Geneva Presbyterian Church

Weekly Sermon

August 20, 2000 - "Our Daily Bread"

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Geneva Presbyterian Church; August 20, 2000

Psalm 130: John 6:35, 41-51

35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 41 Then the people began to complain about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." 42 They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" 43 Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 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." Prayer: Gentle God, we come in hopes of a miracle, a miracle of hearing and believing. Guide us as we explore Your Word and show us your will for us. May we each be blessed with a word from you. Amen. A couple who had been married almost 60 years, died in a car crash. They had been in good health the last ten years mainly due to her interest in health food and exercise. When they reached the pearly gates, St. Peter took them to their mansion which was decked out with a beautiful kitchen and master bath suite and Jacuzzi. As they 'oohed and aahed' the old man asked St. Peter how much all this was going to cost. "It's free," Peter replied, "this is heaven." Next they went out back to survey the championship golf course that the home backed up to. They would have golfing privileges everyday and each week the course changed to a new one representing the great golf courses on earth. The old man asked, "What are the fees?" Peter's reply was, "This is heaven; you play for free." Next they went to the club house and saw the lavish buffet lunch with the cuisines of the world laid out. "How much to eat?" asked the old man. "Don't you understand yet? This is heaven, it is free!" Peter replied with some exasperation. "Well, where are the low fat and low cholesterol tables?" the old man asked timidly. Peter lectured, "That's the best part…you can eat as much as you like of whatever you like and you never get fat and you never get sick. This is heaven." With that the old man went into a fit of anger, throwing down his hat and stomping on it, and shrieking wildly. Peter and his wife both tried to calm him down, asking him what was wrong. The old man looked at his wife and said, "This is all your fault. If it weren't for your bran muffins, I could have been here ten years ago!" I'm not sure that story has anything to do with our scripture today, but I couldn't resist telling it. I told it because I wasn't sure how to begin today. When the subject of the scripture is spiritual food and it is going to come up three weeks in a row, it is hard to know where to begin. Some of you may remember that I had some trouble last week trying to explain the difference between physical and spiritual food to the children. After the service, I asked Johnny whether or not he liked the children's message. He said that he liked it, but he also said, "It was a little complicated, Mommy." It is more than a little complicated. It is very complicated. It is hard to conceptualize what Jesus means when he says, "I am the bread of life." And yet, we all long to understand what he means because we all hunger for an experience of the holy presence. The search for the holy is universal, but I think that the word "spiritual" is a buzz word now. So many times when I meet people they say, "I'm not religious, but I'm very spiritual." If you are spiritual, then you are in the right place for here we share spiritual food. Our Lord and Savior is the bread of heaven. We know we believe, but what are the characteristics of the daily bread of heaven? How do we recognize the sustaining presence of Jesus? We recognize his presence with us because it is life-giving, intimate, and mysterious. A few years ago I read a wonderful book called The Gift of Peace by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. It is his personal reflections on the last three years of his life, a time of struggle and incredible spiritual growth. In the book he writes about visiting his mother's homeland in Italy: "The first time I traveled with my mother and sister to my parents' homeland…in northern Italy, I felt as if I had been there before. After years of looking through my mother's photo albums, I knew the mountains, the land, the houses, the people. As soon as we entered the valley, I said, 'My God, I know this place. I am home.'" (Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, The Gift of Peace, p. 152) Cardinal Bernardin recognized his parents' homeland because he had spent so many hours looking at the pictures. In much the same way, the more time we spend praying and studying scriptures, the more prepared we will be to recognize the presence of our Savior. Jesus called himself the bread of heaven, explaining himself in the image of something common, ordinary, accessible, and life giving. He is our bread, our food, our constant source of daily spiritual nourishment. Our bodies must be fed every day to keep them physically able. Our spiritual body must also be nurtured and renewed every day to keep us sustained spiritually. The bread of heaven is life giving because the presence of Christ gives us security. "During the bombing raids of World War II, thousands of children were orphaned and left to starve. The fortunate ones were rescued and placed in refugee camps where they received food and good care. But many of these children who had