SERMON OF AUGUST 16, 2009
M. Bruce McKay
Pilgrim - St. Luke=s United Church of Christ
"Wonder Bread"
Ephesians 5:15-20, John 6:51-58
 

Every now and then I get a real craving for something I’ve eaten far less since getting married 26 years ago. 

There have been very few times when I’ve been able to satisfy this craving at home.  At church I’m more likely to find what I want, but it’s usually in such small quantities that it does little to diminish the gnawing desire that I sometimes feel.

What I find myself craving is soft, squishy white bread – ideally with crunchy peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiched between two slices.

Before getting married Wonder Bread was a regular part of my diet and I couldn’t have cared less about its fiber content or nutritional value.

Even though I’ve come to enjoy all sorts of different and far more nutritious breads I still find myself, from time to time, looking longingly at the loaves of white Wonder Bread as I pass them in the aisle at Wegmans.

Now I know for the health food purists among us, the thought of your pastor craving squishy white Wonder Bread isn’t all that appealing.  It in fact may be somewhat offensive – but not nearly as offensive it as for those listening to Jesus teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ (John 6:51) 

He then goes on to invite his listeners to eat his flesh and drink his blood.

I was explaining communion once to some young children.  When I talked about Jesus taking bread and saying “this is my body” and then wine and saying “this is my blood,” one little girl said, “Yuk!”

The feelings were even stronger that day in Capernaum.  His listeners were offended by what he said.  Or more accurately, they were offended by what they thought he was saying. 

They thought he was speaking literally about eating his flesh and drinking his blood.  There is perhaps no better passage in Scripture to affirm that the Bible was never intended to be read literally. 

Reading the Bible literally, as someone once said, (Frederick Buechner) is like reading Moby Dick as whaling manual.  It misses the meaning and purpose of the text.
So what is Jesus saying in this passage that is no less hard to swallow now than it was then?

In Hebrew, referring to someone’s “flesh and blood” meant referring to the “whole person.” 

We find the bread Jesus is describing not in a package but in a person. 

The Bread of Life, and the Living Bread that comes down from heaven, is the person teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. 

Jesus didn’t say, “Feast on my teaching!”

He didn’t say, “Feed on my philosophy of life.”

He said, “Feed on me.”

And some couldn’t believe their ears.  “Feed on Jesus? Why he’s the carpenter from Nazareth!  We know his parents!  We know him.  He’s no different from us!”

Exactly!  As John said at the beginning of his Gospel, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” (John 1:14)

Feeding on Jesus, as the Word made flesh, means opening ourselves to our most basic needs as human beings.

It means recognizing what we hunger for the most. 

We all hunger for physical food – physical bread.  Whether it’s Wonder Bread, multi-grain, pita, pumpernickel or rye we all hunger for physical bread.  And none of us can live long without it.

When people gather to break bread together they gather at the level of their most basic need. 

In saying that he was Living Bread Jesus was acknowledging this hunger and he was acknowledging another type of hunger that the freshest, most fiber-filled and best tasting loaf of bread you’ve ever had can’t begin to touch.

In saying he was Living Bread Jesus was acknowledging the spiritual hunger in every human heart.  

He was saying that no one lives by bread alone, but by the presence of God’s life-giving, life-affirming Spirit.

It’s the Spirit of God, embodied in Jesus Christ, that feeds a hunger in our hearts that is every bit as human and every bit as essential for life as the hunger in our stomachs.
This spiritual hunger is the hunger for acceptance and affirmation of who we are as human beings.

This spiritual hunger is the hunger for knowing that we are loved for who we are – not for who we might yet become.

This spiritual hunger can gnaw away within us creating a sense of emptiness that no physical bread can begin to fill.

It’s this hunger that Jesus challenges us to acknowledge.

And it’s this hunger that only God can satisfy.

So when Jesus invites us to “eat his flesh and drink his blood” he’s saying something like: “Swallow your embarrassment about needing spiritual nourishment as well as physical food and let me fill you with what you hunger for the most!”

That’s why we celebrate Holy Communion every week at Pilgrim-St. Luke’s.  We’re saying that each of us not only needs the daily bread of physical food but the regular nourishment of God’s Healing and Holy Spirit to live the life God created us to live.
When I was at Fordham University last month during the Gamaliel Foundation Leadership Training that 3 of our members attended, I went for a walk early one morning and found myself outside the University Chapel.  I went through a door that opened into the front of the church, right by the altar.  There was one other person inside, sitting in a front pew. 
 
“He’s right over there,” he said.

Surprised to here him speak I said, “Are you talking to me?’

