A continuation of John’s discourse on bread.
Please be seated. Good morning. If you are new or joined us recently, you might not know who I am. Sam Magill. I am one of several lay members of the community who are invited to preach from time to time. “Lay” means not an ordained priest like our vicar, Joseph. I’m honored to be invited to this role.
Please pray with me. Holy and gracious Trinity forgive me in advance for any blasphemy or heresy I utter in the next few minutes and guide your people to hear and ponder what you invite them to learn.
Here goes:
The gospel of Sam-I- Am according to Dr. Seuss.
That Sam I am
I do not like that Sam I am…
Do you like green eggs and ham?
I do not like them Sam I am.
I do not like green eggs and ham.
Would you like them here or there?
I would not like them anywhere?
Would you like them in a house?
Would you like them with a mouse?
I do not like them in a house.
I do not like them with a mouse.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere!
I do not like green eggs and ham.
You do not like them So you say.
Try them! Try them!
And you may.
Try them and you may, I say.
Sam!
If you will let me be, I will try them.
You will see….
Here ends the reading from the gospel according to Dr. Suess
And meanwhile, Jesus again – following last week – tells us He is the bread of life and we should try eating of this bread. Try it. Try it, you will see!
This passage from John is, for me, the most terrifying and most dangerous and most preposterous message in the entire Bible! Are you kidding me? This is not a simile such as, I am like the bread of life. No. Jesus says very directly, “ I AM the bread of life. He is not comparing himself to the bread. He IS the bread. For me this is the most preposterous thing ever said!
Three themes in the passage stand out:
An invitation to a strange act.
The significance of bread.
The nature of God who invites us to this strange act.
An invitation to a strange act:
We teach our children to be cautious in crossing streets, in touching a hot stove, in talking with strangers, in eating something we don’t know is safe. It is natural to be cautious of the unknown. Yet here have Jesus promising all shall be well if only we eat this strange bread. Is it the witch in Sleeping Beauty who offers the beautiful apple to Snow White? The girl is so hungry, so thirsty that she takes a bite and falls asleep. Strange foods offered by a charming person are to be resisted.
I can’t find any other place in the Bible in which the people are asked to touch God, to take God into their own bodies. There are familiar stories (There once was a land owner who….), similes (the kingdom of God is like this or that), and historical events (And then King so and so did such and such.). But here, each and every one of us, in the here and now, is given an invitation to a holy act. This is about us. You and me. Not about something that happened long ago. It is up to us to do it. It is a choice given to us.
The significance of bread?
Bread has often been seen as essential to live. Joseph asked me to read from the Anchor Bible by Raymond Brown with focus on the chapters dealing with what is called John’s discourse on bread. Brown writes that though out the Old Testament, bread is used to describe a closeness to God.
In 1 Kings, Elijah is stuck in the wilderness, “It is enough; now O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors. He lay down,and an angel touch him and said, to him, “Get up and Eat” There on hot stones was a cake. The angel tells him to eat again or the journey will be too much for you.” Bread, real, physical bread is provided to sustain Elijah. In Exodus, manna is provided to sustain the people and it is compared to bread here in John, “Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness and died.” Died later in life, I believe. This physical bread seems to be useful only in a temporal sense. Brown reports that in some Jewish circles, manna was interpreted to signify divine word or instruction, thus “bread of life”, “bread of heaven”. Brown continues in saying that “eating” appears repeatedly as a way to illustrate what is happening to the people who hear him and are coming to him. They are being nourished.
In general, I find the Disciples a bit dense. I think they keep looking for physical nourishment, for physical acts, for physical proof of who Jesus is. But the repeated use of bread as a reference to spiritual nourishment cannot be ignored. So we are being asked to take God into ourselves for nourishment that physical bread cannot provide.
If I eat something, it becomes part of me. It becomes woven into my blood and bones. It transforms me. It strengthens me. It nourishes me. If we consume this strangest of breads, what will happen to us?
This invitation is not something that happened two thousand years ago. We know the story of the people in the wildereness. They were hungry and manna came down from heaven. But as Jesus says, they ate manna and they died. This invitation challenges us to do it right now, today, here. To be transformed by taking Jesus into ourselves.
Dare we?
Finally, The nature of God who invites us to this strange act.
Jesus says, if you eat this bread, you will never die or be thirsty.
We might remember Abraham covering his face in the presence of the Lord. We remember God saying, “Take off your shoes for you are walking on holy ground.” We remember Indiana Jones daring to sip from the Chalice, the Holy Grail. If he picks the wrong cup, he will die. Clearly, getting super close to God is a dangerous matter. And yet, sweet Jesus, tells to eat the bread which is Him.
I get so tired of hearing about sermons which preach how terrible we are and how God will smite the sinners. A terrible and fearsome God is often presented. (Not here at Saint Hilda Saint Patrick!) But here we have Jesus saying, take, eat, this is my body which is given for you and all shall be well. Try it, try it – you will see. Only a loving God could make this invitation and be absolutely consistent with the fact that God is love. Only a loving God could make this invitation and be absolutely consistent with the fact that God is love. Jesus invites us to take that love into ourselves. We are what we eat. So in taking the bread into ourselves aren’t we becoming incredibly close to God, to that love?
Brown writes, “Under all these metaphors of bread, water, and life, Jesus is symbolically referring to the same reality, a reality which, when once possessed, makes a [person] see natural hunger, thirst and death as insignificant.” We are not here to fill our bellies! We are here to bring God into our very existence.
In the other “gospel” I referenced, that persistent Sam-I-am keeps at his friend who finally submits and tries green eggs and ham, then says, “Say! I like green eggs and ham! I do. I like them, Sam I am.”
Jesus is just as persistent, more really throughout our lives. As we listen to the Gospel today we might hear, “Try it. Try it. You will see how gloriously rich your life will be. Try it now and you will see, says the Holy Trinity. “