Bread, what is it good for?

Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Year B)

John 6: 51-58

As I was preparing for this week, I read the readings and sort of groaned. I flicked through various commentaries and old sermons, working out how I am supposed to preach on this text from John. I should be telling you about the fleshiness of the metaphors, how they were disgusting to the first hearers and are revolting even now. I should be saying that, although most modern Christians immediately leap from this passage to the polite symbol of communion, we need to understand that the path to communion leads through the cross and Christ’s bloody self-sacrifice for us. I should probably contextualise his claims by explaining about animal sacrifice. And there are many other things I should say, but I won’t.

I won’t because … I can’t get past the bread. Jesus says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” This is the fourth week in a row that we have been talking about bread, whether it’s stories of Jesus feeding thousands of people, or the direct claims that Jesus makes about himself. He took five loaves, broke them, gave thanks, and fed the people. There were twelve baskets left over, and some for the birds as well. I am the bread of life, he said. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry. I am the bread that came down from heaven. I am the living bread. Bread, bread, bread, bread, bread!

And I have been wondering what this means to twenty first century people in an age of abundance. Bread’s just not a big deal for us. You wander down to the corner shop or the servo and get a loaf of pre-sliced tip top – or an organic sourdough of course! Even with the cost of groceries increasing, bread remains generally affordable. So why is Jesus carrying on about it?

In order to get closer to the imagery, we need to go back and look at Jesus’ context. What did bread mean to Jesus’ first audience? What was bread to a first-century Judean?

Quite simply, bread was the difference between life and death. Bread meant life. No bread, death. People who were around when Jesus was alive ate almost nothing else. They ate bread with yogurt or cheese for breakfast; bread with vegetables for lunch; and bread with vegetables and fish for dinner. On very special occasions, they might have small pieces of lamb. But without bread, a first-century Judean would have starved.

Despite being the bulk of their diet, bread wasn’t easily come by. No fluffy pre-sliced for them! Bread was made from wheat and barley grains, ground coarsely by hand between two stones, and baked into rough pita loaves the same day. It sounds simple enough, but it’s tremendously hard work. The daily grind for a family of six took about three hours. So women would get up about four o’clock every morning, and grind the flour before anyone else got out of bed. And because the work was so hard, and took so long, women could never get ahead. So the grinding had to be done every single day.

When crops failed, a family had almost nothing else to eat. Famine was an ever-present fear. Families were faced with terrible choices: should they plant the last of their seeds of grain, going hungry now in the hope of bread next year; or should they use them to feed their families, giving up all hope for the year to come? I wonder how people living in these situations might feel if someone said to them, if you come to me you will never be hungry?

That’s the context. But we are all invited to his table, whether we’re a hungry first century Judean or a well-fed twenty-first century Australian. What, to a people who are generally thoughtless about food, might Jesus’ words invite us to?

In reading some of the commentaries and stories inspired by this wider narrative from John 6, I’ve been hit by a number of similar statements about how we can understand the meaning of these words when we – as these statements all say – “have never known true hunger”.  One commentary said “ For that matter, we cannot imagine, actually, what it is to be hungry. I’m not sure any of us has ever been truly hungry, worried sick about where the next meal might come from.”

I initially agreed with this statement—and even included it in this sermon—but as time passed, the words etched into me deeper and deeper as not exactly true.

I do not for a second want to assume the context that any of you have come from or are in; in the same way, I hope that my own context is not assumed. Because I don’t think I can stand here and proclaim, “None of us has ever been truly hungry” and know that’s actually true. We have such a complex situation in this country around food security and the cost of living. Hunger and poverty in this country has an element of shame attached to it – and the wealthy don’t help that shame when welfare payments are far below poverty levels and shock jocks and politicians call for “cashless debit cards” so that those in poverty can have every spending choice they make scrutinised.

Our country's immense wealth and privilege come with high food wastage. The 2023 Foodbank hunger report shows record-high demand for food relief, with OzHarvest-supported charities experiencing a 75% increase in demand over the past 6 months. 67% of these charities can't meet the demand, and 30% of those seeking relief are first-timers.

It certainly appears to me that in the midst of such great, often ridiculous wealth, there is such great, ridiculous hunger. And yet one problem we do have is that we cannot imagine the central role bread has in life. For people of abundance, there is no main food. Get rid of bread, and we still have rice, pasta, tortillas made from wheat or corn, sweet potato, regular potatoes, millet, and barley. We can’t imagine being so reliant on one of these that without it, we die.

If we cannot imagine what it is like to be reliant on just one staple – how will we ever learn to hunger for Jesus the bread of life?  

If Jesus is the bread that came down from heaven – what does that mean for people of such overabundance? Like the alternative options for bread our world has, there are alternatives for Jesus – remove Jesus, and there are other things ready to take his place from polite secularism to good vibes.

Just a few weeks ago, we heard the story of the loaves and fishes. Jesus took five loaves and two fishes, gave thanks, broke them, and fed the hungry crowd. What happened to the leftovers? Jesus told his disciples to gather up the pieces. Presumably, they would have been used to feed other hungry people. God blesses us with much more than we need. I think we all know this. I think we all have a desire to feed people.

But what about the desire to be fed?

                  OH! No, it’s okay. I have enough thanks. I’m fine. I can do it myself.

How can we expect to share food with our neighbour

when we do not allow ourselves to be fed by our neighbour?

In a powerful sermon on God’s generosity, Lutheran minister Nadia Bolz Weber describes the shame that often keeps us from feasting on Jesus:  “It’s hard to accept not just that God welcomes all, but that God welcomes all of me, all of you.  Even that within us we wish to hide: the part that cursed at our children this week, or drank alone, or has a problem with lying, or hates our body.  That part within us that suffers from depression and can’t admit it, or is too fearful to give our money away, or is riddled with shame over our sexuality, or cheats on taxes.  All these parts of us we wish Jesus had the good sense to not welcome to his table are invited to taste and see that the Lord is good."

And I say this somewhat tentatively today, because I’m such a novice when it comes to fully getting to grips with this challenging passage on hunger, bread and Jesus. I want to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” I long to feast on the bread that comes from heaven. But I recognise too well the shame and hesitation that Nadia describes.

I think that all too often, we rush into thinking that we are the bread that must feed people. As if this passage is one of those passages that has Jesus telling us what we are. For sure, we are salt and light; we are sheep; we are branches in the true vine; we are members of the body of Christ and part of Christ’s body.

But it is Jesus who is the bread who came down from heaven. Jesus who is the one who feeds. As Alexander Schmemann writes in For the Life of the World, all our hunger from the very beginning was a hunger for Jesus and all our bread was but a symbol of Jesus.

In such a world of overabundance, of multiple breads, of numerous “I am’s”, Jesus is the one who nourishes us and feeds us and welcomes us to his feast with arms outstretched, telling us that our place is at his table. It takes all of our being and faith to accept this invitation, to reach out our own hands, and receive from the bread of life our share in abundance – one torn piece of bread at a time.