Bread of Life

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
August 2nd 2009
Communion Meditation
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“Bread of Life”
Psalm 51, John 6:24-35

“I am the Bread of Life.” These are the immortal words of someone who clearly has never heard of Dr. Atkins and his famous diet. After all, if Jesus were around today and marketed himself as the “Bread of Life”, he would not get a favorable hearing from the anti-carbohydrate crowd. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, and other books on food, writes about our natural eating disorder. It was in the fall of 2002, he writes, “when one of the most ancient and venerable staples of human life abruptly disappeared from the American dinner table. I’m talking of course about bread.” In his work Pollan talks about our obsession with fad diets and our inability to distinguish food from food-like-product. His interest is addressing the causes of this from the perspective of our public policy and the food industry. As a person of faith, I believe this crisis is also a spiritual one with far reaching implications.
We live in a culture which is obsessed with food in paradoxical ways. Many people count calories while others wonder if the food will last till the next payday or visit to the food pantry. We face a crisis of obesity in the midst of a time where people are obsessed with body image. It is a national crisis for which the followers of Jesus do have something to add.
It would be an overstatement to say that the crisis is spiritual one alone. There are corporate and public policy reasons for the food crisis. However, it is not an overstatement to say that the crisis is rooted in our human hunger for something more, something deeper. And it is directly to this need that Jesus speaks.
Jesus is struggling with those who do not grasp the deeper issues to which he speaks.
“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’?”
These words show the deeply utilitarian and materialistic nature of Jesus’ opponents. Jesus is speaking about feeding deeper hunger and God’s passion and welcoming for all people. His opponents want to see the evidence of Jesus journey from heaven. They do not understand that Jesus’ decent from heaven is not the issue. What they are missing is the reality of our human need for something deeper than our basic needs.
While this passage is not interested in Jesus journey from heaven, it does raise more difficult questions. These questions are: What does it mean to partake in the “Bread of Life”? What does it look like to never be hungry or thirsty? John Calvin wrote in his Institutes that the beginning of all knowledge of God began with the knowledge of self and the knowledge of self begins with knowledge of God. So I believe it is safe to say that partaking in the “Bread of Life” is an invitation to deeper understanding and knowledge of God and self. This may sound rather theoretical, so let me see if I can bring some clarity.
The ethos of our consumer society is that there is never a way to satisfy our hungers. We are perpetually bombarded by liturgy reminding us that we will not whole people unless we have the latest or newest thing. Advertising is so highly developed that they know us better than we know ourselves. Unless we take a step back and recognize how our basic hungers are being manipulated we will never grasp deeper realities. Until we recognize and make attempts to challenge this thinking we will be unable to imagine that it is possible to never hunger or thirst again. As long as we live as uncritical subjects to the message that our happiness is found in the next thing or newest fad, the idea that we can find satisfaction in this ritual of communion will seem nothing less than foolishness.
The messages of our consumer culture are most often built upon, or feed upon, our anxiety. But the Good News is that the message from the one who calls himself, “The “Bread of Life,” is too. Jesus offers a relief from that anxiety. However, if we are not careful that message can be turned into its own form of anxiety. In other words, believe or you are going to hell. But that is not the message of this passage. Nor is this passage a call to escape life today. It is an invitation to live a deeper life right now.
When we gather at this table and eat bread and drink from the cup we are nourishing a revolution. When we gather at this table we are saying, “No,” to the messages which claim that being human means to buy the next thing. At this table we are nourished by the “Bread of Life” which teaches us that we are beloved children who are invited to know hunger and thirst no more. I will admit that even as I speak these words there is some resistance. And that resistance is to believing that we could truly live without the anxiety. I think that my resistance is simply a reminder of the power of the “other” messages. And because of our anxiety and the power of these messages we need to be regularly nourished by this bread. No matter what Dr. Atkins may say. Amen.