The Bread of Life and the Love of God

We have this family recipe for a dessert. We call it ‘Plunk it’. It’s made in a bundt pan and so you ‘pluck’ the pieces out and as young kids, they can’t say ‘pluck it’ very well, so it became ‘Plunk it’. This bundt pan filled with gooey centers of cinnamon rolls, baked until gold and brown and smothered in cream cheese frosting. It’s great for breakfast. And lunch. And dinner.  And snacks. And any time of the day. Really. It’s especially delicious when you’re fighting over the last piece, and win.  Plunket didn’t begin really as any kind of mystery. It was a practical remedy to a family problem. See, our family loves the corners of desserts.  The crunchy bites of brownies. Those blackberry syrup-soaked corners of cobbler. So in her great wisdom, the matriarch of our family, tired of coming into the kitchen to see her creation missing pieces, devised an ingenious plan.  A totally new sweet treat that had a major advantage: no corners.

A round dessert. This is perfect. A dessert to satisfy the hungry masses and do away with squabbling and fighting over the corners and the edges. And yet the best laid plans never seem to work out. Upon presenting this new dessert, the family was ecstatic. It was a miracle that didn’t last very long because families are families, and humans are human. And so competition began again. We began to worry about all sorts of things. Who would eat the dough balls rolled in cinnamon and butter and sugar before they were baked, without having your hand slapped away? Or who could eat the most out of one side of this round dessert without the whole thing collapsing?  Using toothpicks as structure to keep it from falling.

But while we worried about our selfish ambitions for a sweet treat, the matriarch of our family was used to these nefarious plots. She knew to always make a double recipe of the dough. She knew to put on extra cream cheese frosting and keep some to the side. She knew to keep it covered until everyone arrived. She knew to have other treats available before she uncovered her masterpiece. We trusted that this would always be the way.  We trusted that more dough would be made for us to sneak a bite before it was baked. We trusted that there would be extra icing to dip our fingers in. We trusted that all the other snacks would be there.  That the house would smell like cinnamon and sage.  Perfume and warm hugs would pervade our lives forever.

The people of the whole congregation of the Israelites are hungry. They fantasize about being in captivity again, where at least they would have plenty of food. They complain about the reality of liberation. They need more than to fill their stomachs. There is deep fear.  Fear that they made a mistake.  Fear that they will not have their needs met.  Fear of their place in creation and a loss of trust in God. The God who delivered them from Egypt.  The God who found fresh water for them in the desert.  The God who has never left or abandoned them.  They lose sight of the faithfulness of God because of fear. They forget the reality of liberation. That liberation in God will meet their every need. God does indeed supply what they need to sustain them, but their fear leads to a mindset of scarcity. What happens when all of those quail are consumed?  What happens when they continue their journey and have to scavenge for what they need?

This kind of fear is pervasive, infectious. It leads to isolation and this mindset of ‘not enough’.  Scarcity of physical resources.  Scarcity of community.  Scarcity of love and care for one another and for creation. We lose a sense of what it means to be Children of God. We lose trust in God and one another. We begin to blame everyone else for what is going wrong, and we divide community by hurling insults and stirring up falsehoods about one another. We begin to worry about keeping ourselves full; full of power and control; full of superiority over other parts of creation; full of the sense of being right. We infect the world with lies and fear, using hatred to gain more and more power and influence. Until community is broken, no one is fed, and we are in such pain that we lose sight of our own humanity and the world becomes a desolate and starving place. A plague of hatred and distrust and unkindness, a diseased place devoid of what it means to be followers of the one sent to the world to heal the world.

We are, in some ways, in a desolate place. We are starving, not simply for something physical, but for nourishment of heart and soul and mind. We have created a world so divided that hope itself seems like an intellectual exercise rather than a way of life. It’s this radical way of life that we’re offered in Christ Jesus and in the living bread of life that sustains all.  And so we hear this beginning of the ‘bread of life’ discourse in our gospel.  People have been fed and others follow Jesus seeking more nourishment that could give them everlasting life.  But they have difficulty hearing what he teaches. Jesus doesn’t offer the bread of life as some reward for working, nor does he offer it as some reward of faith. Rather, he offers it as the work of faith itself. Jesus offers this nourishment of mind and body and spirit to a broken and hurting and suffering world. Hungry for a liberation that is so immense, it is terrifying.

Once again, the people don’t trust God. They don’t trust Jesus. They don’t trust one another. The bread, this manna from heaven, they know from their ancestors that sustained the Israelites in the wilderness. Given by the same God who offers the bread of life in and through Jesus Christ, that is what will heal the world. That is what will save it. We have been offered this bread, this nourishment, this hope. Jesus Christ is the bread of life and we must believe. We don’t believe for the sake of some reward, belief in Christ Jesus is action. We actively participate in belief. When we believe in the bread of life that does not perish, we are driven to encounter a broken and fear infested world. We move beyond compelling people to believe out of fear and coercion, and we invite others to help us make this world into a place worth living.

It’s pretty daunting.  And it’s the work that we have ahead of us. None of this is new. None of this is earth shattering. The work of justice and equity and peace is nothing new. The words and actions that harm and divide are not new. Those killing words and actions are still in, around and among us. The words that sustain hatred and fear are still with us. Racism and sexism are still with us. Ableism and queerphobia are still with us. Xenophobia is still with us, in the church, in our communities and the world. The thing that offers hope, that which sustains us to do the work, is the hope we have in Christ Jesus. The hope we have in the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.  And the trust we have in God to be with us through it all. God was with the Israelites in the desert. God was with the people seeking nourishment from Christ. God is with us here and now. God will never leave us.

We are worthy. We are worthy of this merely because we exist. We are worthy of patience and of kindness, of mercy and grace, simply because we are beloved. While we are worrying about who is in and who is out, who is worthy and who is unworthy,  while we worry about whether or not someone is worthy of membership; who they are, where they’re from, what they call themselves, how they identify, God already calls each one of them worthy and beloved. We aren’t any more special or blessed because of who we are or where we’re from or what we do. We are beloved of God, because God made each and every one of us.  And now we are to go into the world prepared to do the work of faith that has been given to us.  And we have work to do. It won’t be easy, but it can be simple; a simple word of thanks and gratitude; an offering of time and service for the sake of another; the sharing of what we have for the sake of community. A word of encouragement, the willingness to be wrong and corrected, to be open to receiving a different view and understanding.

God has called each of us beloved. God and Christ Jesus has offered us the bread of life that will fill the world. We risk putting a halt to any competition with one another, even for a piece of dessert, because we’re all on this journey together and we thrive when we all flourish. We don’t need to be heroes. There was one hero in our Savior, who sacrificed everything for the sake of the world. We simply need to offer and to live in hope and trust and healing and love.

We celebrate difference and we affirm one another as beloved of God in Christ. We celebrate when we listen deeply and create brave spaces for us to come together. We mourn and as we witness tragedy and suffering, and we act to keep it from happening again. And we come together prepared to feast with whatever it takes to heal, to heal trust and kindness, to bring justice and mercy and grace to this world and to love. We love the way that Jesus taught us. We love in the way that we are beloved by God. We love so deeply and so fully that we love this world in creation into a better way of hope. It is this love that changes the world, this love that made a new dessert to keep the family at peace, that kept the smell of cinnamon and sage in our hearts.  And this love that keeps us and all creation in the knowledge that there is nothing that can separate anyone from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And for that we risk changing the world. For that, we risk making a better way. For that, we offer hope. And for that, we give thanks.  Amen.