Sermon at Springridge Mennonite Church - August 13, 2006

Title: "Will you feed me?"

Scripture: 1 Kings 19: 4-8

Psalm 34: 1-8

John 6: 35, 41-51

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- As you likely know, our family enjoyed a two week holiday in southern Ontario recently (or perhaps I should say “endured” given the humidity we encountered) .

- Part of that trip involved driving.

- A lot of it. In one week we put over 1,250 kilometres on our rented car.

- For some of the Albertans in our gathering the driving provided for some hair raising moments.

- The cars and trucks! There are so many of them! And all going so fast and fairly close to each other!

- For myself I enjoyed driving in it. My daughter said that I was beaming behind the wheel.

- Sure there were some encounters with inconsiderate drivers.

- But for the most part there was a wonderful flow of traffic ....even in rush hour on the 401 traffic slowed down more than it stopped.

- People didn’t loose their cool if you nosed in.

- And if you let someone in, sometimes you would even get a friendly wave in return.

- In contrast, one of the pet peeves I have had over our eight years of living here in Alberta is Calgary traffic (Lethbridge traffic at times as well).

- The flow cannot be considered as such. It is much more stop and go.

- Merge ramps are shorter and promote more of a “just you try to get ahead of me” type of mentality. There is more of a competitive spirit on the roads.

- I have wondered why this is.

- Perhaps it is a left over of the homesteading mentality: “I got this space first and you can’t crowd in here.”

- Perhaps it is the competitive spirit of wanting to get ahead.

- Perhaps it is because the traffic volumes are of such that the idea that “we all have to work together at this so that we can all keep moving” hasn’t come into the common consciousness yet.

- Perhaps it has to get worse before it will get better.

- One solution to Calgary’s traffic problem is that people need to get Jesus.

- Some of you might say to that “Yes. If we can become more Christian in our driving, then perhaps we would have less frustration on the roads.”

- For you others it likely just sounds stupid.

- Jesus? Driving? Get real.

- Today’s biblical texts are off the top.

- The John passage in particular is controversial ...or at least I had to wrestle with it.

- Listen to what Jesus says:

"I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. (v. 35) { pause}

Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. { pause} I am the bread of life. { pause} 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. { pause} I am the living bread that came down from heaven. { pause} Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; { pause} and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." (vv. 47-51)

- At first reading this comes across as crazy talk.

- It sounds like someone who has a Messiah complex and is wanting adherents.

- “Just believe in me; do what I say and everything will be alright.”

- Now, of course it is ok for Jesus to say something like this ...he was the Messiah after all. But what if we didn’t have the benefit of knowing this?

- I can understand why people were sceptical.

- Prior to Jesus there were others who had great claims for themselves and who led people astray.

- Why should people believe in Jesus’ claims?

- Will you feed me Jesus?

- Yes I will.

- How?

- Indeed: “How?”

- In part he did it by feeding the 5,000 at the beginning of this chapter.

- These people wanted to see that miracle again. Maybe this time he could do that plus add a little bit of dessert as well ...or a gold coin or two.

- Jesus knew what they were thinking.

"Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” v. 26

- But that is not what he was about ...or at least totally about.....

- “Will you feed me?”

- It seems almost a primal question of a child looking towards his or her parent. There is something plaintive about it.

- Will you feed and clothe and love me?

- It is the type of question which someone who wants to be taken care of would ask.

- It is also a question which we likely ask when we ask:

- For safe travel on our vacations.

- For enough money so that we can look after ourselves, our loved ones and to pay our obligations.

- For health.

- Lord God, will you take care of me and those I love?

- This primordial question is the one which the people in the desert were asking of the one who claimed to be sent by God.

- Jesus’ answer was “Yes.”

- “Yes”, because the answer was already making itself known there, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (v. 35)

- What does this mean?

- The bread is a symbol for what sustains a person.

- And like other of Jesus’ teachings, he often said something outrageous to get his point across. (plucking one’s eye out if it offends, camels going through eyes of needles)

- I believe that Jesus was doing something similar here by taking something as simple and common as bread and saying something as far-fetched as “if anyone shall eat of this bread, he (or she) shall live forever.”

- Literalists just love this and want to know where the bakery is. They are like the crowd of 5,000 that had been fed and wanted more. They want to be smothered in loaves and loaves of Jesus (and so you get a “Jesus this and Jesus that” type of mentality).

- High church people see communion in this and how the breaking of the bread in the Eucharist makes Christ present. Therefore let’s do communion a lot: weekly, if not every day.

- I think that Jesus was getting at something else and it becomes evident when one substitutes the word “love” for “bread”.

- Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the love that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living love that came down from heaven. Whoever partakes of this love will live forever; and the love that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." (vv. 49-51)

- Is this substitution fair? Or am I taking too much liberty?

- We could talk about this.

- But given that Jesus’ love for his followers from his time all the way to ours, is of such a sacrificial and sustaining nature, how can this bread not be love?

- Has not Jesus’ love fed us from age to age?

- Does not Jesus’ love feed us individually and corporately day by day, moment to moment?

- Does n’t Christ’s love point to a better way of travelling with each other down life’s highways?

- If we can imagine a world where everyone would have enough bread to eat (and I think we can) ...can we also then imagine a world where everyone would have enough love for each other so that rather than competing, we would cooperate to ensure the smooth flow and safe passage of all?

- Such a collective flow of love would not make the person at the head of the line the winner, rather it would make all of us competitors into arrivers ....safe at the destination God had planned.

- Together.

- Even if we are driving in Calgary.

- Amen.