Introspection: The Love of Bridges and the Bridges of Love

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The Love of Bridges and the Bridges of Love

For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Colossians 1:19-20 (NRSV)

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For [Christ] is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.

Ephesians 2:14 (NRSV)

We reject the either/or

They can't define us anymore

Cause if it's us or them

It's us for them

From "Us for Them" by Gungor

I make it a habit to use one week of vacation time every summer, though I never travel or do anything significant during my week off.  This year, I wanted to be a little more intentional about how I use this week, so I made it a point to visit the Poinsett Bridge, a local landmark, at some point during the week.  I've noticed that this bridge is a popular subject for local photographers, so I decided to see it for myself and to take some pictures of my own.

On Monday morning during my week off, I got into my car and, equipped with my phone's GPS, drove to the bridge, planning to stop for breakfast and coffee along the way.

The Poinsett Bridge is believed to be the oldest remaining bridge in my state.  It was built in 1820 as part of an important road connecting my state and the states to the north.  There is now a walking trail nearby.¹  The bridge is a thirty-minute drive away from where I live, and it is located just off the side of a mountain road.  Luckily, there is a place to park on the other side of the road.  When viewed from the top, the bridge looks like an unremarkable dirt path, but, when viewed from the sides, it is a thing of beauty.  I walked over the bridge and under the bridge, taking lots of pictures with my phone in the hopes of getting a handful of good ones.  Before I left, I spent some time just sitting on a rock and admiring the bridge.

The Poinsett Bridge

The restaurant where I had planned to eat breakfast happened to be closed that day, so I headed into a nearby town to get something to eat and, more importantly, to get some caffeine into my system.  On my way to the Poinsett Bridge, I noticed a sign for another bridge, so, when I left the town, I decided to check it out too.  My morning excursion turned into a short "bridge tour."

Campbell's Covered Bridge is now perhaps the only covered bridge left in my state.  The bridge was constructed in 1909 and is named after a wealthy landowner.  The surrounding area is currently being converted into a park.²  I only spent a few minutes at this bridge, but I made a point to take some pictures of it as well.

Campbell's Covered Bridge

That evening, after eating dinner with my grandmother, I went to Furman University, my alma mater, to take a walk.  While I was walking around campus, I noticed yet another bridge on one of the trails, a bridge I had crossed many times over the years.  Since I always have my phone with me, I decided to take a picture of it as well.  Why not?

A Bridge at Furman University

Two weeks earlier, while I was taking a long walk downtown, I decided to explore a lovely little nook I pass by every morning as I drive to work.  The Rock Quarry Garden, as its name suggests, was at one time the site of a granite quarry.  It was converted by the Greenville Garden Club into a garden, which can now be reserved for weddings.³  This garden features a variety of plant life, green grass, some sculptures, a waterfall, a stream, and, of course, a bridge over the stream.  I took some pictures, and I used the picture of the bridge as my cover photo on Facebook.

A Bridge at the Rock Quarry Garden

I'm starting to think I might have an affinity for bridges.

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I've pondered whether or not there is something that draws me to bridges, aside from a general love of beautiful architecture.  I keep thinking about something I've said about Travelers Rest United Methodist Church, the church I joined last year.  I've told a number of my friends that I consider myself blessed to be part of a congregation that wants to build bridges when it seems that so many Christians are more interested in building walls.

Walls separate what's connected.
Bridges connect what's separated.

The church I attended for a while before I started attending my current church once offered a study on the teachings of Islam, led by Christian missionaries to Muslim countries.  I wasn't particularly interested in the study because I didn't think it would be very beneficial.  I never voiced my opinion, but I thought that, if Christians really want to know the teachings of the Islamic faith, then they should probably ask actual Muslims what they believe and not people who try to get Muslims to convert to another religion.

In early 2016, shortly after I started attending my current church, the congregation joined people from the local Islamic society for an inter-faith dinner and dialogue.  After enjoying some Middle-Eastern cuisine, both congregations had the opportunity to listen to a conversation between the senior pastor of my church and a leader in the Islamic community.  I learned that Muslims believe that God created us all different so that we would find each other interesting.  We were never meant to be afraid of people different from ourselves: our differences were meant to draw us together.  I learned that, in our differences, we're all meant to "compete for the good," doing our best to serve God and bringing out the best in each other in the process.⁴

One conversation before dinner stands out in my memory.  A woman from my church told a woman from the Muslim community that her headscarf - her hijab - was lovely and asked her where she got it.  The woman said that she bought it at TJ Maxx.  This conversation sticks in my memory because it shows how similar we really are.  We might have different religious beliefs, but we all look for bargains at the same department stores.

