Sermons from St Faith's
The Bread of Life
Fr Ian Wynne, August 12th, 2012
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I am the Bread of Life.
The first of the seven great “I am”s in the fourth Gospel.
I am the Bread of Life
I am the Light of the World
I am the Gate for the Sheep
I am the Good Shepherd
I am the Resurrection and the Life
I am the Way the Truth and the Life
I am the True Vine.
These seven statements are solemnly emphatic in the Greek written as
an echo of God’s charge to Moses in Exodus when the divine name was
revealed to him at the burning bush. Jesus is clearly identifying
himself with God and this would have been clear to the readers of
this gospel. These were dangerous claims for Jesus to make opening
himself up to a charge of blasphemy for the name of God was sacred.
Right at the start of his Gospel the evangelist affirms the divinity
of the Word of God, the light of men and this is a recurrent theme
running through the book to the ending where the evangelist tells us
that these things were written to show that Jesus was the Christ the
Son of God.
I am the Bread of Life.
Bread was – and still is an important staple in the diet. A shortage
of bread has an emotive effect and throughout history has been the
driving force of political slogans. Wasn’t it Marie Antoinette who
hearing that the people were short of bread said “let them eat
brioche?” look what happened to her. In the first reading this
morning we heard how God provided Elijah with a scone – not a fruit
scone with jam and cream, but in effect a hot bread roll. In the
wilderness Moses had been in trouble, having journeyed from Egypt
the people were running short of food and grumbling. Their rescue
from slavery forgotten they were grumbling about God and Moses. In
his overflowing love and generosity God sent Manna, a thin
wafer-like substance – rather like the small individual hosts we
have at Mass. This bread from heaven was collected every morning.
Bread to the Hebrews became not just a staple, not just a political
tool but a sacred gift from God. As a sign of this the priests would
later put Bread of the Presence before the Lord in the Temple. Bread
became associated with the very presence of God.
I am the Bread of Life.
From the point of view of the religious Jews, Jesus’ teachings got
worse. Not only was he associating himself with God but was pointing
out that their ancestors who ate the manna had all died but that he
would provide bread from heaven which people would eat and then not
die but live for ever. So here we have a carpenter from Nazareth
whom they had all known from him being a lad claiming to be greater
than Moses. Was he mad deluded, or bad blasphemer?
I am the Bread of Life.
These discourses come hard on the heels of the feeding of the five
thousand. Compared with the manna credited to Moses this was seen as
a mere nothing; people fed once with ordinary bread just did not
compare to bread from heaven for a generation. There was a strong
rabbinic tradition that when the Messiah came he would surpass the
deeds of Moses and just as the first redeemer of Israel provided
manna from heaven so would the second messianic redeemer provide
manna. It was thought that a pot of this manna had been hidden in
the Arc of the Covenant in the First Temple and this had been hidden
away by Jeremiah when the Temple was destroyed at the start of the
Babylonian exile; the expectation was that the Messiah would produce
this manna. How could a carpenter from Nazareth produce this?
I am the Bread of Life.
What a claim. Whoever eats this bread will live for ever. What a
claim. This bread is my flesh. Horror. To the orthodox Jew eating
human flesh was a total no no; completely abhorrent. No wonder that
St John goes on to inform us that many stopped following him after
this discourse. Interestingly the Jews do not seem to have tried to
stone Jesus at this point, presumably they had concluded that he was
just mad.
Many scholars think that this Gospel was written very late in the
first century. At that time a heresy called Docetism was becoming a
threat to orthodox Christianity. The Docetists denied the humanity
of Jesus, asserting that he only seemed human. In these discourses
we see how the evangelist affirms and stresses the humanity of Jesus
as well as his divinity. Bread is a very physical thing. Jesus talks
about his flesh, the Greek word is ‘sarx’ the same word used for
meat from the butcher – a stark graphic image.
I am the Bread of Life
In the Western Church we have spent a lot of energy over the
centuries agonising and arguing about what Jesus did, why did he die
in the way he did. Our friends in the Orthodox churches find this
difficult to understand; they concentrate on who Jesus was. These 7
great “I am”s are a good starting point.
Yes Moses was a great deliverer, yes Moses asked and God provided
bread from heaven for the Israelites; bread for their physical
hunger. Jesus takes this provision of bread to a new level. The
bread Jesus gave as his body he continues to give to us today in the
Bread of the Eucharist. As he promised he becomes sacramentally but
very really present in the host that we shall consecrate in the Mass
this morning. Spiritual food, not merely satisfying a physical need
but uniting us to the Godhead; and his promise is for all of us
today: eternal life for those who put their faith in him.
Have you been watching the Olympics – haven’t team GB done well! And
you know the athletes didn’t just turn up and run or swim or jump;
there was a lot of preparation. Part of the preparation was their
diet – no junk food and chips for breakfast every day! They needed
the correct nourishment. We are on a journey, a race as St Paul put
it, towards our eternal home. We need to prepared and the Eucharist,
the Bread of Life, the Bread from Heaven is given to us for our
spiritual nourishment and development.
I am the Bread of Life.
How typical of Jesus to take something ordinary like bread and make
it extra-ordinary. Bread becomes a staple of our diet and through
Christ our spiritual food. The physical universe is drawn into the
sacred by the God who became incarnate as a human being here on
earth in real-time history.
And here comes our responsibility. We are all made in the image of
God. Jesus gave himself not for the small group which is called the
Church but for the whole of humankind in all ages in all places and
in all conditions. Jesus gave us this amazing gift but he also left
us with a command – to go and tell everyone about him. The
Israelites kept the manna for themselves, we are to do the opposite
– to spread the good news about the gift of eternal life through
Jesus, to the whole world. Starting with our home parish; there is
still plenty of room in church for more people.
What are you waiting for?
Amen.
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