lost so much could not sleep at night. They feared waking up to find themselves once again homeless and without food. Nothing seemed to reassure them. Finally, someone hit upon the idea of giving each child a piece of bread to hold at bedtime. Holding their bread, these children could finally sleep in peace. All through the night the bread reminded them, 'Today I ate and I will eat again tomorrow.'" [Dennis, Sheila Fabricant, and Matthew Linn, Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life (Paulist Press: Mahwah, NY,1995) p.1] We, too, must hold on to the bread of life, our Savior, Jesus Christ. His presence is life giving. Another characteristic of the presence of the bread of life is that it is intimate. Today, we seem to struggle with isolation as never before. There have been a lot of theories on why we feel so isolated. Perhaps it is because so many ties have been broken to our families through relocations; perhaps it is because technology has made it easier to meet our needs without involving other human beings; perhaps the barrage of violent images on television, in movies, and on video games has left us desensitized to our humanity. I don't know what the cause is, but I do know that in Jesus Christ, the bread of life, we are known and loved. "One day a certain father went to visit his son's preschool. It was a day when dads could come to visit. But when he got there, he was shocked to discover that only a handful of fathers had come to be with their children. "Later on that morning, all the children were sitting on the floor in a circle. The teacher asked the children to tell the group something about their fathers, something that was special. One little boy said, 'Well, my daddy is a lawyer. He makes a lot of money and we live in a big house.' Another child said, 'My father is very smart. He teaches at the college and a lot of important people know him.' Finally it was time for this father's son to say something special about his dad. The little boy looked up at his father, then he looked around the circle of his friends, and then he just smiled and proudly said, 'My dad…my dad is here!'" [Homiletics, August 7, 1994, John 6:35, 41-51, Bread-of-Life Presence, p. 4] Our Lord is here. He is the bread, the sustaining presence in our lives. He knows us intimately and he stays with us. There is one more thing about the presence of our Lord. It is mysterious. It is beyond our comprehension. As one writer said, "There is a mountain-top as well as a table-top quality to the divine presence" [ibid., p. 2]. The presence of Christ is a mystery because we receive the presence surrounded by grace. The Lord is with us not just when we are doing well, but most especially when we are not. I mentioned Cardinal Bernardin a few minutes ago. One of the finest aspects of his book is that he candidly talks about his struggles during the last three years of his life. He struggled with cancer and lost that battle, but more painful than the physical sickness was his experience of being falsely accused of sexual misconduct. He writes about holding a press conference when the accusations were first made. As he stood before the microphones he felt like he was standing before the entire world. He wrote, "The most important thing I had going for me at the moment was my forty-two years of ordained ministry, my name, and my reputation. But there was also an inner strength, and I am convinced that the Lord was giving me that strength. For me, this moment of public accusation and inquiry was also a moment of grace. A moment of pain, but a moment of grace because I felt the great love and support that many people were giving me. Above all, it was a moment of spiritual growth. I felt that I was entering a new phase of my spiritual journey because of the events of those few days." We do not understand the mysterious movement of the Spirit of the Lord. We just know that we are fed daily bread in the difficult days and the easy days. Father John Shea wrote a story that perhaps can help us to understand our daily bread: "Once upon a time a father brought his four kids into a thirty one flavors. Only three of them came in. A teenage girl remained outside in the care sulking, because she was at that age of life at which teenage girls sulk. Inside the two boys fought over which one could choose first because they both wanted garlic chocolate fudge with cookie crumbles and one could not, of course, order what the other had already ordered (unthinkable!). So they actually came to blows when the older did order that ice cream and the younger one was constrained to settle for orange ripple pizza ice cream. The little girl wept because all the chocolate chocolate chip was gone (well, I'd weep too!) and nothing would console her not even a triple scoop peppermint fudge raspberry mango cone. She sobbed all through her destruction of the cone. Finally, the teenage came in and sulked because they didn't have 'anything' though actually there were more than forty flavors. She finally settled on vanilla yogurt as a protest against the injustices of the human condition. When he got home, the father told his wife how much fun they had at thirty one flavors. He was speaking the truth. How could anyone have had fun with those brats? They were his children, you see, and he loved them. And he delighted in feeding them." …as our Lord does. Amen.