Back in January of this year, the men's group from my church joined some men from the Islamic society at a local food bank to pack boxes of non-perishable food items.  After we were done, we all ate lunch together.  That evening, a number of local news programs ran stories about our work at the food bank.  We wanted to serve the needy, but we also wanted to set an example for our community.  We wanted to let everyone know that Christians and Muslims are not enemies and that we can all work together for the common good, even if we don't share the same religious beliefs.

My church has sought to build bridges in a number of other ways.

Earlier this year, the chancel choir from my church teamed up with the choir from a nearby Jewish synagogue.  They sang together first during a service at my church and later at a festival at the synagogue.

For the last two years, my church, which has a predominately white congregation, has partnered with another nearby church with a predominantly African American congregation for Holy Thursday and Good Friday services.

In late 2016, on the evening of Election Day, my church held a special service of Holy Communion.  During most Communion services at my church, there are two stations at which people can receive the bread and the wine.  People typically go to the station that is on the same side of the sanctuary on which they were sitting.  During the service on Election Day, there was only one station for receiving the elements, so people on both the left and the right had to meet in the middle to receive Communion.⁵  I have a feeling that, at the end of a very divisive election cycle, this service was designed to remind us of what unites us as a congregation.

It is important that we swim in the currents that will lead us to where we need to go.  Last year, I decided to join Travelers Rest United Methodist Church because I believe it is different from most other churches.  I'm hoping that, by attending a bridge-building church, I will become more of a bridge builder myself.

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St. Paul writes in one of his letters that Christ has brought together peoples of different cultures and ethnicities, who were once divided by religion, by breaking down the wall of hostility between them.⁶  We build walls between ourselves and others because we fear those we want to keep on the other side, but to build what Christ came to break down is by definition anti-Christian.  St. John writes that "God is love," that "there is no fear in love," and that "perfect love casts out fear."⁷

Paul includes in his Letter to the Colossians what is believed to be an early hymn about Christ, who is both "the image of the invisible God" and "the firstborn of all creation."  This hymn proclaims that, in Christ, "all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell" and that, through Christ, "God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things."  This hymn also tells us that Christ is "the head of the body, the church."⁸  Christ, the embodiment of God's love, calls us beyond our wall-building tendencies into the ministry of reconciliation, which some might call "bridge-building."

Walls are built out of fear.
Bridges are built out of love.

If Christ came to reconcile all things to God and if the Church is indeed the Body of Christ, then, as the hands and feet of Christ, Christians must be in the bridge-building business.  Furthermore, if Christ came to break down the walls of hostility between us, then Christians must also be in the wall-demolition business.  May God give us the courage to break down our walls and the love to build bridges in their place.

A View from the Underside of the Poinsett Bridge

Notes:

1. Greenville County Rec: Poinsett Bridge
2. Greenville County Rec: Campbell's Covered Bridge
3. Upcountry South Carolina: Rock Quarry Falls
4. Jonathan Tompkins and Akan Malici.  "Competing for the Good: A Congresation with Christian and Muslim Neighbors."  Travelers Rest United Methodist Church, 04/18/2016.
5. Jonathan Tompkins.  "How Can I Practice Politics and Keep the Faith?"  Travelers Rest United Methodist Church, 04/03/2017.
6. Ephesians 2:11-22
7. 1 John 4:16, 18 (NRSV)
8. Colossians 1:15-20 (NRSV)

All of the photographs featured in this perspective were taken by me in various locations in Greenville County.

Perspective: How Many Times?

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

How Many Times?

Do you have eyes, and fail to see?  Do you have ears, and fail to hear?  And do you not remember?