“Yes, I’m talking to you.  He’s right over there,” pointing to an area to the right of the altar.

“Who’s right over there?” I asked.

“Our Lord,” he replied.  “Our Lord’s, right over there.”

It turned out that he was pointing to the consecrated host and he wanted to make sure that I knew we were in the company of our Lord himself.

This man worked nearby and stopped at the University Chapel on his way to work each day to be in the company of Christ.

My experience of God’s presence in the sacrament of communion has never been confined to the consecrated bread by itself but in sharing it with others who know that they don’t live by bread alone.

Thirty years ago this spring I came up out of the subway at Lexington Avenue and East 103rd Street in Manhattan for the first time.  Even though I’d spent over 2 years in NYC the sights, smells and sounds of Spanish Harlem made it feel like I was a “brother from another planet.”

It was Maundy Thursday and I was on my way to check out a church on the next block.  They were looking for someone to run a summer day camp that summer just after I was graduating from seminary.

We celebrated communion that night following a meal of fish and bread, sitting on folding chairs at long tables shaped like a cross.  There were people at the table who couldn’t have been more different than me.  And yet, when the bread was broken and the cup was poured and we ate and drank together there was an emptiness inside of me that was filled for the first time in my life.

I tasted Living Bread – the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

The bread used that night came from a Puerto Rican bakery around the corner from the church.  It was a white crusty loaf that was soft and squishy on the inside. 
The times here at Pilgrim-St. Luke’s when I’ve been especially aware of God’s presence in the celebration of communion have often been when we’ve circled the sanctuary rather than sitting in the pews or coming forward to the altar. 

Sharing the bread and the cup while looking at others doing the same thing – seeing how different and unique each of us is on the surface – and at the same time seeing how connected we are through the creative, forgiving love of God present in broken bread and poured wine, I can’t help but give thanks for God’s presence in the flesh and blood of Christ.

St. Augustine said that “the faithful feed on the Body of Christ, if they do not neglect to be the Body of Christ.”

I spent some time last Friday afternoon at the Body Worlds exhibition at the Museum of Science.  Actual human bodies have been preserved through the process of plastination.  The incredible complexity and interconnectedness of the human body was graphically on display. 

I learned that an average adult has arteries, veins and capillaries that would extend for 60,000 miles if placed end to end.  That’s enough to encircle the earth twice. 
I learned that neurons transmit nerve impulses at up to 250 miles per hour and that our heart pumps 5 quarts of blood every minute and 1800 gallons of blood a day.
Each of us has an awe-inspiring, wonder-producing body pulsing with the living Spirit of our life-creating God.

Being the Body of Christ in the world is equally awe-inspiring and wonder-producing and it can only happen when we are fed by the body we are called to be.

Last Tuesday I visited Bob and Bobbie Grimm.  Bob was sitting up beside a hospital bed in a back room off the kitchen.  Their oldest daughter Carol, and their oldest son Michael and his wife Karen were there as well.

The cancer that started in Bob’s lungs has spread to his bones and brain. His family and he have decided to end all treatment and medications.  Bob is now sleeping much of the time and has difficulty speaking and yet when he’s awake he’s fully aware of what’s happening around him. 

His once robust, energetic body has shrunk and been drained of nearly all its energy.
Bob is someone who has devoted his life to the church - to the Body of Christ – the incredibly diverse, global community of human beings who look for nourishment from the Body of Christ so they can be the Body of Christ. 

We shared communion using a slice of whole wheat bread.  Bobbie placed a few crumbs of the broken bread on Bob’s tongue since he’s been unable to swallow much of anything at all.

Just before today’s text begins Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the bread of life…This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever…” (John 6:50-51)

In one sense Jesus couldn’t be more wrong.

No matter how faithfully or how often we eat the bread he offers we will die.

And yet, in another sense, Jesus couldn’t be more right. 

Because he isn’t talking about our physical deaths any more than he was talking about eating his physical flesh or drinking his physical blood.

He was talking about our receiving the Living Bread of his life-giving Spirit which is stronger even than death.  Bob Grimm has proclaimed and lived this message as faithfully as anyone I’ve ever known. 

The Living Bread of God’s life-giving Spirit is the bread for which we hunger the most. 
This is the Wonder Bread of God’s love for Evan, Aluel and Yaar – the Wonder Bread of God’s love for each of us and for the world!

This is the Wonder Bread of God’s presence which alone is able to fill our emptiness and send us into the world as the Body of Christ himself.

Imagine that! 

Imagine your being the body of our crucified and risen Lord!

Imagine your being Living Bread – Bread that comes down from heaven giving life to the world – life today – life forever more!

To God be the glory!

Amen!