Trinity Eight

Jesus said to them:  ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

The film producer Alfred Hitchcock was the great master of suspense and the tense atmosphere. But he was also known amongst his family and friends as a man who created a tense atmosphere when he waited for his dinner. He had a big appetite.

One evening he was very disappointed when he saw the very small portions of food that were being served at a private dinner that he attended. After dinner the host said to him: ‘I do hope that you will dine with us again soon’. ‘By all means’ he replied. ‘Why don’t we start now.’

Longing for food can be more than a popular human pastime. In today’s Gospel reading the crowd come to realise that there can be more to food than meets the eye. The people of Galilee follow the instructions of their stomach and express their longing for food. They are hungry. Only the previous day Jesus had fed them with the miraculous meal of two fish and five loaves. Yesterday they had wanted to make him a King who would drive out the Romans and make Israel rich and powerful and so banish hunger for good. And now today they are looking for Jesus again. They are hungry again. Jesus has a word for them: ‘Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures to eternal life’. The crowd had misunderstood what Jesus was about. Jesus hadn’t only been thinking of their physical hunger. There is also a spiritual hunger, and if only they would understand they would be able to satisfy that hunger too.

You see in the way that the writer of John’s Gospel has written his Gospel you and I the reader – well we know all this. We know the answer to the questions that lie behind the crowd’s ignorance. We know the meaning of the sign of the miraculous feeding. We know who it is who feeds the people with bread which has come down from heaven. We know all this because we have been let in on the secret right from the beginning of the Gospel.

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace’. It is Jesus who is the bread come down from heaven. He is the source of the food that truly satisfies. He is the bread that endures to eternal life. For the crowd in today’s story the penny still hasn’t dropped. They don’t understand.  They don’t believe. ‘What sign are you going to give us?’ They still don’t recognise the fullness of what is on offer nor where to find it. At last Jesus comes out with it – straight and clear: ‘I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.  Whoever believes in me will never thirst’. This is an amazing statement. It is so amazing that the crowd becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the idea that the God who gives life can be known in the particular life of Jesus. And yet there it is. ‘I am the Bread of life’  says Jesus. He is the embodiment of that life which comes to us from God. He is the source of that life. If there is a Word from God it will be known in him and through him. If there is grace from God to satisfy our deepest need and our greatest hunger then he is the source of it. He is the real thing. He is the true sign that the reality of God is not distant and abstract. It is concrete and present. Wherever we are in all circumstances and in all places Jesus the bread of life is with us to sustain us and to feed us.

Two weeks ago we remembered the momentous events of forty years ago in the landing of the first men on the moon. The first meal eaten on the moon was the Bread of life given in the Holy Eucharist. Buzz Aldrin the pilot of the Lunar Module was a Lay Reader in the Episcopal Church and he carried the bread and wine of the Holy Eucharist with him to the moon. Immediately after landing on the moon he thanked God for the journey and sought the presence of God to continue as there on the moon he received from Jesus the bread of life. ‘If I ascend to heaven you are there.  If I take the wings of the morning and dwell at the furthest end of the sea you are there’. The promise that Jesus held out to the crowd of Galileans is the promise that is held out to us today. I am the bread of life to satisfy all who hunger. It is a promise fulfilled in the Eucharist that we now celebrate.

If there is one thing which we all share in this congregation, it is the same hunger. We hunger for a love that does not disappoint. We hunger for a word that does not fade away. We hunger for bread that does not fail to satisfy. Many if not all of us will have sought our bread from the many other sources that life and the world offer to us – and we will have found them lacking. We will have found ourselves to be empty and hungry. Like the crowds in the Galilee we are easily misled into  trying to feed in the wrong place only to be let down.  

Twenty years ago Socialism collapsed – and the promise of Nirvana collapsed with it. Now we are witnessing the collapse of uncontrolled capitalism – and the security of many has been shattered. In the face of such widespread dissatisfaction Jesus says to us: ‘I am the Bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’.

In this gathering we are invited to share in the Bread of Life which is Jesus himself. This isn’t something that we come to look at, or look upon,  like a still life painting in an art gallery; rather it is something that we come here to do. The Eucharist is an action. It is the act of sharing in the bread of Life, participating in the life of Jesus himself – and it’s not just for here but it must also be for out there in the world. We continue to return here because we are hungry for God. But to participate in the life of Jesus means to be sent out from here to share his bread with a world that is hungry for him. To play our part in tackling the injustices that cause so much physical hunger in the world. And by our witness to bring those who hunger spiritually for what truly satisfies to find who they are looking for in Jesus.

To share in the bread of the Eucharist is to participate in the life of Jesus. His life was poured out in sacrifice. We celebrate that sacrifice with bread that is the result of crushing and baking corn. We are called to be a part of the sacrificial action of the Eucharist. By the Eucharist we are taken up into the continuing life of Jesus the bread of life so that we may share that life with all who hunger for it.  

As St Augustine famously said: ‘You are the bread that is to be laid upon the altar. You are to be taken, blessed,  broken , and given for the life of the world’.