Mark 8:18 (NRSV)

God, You know where I've been

You were there with me then

You were faithful before

You'll be faithful again

I'm holding Your hand

From "Let the Waters Rise" by MIKESCHAIR

One day, Jesus and the Disciples cross the Sea of Galilee to spend some time to themselves.  A crowd sees them board the boat and heads around the lake on foot, and by the time Jesus and the Disciples reach their destination, the crowd is already there, waiting for them.  As always, Jesus has compassion on the crowd and starts teaching them.¹

Hours pass, and the Disciples become concerned that such a large crowd is in a secluded place without any food.  They urge Jesus to dismiss the people so that they can go to nearby marketplaces to get something to eat.  Jesus suggests that the Disciples give the crowd something to eat, and they start figuring out how much money it will cost to buy bread for everyone in the crowd.  Jesus asks them how much food they have, they scrounge up five loaves of bread and two fish.  Jesus takes the loaves and the fish, blesses them, breaks them up, and gives them to the Disciples to distribute to the crowd.  Even though there are five thousand men in the crowd - meaning that there could be as many as twenty thousand or more people present - miraculously everyone has enough to eat.  Somehow, the Disciples gather up twelve baskets of leftovers.²

Believe it or not, Jesus performs such a miracle more than once in the Gospel story.

Later on, after a crowd has been with Jesus for several days, Jesus tells the Disciples that He is concerned because the crowd has nothing to eat.  Again, the Disciples wonder how they are going to feed so many people.  Jesus asks the Disciples how much bread they have, and they report that they have seven loaves and also a few fish.  Again, Jesus takes the food, gives thanks for it, breaks up the loaves and fishes, and gives the food to the Disciples to distribute to the crowd.  Once again, even though there are four thousand people present, everyone has enough to eat, and the Disciples gather up seven baskets of leftovers.³

These two stories follow the same basic pattern:

1. Someone suggests that the crowd needs to eat.
2. The Disciples wonder how they could possibly feed such a large crowd.
3. Jesus asks the Disciples how much food they have.
4. Jesus gives thanks, breaks up the food, and gives it to the Disciples to distribute.
5. All people in the crowd eat their fill.
6. The Disciples gather the leftovers and find that they have more than they had when they started.

That said, there are a few minor differences between the two stories.  In the first story, it seems that the crowd is with Jesus only one day, but, in the second, the crowd has already been with Jesus for several days.  In the first story, the Disciples are concerned that the crowd needs to eat, but, in the second, Jesus is the one who expresses concern about the crowd.  In the two stories, there are different numbers of people in the crowd, different numbers of loaves and fishes, and different numbers of baskets of leftovers.

In my opinion the most significant difference between the two stories is not explicitly stated.  In the first story, the Disciples have never seen someone feed thousands of people with only a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish, so it is understandable that the Disciples do not know how they will ever feed the crowd.  In the second story, the Disciples should remember what Jesus did the first time, yet they still have no idea how they will feed the crowd.

After a run-in with some Pharisees, who were some of Jesus' staunchest detractors, Jesus boards a boat with the Disciples, where He warns them to beware the "yeast of the Pharisees."  Jesus is speaking metaphorically, but the Disciples think that He is literally talking about the stuff that makes bread rise, and they become concerned because they only brought one loaf of bread with them.  Jesus becomes rather annoyed with the Disciples and says to them, "Why are you talking about having no bread?  Do you still not perceive or understand?  Are your hearts hardened?  Do you have eyes, and fail to see?  Do you have ears, and fail to hear?  And do you not remember?"  He then calls to the Disciples' minds the twelve baskets of leftovers they gathered the first time He fed the crowd and the seven baskets of leftovers they gathered the second time.⁴

It was as if Jesus was saying to the Disciples, "You've seen Me miraculously feed two massive crowds, and you're still worried that you don't have enough bread?  How many times do I have to feed thousands of people with a few loaves of bread before you stop worrying about having enough food to eat?"

The Disciples could be rather dense at times.

When Jesus and the Disciples reach their destination, a blind man is brought to Jesus.  To give the man his sight back, Jesus anoints the his eyes with His saliva and places His hands on him.  The man is then able to see, but he is not able to see very well since everything is very blurry to him.  He says that he can see people walking around but that they all look like trees to him.  Jesus tries to restore the man's sight again.  He places His hands on the man once again, and then the man is able to see clearly.⁵

Basically, this story shows us that sometimes Jesus struggles to get people to see things clearly.  Some people think that His apparent difficulty in getting the blind man to see represents His difficulty in getting the Disciples to see.⁶

It's easy for us to look down on the Disciples for being so thick-headed, but what we need to realize is that the Disciples represent us in the story.  We are the ones who can be thick-headed, for so often we too need to be taught the same lesson over, and over, and over again before it finally sinks in.

