Apart from fish-sauce. Don’t put fish sauce in there, even if it feels good.

“At this stage,” he says, “you can put in the egg. Or, if you’re feeling very adventurous, you can separate the yolk from the white, and add in the yolk. Whisk the egg white and then fold that in. If you do that, you need to do some dancing to prove what a badass you are.

“Grease the tin.

“If you want, you can put poppy and sesame seeds on the bottom and side of the tin as this will make the crust be ‘seed-infused-crust’ and there’s no home-made-organic-authentically-handcrafted-bread like ‘seed-infused-crust-home-made-organic-authentically-handcrafted bread.’ If you do this, you’ll need to read Jericho Brown’s “Psalm 150” aloud, with joy, for the sheer brilliance of its language, as well as all its other glories.

At this point, he says, “The whole mix should look like a thick porridge. Pour it into the greased tin. Often I put fresh oats on the top too. And, please don’t forget to say a blessing for the bread. Without it the bread won’t do its work. Choose a blessing of your choice, or make it up. That’s where they all come from anyway.

“Normally,” he says, “I put tinfoil over the greased tins, so that the oats don’t burn, but also to make sure the tins generate a lot of heat. That might be because I’ve got a temperamental oven though.

“Put it all into the oven, and read Margaret Atwood’s poem again. It’ll convince the bread that its purpose is to feed the body and soul.”

And of course there are instructions for bake time and temperature and whatnot. …

I like Pádraig’s recipe because I don’t consider myself a cook, or a chef, or a baker by any stretch. And I’ve always been under the impression – especially when it comes to baking bread – that there’s a right and wrong way to do it; that bread can be finicky; that if you don’t get it all measured or mixed or leavened or greased or timed just right, it won’t turn out. That it will be flat or doughy or ugly or taste terribly – or all of the above. And some of this may, indeed, be true.

But Pádraig O’ Tuama’s recipe reminds me of Jesus and this morning’s Gospel story. Yet another bit in this series of Gospels about his identity as – and his affinity for – God’s “bread from heaven.”

Now, it’s worth knowing –if you didn’t catch it – that Jesus is mad today … that we’re listening in on a hard conversation – an argument, even, some might say – between Jesus and the crowds who have been following him, and challenging him, and questioning him for quite awhile now. Someone smarter than me, has even suggested that when Jesus says, “do not complain among yourselves,” that what he really means is “zip it,” “shut up,” “pipe down,” “quit your whining.”

And that side of Jesus matters to me – the human, frustrate-able side of Jesus, I mean, who must have gotten mad more often than we hear about. Mad, here, because he’s trying to “bring the kingdom” to the people around him and they just don’t see it or get it or want it or know what that means. Mad because he’s been having this same conversation for like, 6 chapters and 51 verses, if the Gospel text is any kind of measuring stick for that sort of thing. And after all this time, they’re still just bickering over the details and not believing or receiving what they’ve seen or experienced or heard about Jesus.

My point is, I kind of think Jesus is just trying to get the people in this morning’s Gospel to quit fussing and fretting over the recipe. And I imagine he was so frustrated and angry, and sad, too, that they still didn’t get it, or want it, or understand him, just yet.

Because what matters in all of this back and forth between Jesus and those people so hungry for faith is that it took place very near to the festival of the Passover, the great national and religious holiday for the Jewish people. The Passover was where they celebrated their release from slavery, their Exodus from Egypt, their journey toward the Promised Land. Just before this morning’s reading (or last week if you were here) we heard about how the people complained to Jesus for not giving them signs like the ones their ancestors received in the wilderness back in the days of Moses – after some grumbling of their own. They complained that their ancestors got that miraculous manna in the wilderness – actual bread from heaven – and they thought they deserved something like that kind of a miraculous sign, too; to feed them, to fill them, to fix them, to SAVE them.

And now, along comes Jesus, claiming to be that bread from heaven. He’s claiming, not just that he was there to bake or deliver this bread from heaven they were looking for, but that somehow he was … that he would be … that he is, this bread – this miracle – that would do more than just fill their bellies, but that would give life and hope and salvation to the world.

And since most of us know the rest of the story, we know how this ends: with Jesus crucified and raised to new life. And we can read this little bit of it all as a preview of sorts. Jesus was really hinting, if not declaring outright for those who could read between the lines – that he was the new Passover Lamb, with that national holiday just around the corner – come to take away the sin of the world.

Jesus … from Nazareth … this son of a carpenter, this boy born of a peasant girl – this neighbor kid whose parents they knew – was claiming to have come down from heaven with this monumental, holy task of giving up his life, in the flesh, for the sake of the world.

Which means, Jesus was messing with their tradition. Jesus was undoing what they expected. Jesus was replacing the old with something new. He was changing the rules and messing with the recipe, if you will, of everything their faith had always told them. And he was inviting them to live and believe something altogether different because of it. He was replacing their bread and that lamb with his very own body and blood.

Jesus was inviting people to see and to receive – God is calling us, still – to open ourselves to the new ways of God’s kingdom among us: things like grace and forgiveness; things like humility and generosity; things like peace and love for the “other” and love of our enemies, too. But we’re just not always so great at that, if we’re honest. Our necks are stiff and our hearts are hard and we are stuck in our ways – we get tied to the recipe and to our own rules too much of the time. Just like the Jews of Jesus’ day, Christian people are notorious for “complaining against each other” about too many rules, and too many recipes, and more.

So we get this bread from heaven, in Jesus Christ, who offers us forgiveness, who fills our hearts and minds and lives with the same kind of mercy, love and promise we’re meant to share with the world. We get this bread from heaven, in Jesus, broken and shared with such abundance that our hands and our hearts can’t hold it all.

We get this bread from heaven, in Jesus, and we’re called to share the goodness of it all like Pádraig Ó Tuama, and any good friend would share their favorite recipe, with no strings attached – generously, like poetry and so many seeds … with psalms and blessings included … by example … and with invitation and room to be fed and nourished by a grace that comes through the very life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, breaking every rule along the way, and wherever necessary.

It is something altogether new and better and different. It can be difficult to believe, this bread from heaven. For some, this kind of grace is hard to swallow, for sure. But this Jesus, this bread come down from heaven, this forgiveness, grace, and mercy, is for us and for all people. It feeds and fills every body. It saves and redeems all things – and all of us – by God’s grace, for the sake of the world.

Gluten Morgen, Baby.

Amen

Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Bread Recipe