For me, these stories call to mind my tendency to worry.  To say that I'm an anxious person would be an understatement.  It would be much more accurate to say that I'm tangled mass of nerves.  Again and again, I've found that I worry needlessly, yet I still stress out about everything.  I anticipate the worst, though the worst rarely happens.  How many times do I have learn how pointless it is to worry before I finally stop worrying and just enjoy my life?  I fear going through times of pain and difficulty, yet, when I look back on my life, I see that the most difficult times in my life were probably the times when I felt closest to God.  How many times does God have to walk with me through the dark valleys of life before I stop fearing the valley and start trusting that God always walks with me?

How many times do we have to be taught the same lesson before we finally take it to heart?  How many times does God have to come through for us before we actually start trusting God?  How long before we finally see clearly?


Notes:

1. Mark 6:30-34
2. Mark 6:35-44
3. Mark 8:1-9
4. Mark 8:11-21 (NRSV)
5. Mark 8:22-25
6. Kent Dobson.  "Healing Fail."  Mars Hill Bible Church, 06/07/2013.

Christ Healing the Blind Man was painted by Andrey Mironov in 2009.  The image is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.  The painter is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Sermon: The Bread of Life

Delivered at Monaghan United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina on August 5, 2018

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

The Bread of Life

Audio Version

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.  When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

Jesus replied, “I assure you that you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate all the food you wanted.  Don’t work for the food that doesn’t last but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Human One will give you.  God the Father has confirmed him as his agent to give life.”

They asked, “What must we do in order to accomplish what God requires?”

Jesus replied, “This is what God requires, that you believe in him whom God sent.”

They asked, “What miraculous sign will you do, that we can see and believe you?  What will you do?  Our ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”

Jesus told them, “I assure you, it wasn’t Moses who gave the bread from heaven to you, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.  The bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

They said, “Sir, give us this bread all the time!”

Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

John 6:24-35 (CEB)

I felt it first when I was younger

A strange connection to the light

I tried to satisfy the hunger

I never got it right

From “Your Love” by  Brandon Heath

When President Calvin Coolidge announced in 1927 that he would not seek reelection, the secretary of commerce Herbert Hoover quickly became the front-runner to receive the Republican nomination.  The next year, Hoover became the Republican presidential candidate and ran against the Democratic candidate Alfred E. Smith.  Campaign literature from the GOP suggested that, because Herbert Hoover was a brilliant businessman, his administration would bring such economic prosperity that there would be “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.”  This promise of prosperity evidently appealed to the masses, for Hoover won the presidential election in a landslide victory.¹

Nearly eight months after Hoover took office, on October 29, 1929, a day that is remembered as “Black Tuesday,” the stock market crashed, and the nation was thrown into what has been dubbed the Great Depression.  The American voters' hopes for economic prosperity were rewarded with economic hardship, and President Hoover received the lion's share of the blame.  Shack towns built during the Depression became known as “Hoovervilles,” and empty out-turned pockets became known as “Hoover flags.”²

I highly doubt that Herbert Hoover deserved the full blame for the Great Depression, for such matters are rarely ever so simple.  Still, I think that this history lesson reminds us that that we should not invest too much of our hope in political leaders.  Perhaps it can also serve as a reminder that, at the end of the day, “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage” is not all we need in life.

---

One day, Jesus and the Disciples cross the Sea of Galilee and climb a mountain so that they can spend some time to themselves.  A large crowd of about five thousand people follows them to the other side of the lake, and when Jesus sees the crowd approaching, He asks Philip, one of the Disciples, how they are going to feed so many people.  Philip remarks that, if they spent half a year's wages on food, they would not have enough for everyone to eat just a couple of bites.  Andrew, another Disciple, finds a boy who has five loaves of bread and two fish, but he notes that these provisions would not go very far in such a large crowd.  Jesus takes the loaves, gives thanks, breaks the loaves, and starts distributing the bread to the people in the crowd, and He does the same with the fish.  Miraculously everybody in the crowd has enough food to eat, and somehow the Disciples gather twelve baskets of leftovers.³

If you have read the four Gospels, then you've probably noticed that the Gospel of John is very different from the others.  The fourth Gospel presents a different sequence of events, and Jesus says many things in it that He does not say in the other three.  The reason that the Gospel of John is so different is, I think, that the writer often cares more about who Jesus is than what Jesus did.  A case in point is that John refers to Jesus' miracles as “signs,” implying that they are meant to point beyond themselves.  For example, Jesus restores sight to the blind in all of the Gospels, but, to John, Jesus' giving sight to a blind man is a sign that Jesus is “the light of the world” and that “whoever follows [Him] won't walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”⁴  Jesus raises the dead in all of the Gospels, but, to John, Jesus' raising Lazarus from the dead is a sign that Jesus is “the resurrection and the life” and that “whoever believes in [Him] will live, even though they die.”⁵

Likewise, the story of Jesus' feeding the multitude is found in all four of the Gospels, but John offers us some details that we do not read in the other three, because he wants to dive deeper into the spiritual implications of the miracle and to explore what the miracle tells us about who Jesus is.  For some reason, John is the only writer who tells us that it is a boy who shares his provisions with Jesus and the Disciples.  More striking is the fact that John also happens to be the only writer who tells us that the people whom Jesus feeds want to make Him king.

It is important to realize that, when Jesus miraculously feeds the five thousand, they are reminded of another instance in which many people were miraculously provided bread in the wilderness.  In the Book of Exodus, we read that, after the Israelites were liberated from slavery in Egypt, they began to fear that they wouldn't be able to find sustenance in the desert.  They were so afraid of starving to death that they actually started feeling nostalgic about their time in Egypt.  God said to their leader Moses, “I'm going to make bread rain down from the sky for you.”  In the morning, there was a layer of dew on the ground, and, when the dew evaporated, the Israelites saw thin white flakes on the ground.  They named this substance manna, a Hebrew word meaning What is it?  One theologian suggests that manna was like “cereal snowflakes.”⁶  Every morning, the Israelites were able to gather enough manna to eat for the day – no more and no less – and this “bread from heaven” sustained them for the forty years they were in the wilderness.⁷

When the Israelites neared the end of their journey through the wilderness, Moses said, “The Lord your God will raise up a prophet like me from your community, from your fellow Israelites.  He's the one you must listen to.”⁸  Moses' words were sometimes understood to be a prophecy about the Messiah, a leader like Moses who would once again deliver the Jewish people from their oppressors.  John tells us that when Jesus feeds the multitude, the people begin saying among themselves, “This is truly the prophet who is coming into the world.”  In other words, they begin to think that Jesus is the Messiah.  They are so excited that they want to make Jesus their king right then and there.  Apparently they are ready to take on Herod, the current king of the Jews, and even the Roman Empire, who is currently occupying the land.  Jesus has no interest in what the crowd wants to do, so He withdraws from them and goes back up the mountain.⁹

The crowd waits for Jesus to come back down the mountain.  At one point, they watch His disciples board a boat and head back across the Sea of Galilee, but they do not see Him board the boat with them.¹⁰  Eventually they realize that Jesus is nowhere nearby, so they head across the lake to look for Him.  When they find Him on the other side, they ask Him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”  What they do not know is that Jesus decided to cross the sea on foot.¹¹

Jesus says to the crowd, “I assure you that you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate all the food you wanted.”  In other words, the people are so caught up in the fact that Jesus miraculously provided them a feast in the wilderness, that they cannot see that the miracle is merely a sign.  They care less about who Jesus is and more about what He could do for them.  Like their ancestors, who also demanded a king, they want a worldly ruler with a worldly agenda.¹²  The crowd wants a new Moses who will liberate them from their oppressors, a new Joshua who will reclaim the land from Roman Empire, and a new David who will reign amid a new golden age of peace and prosperity.  One might say that they want a leader who will make Israel great again, a ruler who will make sure that there is a loaf of bread in every basket.

Jesus is indeed a King, but He is not the kind of king the crowd wants Him to be.  He tries to direct them to greater truths, saying, “Don't work for the food that doesn't last but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Human One will give you.  God the Father has confirmed him as his agent to give life.”  The people then ask Jesus what God wants them to do, and Jesus replies, “This is what God requires, that you believe in him whom God sent.”

When Jesus suggests to the crowd that He was sent by God and that God wants them to believe in Him, they take His words as a claim that He is indeed the Messiah.  They want Jesus to substantiate His claim, so they say to Him, “What miraculous sign will you do, that we can see and believe you?  What will you do?  Our ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”  Providing manna in the wilderness was considered Moses' greatest miracle, and it was a common belief that the Messiah would not only replicate this miracle but even surpass it.¹³

Once again, Jesus tries to get the crowd to see the bigger picture.  He says, “I assure you, it wasn’t Moses who gave the bread from heaven to you, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.  The bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  God has once again sent a hungry people in the wilderness bread from heaven, but what they do not realize is that this bread from heaven is God's own Son.

“I am the bread of life,” Jesus says to the crowd.  “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

---

There is a hunger within us that has nothing to do with our stomachs, a hunger that cannot be satisfied with literal bread.  This hunger is, I think, a longing for transcendence.  In other words, we want more than what this life has to offer.  We long for what Jesus calls “eternal life” or  “abundant life,” a life that is, in the words of one writer, characterized by “the experience of deep joy, boundless love, and indestructible peace.”¹⁴  This, I think, is the hunger of which Jesus speaks.

We feel this hunger deeply, so we try to fill our lives with things like materialism, romance, careers, hobbies, and entertainment.  Such things might make our lives seem full for a while, but they do not truly satisfy our deep hunger because they do not last.  The stuff we buy wears out and breaks; our relationships cool down; our careers take downturns; our hobbies become boring; and our favorite television shows are inevitably canceled.¹⁵  Such things give us only a fleeting sense of satisfaction, in the same way that literal bread leaves us feeling hungry again within only a few hours.  They do not stick to our ribs, in a spiritual sense.  Perhaps this is why Jesus says, “Don’t work for the food that doesn’t last but for the food that endures for eternal life.”

Great Christian thinkers have been contemplating this ineffable longing for nearly two thousand years.  C.S. Lewis, in his sermon “The Weight of Glory,” speaks of “a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy.”  It is, he suggests, a desire for something outside of our earthly experience, a desire for something infinite and eternal.  Since the object of our desire is something we do not truly know or understand, we naturally try to fix our desire on things that are actually familiar to us, things that are, at most, merely symbolic of the true object of our desire.¹⁶  That said, it is totally understandable that we would attempt to satisfy our deep longing with things that give us no lasting satisfaction.  The good news, Lewis claims, is that the very fact that we experience this hunger means that this hunger can somehow be satisfied.¹⁷

In Bruce Marshall's novel The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith, the titular character gets into an argument with an author over clerical celibacy.  When the author suggests that “religion is only a substitute for sex,” the priest replies, “I still prefer to believe that sex is a substitute for religion and that the young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.”¹⁸  Perhaps, beneath all of our longings and all of our efforts to satisfy those longings, no matter how misguided, is a longing for God.

The seventeenth century French theologian Blaise Pascal suggests in his work Pensées, that the motive behind every action of every person, be it constructive or destructive, is the desire for happiness.  He goes so far as to say that “the will never takes the least step but to this object.”  Despite our best efforts, the happiness we seek seems to remain hopelessly out of reach.  Pascal asserts that true happiness is something we cannot attain without faith, for “the infinite abyss,” which some have named the “God-shaped hole,” “can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.”¹⁹  Perhaps St. Augustine best expressed this thought over one thousand years earlier in his Confessions, in which he prays, “Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.”²⁰

Jesus tells the crowd that He is the “bread of life” who “gives life to the world.”  Why would Jesus compare Himself to bread?  What is it about bread that makes it life-giving?  And how exactly is Jesus like bread?

Prominent Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton once asked a master baker about the history of bread, and the baker made the following comment:
Bread has always been the center of meals throughout history.  It's something that I don't think anything could take the place of.  It's a food source, it's a nutrient, but I think in a larger sense that it is a way to bring the community together.  I guess in a way that other foods aren't shared, bread is usually something that is broken and shared.²¹
Basically, bread is life-giving because it sustains us and brings us together.

In the other Gospels, we read that, on the evening before Jesus was betrayed and arrested, He took a loaf of bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the Disciples, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”²²  For nearly two thousand years, Christians have remembered this act by participating in the sacrament we call Holy Communion.

It has been said that we are what we eat.  In other words, if we eat nutritious foods, we will become healthy and strong, but, if we eat food with no nutritional value besides empty calories, we will become unhealthy and weak.  We come to the Communion table and partake of the body and blood of Christ, represented in the bread and the wine, because we are what we eat.  Consider the prayer that pastors pray over the Communion elements: “Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine.  Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood.”²³  We pray that the bread and the wine become the body and blood of Christ and then take the bread and wine into ourselves so that we may become like Jesus and do the kinds of things He did.

So often, we Christians like to claim that God is all we need, but the truth is that we need each other as well.  Remember that it is God who first observed that it is not good for people to be alone.²⁴  Like bread, Christ gives us the spiritual nutrients to make us who we are meant to be, and, like bread, Christ brings us together.  Consider again, the prayer prayed by pastors during the Communion service: “By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet.”²⁵  It is the broken body of our Savior, represented by broken bread, that brings a broken people to the table together.

In Christ, we find the things that satisfy our spiritual hungers.  In Christ, we find our identity, for He teaches us that we too are beloved children of God.  In Christ, we find our destiny, for He shows us what we can become as human beings.  In Christ, we find our purpose, for He calls us to follow Him as His disciples.  In Christ, we find our community, for He gathers us together into this community called the Church.

So how do we, in Jesus' words, “work... for the food that endures for eternal life”?  How do we seek the Bread of Life so that we may experience the abundant life Jesus offers?

In another Gospel, Jesus announces, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”²⁶  Bread is meant for the hungry, and the Bread of Life is meant for those who hunger for abundant life.  If we want the Bread of Life, then we must be hungry for it, for the ones who hunger are the ones who are filled.  If you don't feel spiritually hungry, then I would encourage you to consider fasting.  Abstaining from some of the things with which you try to fill your life might help you to get back in touch with your spiritual hunger.

If you want the Bread of Life, feel your spiritual hunger, and then offer that hunger to God.²⁷  When Jesus tells the crowd about the “true bread from heaven” that “gives life to the world,” they say to Him, “Sir, Give us this bread all the time!”  N.T. Wright suggests that, though the crowd does not truly understand what Jesus means when He speaks of the Bread of Life, they do set a good example for us when it comes to praying for it.²⁸

Jesus is indeed a king, but He is not the kind of king the crowd wants Him to be.  The crowd will soon find that He is not the great political leader who will drive the Romans out of the land and restore autonomy to Israel.  Some will find that Jesus is greater than that, for He reigns over a Kingdom not of this world, a Kingdom that has outlasted the Roman Empire.  The Roman Empire has crumbled, but Christ still reigns, and, in His Kingdom, people still find the nourishment they need.  Remember that, in the words of D.T. Niles, “Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread.”

Thanks be to God.


Notes:

1. https://millercenter.org/president/hoover
2. ibid
3. John 6:1-13
4. John 8:12 (CEB)
5. John 11:25 (CEB)
6. Barbara Brown Taylor referenced by Jonathan Merritt.  Jesus Is Better than You Imagined.  2014, Faith Words.  p. 55
7. Exodus 16 (CEB)
8. Deuteronomy 18:15 (CEB)
9. John 6:14-15 (CEB)
10. John 6:22-23
11. John 6:16-21
12. N.T. Wright.  John for Everyone, Part 1.  2004, Westminster John Knox Press.  pp. 78-79
13. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of John, Volume One.  2001, Saint Andrew Press.  p. 251
14. Shane Hipps.  Selling Water by the River: A Book about the Life Jesus Promised and the Religion That Gets in the Way.  2012, Jericho Books.  p. 7
15. Hipps, pp. 3-4
16. C.S. Lewis.  “The Weight of Glory.”
17. ibid
18. Bruce Marshall.  The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith.  1945, Houghton Mifflin Company.  ch. 16
19. Blaise Pascal.  Pensées.  Translation by W.F. Trotter.  1958, E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc.  Section VII, #425
20. St. Augustine of Hippo.  Confessions.  Translated by Edward Bouverie Pusey.
21. Adam Hamilton.  John: The Gospel of Light and Life.  2015, Abingdon Press.  ch. 3
22. Luke 22:19 (NRSV)
23. https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/a-service-of-word-and-table-i-and-introductions-to-the-other-forms
24. Genesis 2:18
25. https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/a-service-of-word-and-table-i-and-introductions-to-the-other-forms
26. Luke 6:21a (NRSV)
27. Shane Hipps.  “Off Menu.”  Trinity Mennonite Church, 06/07/2009.
28. N.T. Wright, p. 81

The painting featured above was painted by Juan de Espinal in the mid 1700s.  The photograph of the sourdough bread was taken by Flickr user Steph and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.