326 Clean Food

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Clean Food” originally shared on August 28, 2024. It was the 326^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   We can’t earn our way into heaven, but we can eat our way there. Today, we’re going to find out how.

   Well, we’re done with bread, the theme that ran through the last 5 weeks (!) of Gospel readings in most of the world’s Christian Churches. And maybe we aren’t. 😊

   Either way, this coming Sunday, we’ll for sure still be talking about food.

   We’ll be talking about whether the food we eat effects our relationship with God on a weekend that most people will be firing up their bar-b-ques.

   It’s the Labor Day weekend! The unofficial last day of summer.

   By Labor Day, the Monday holiday that celebrates the contributions of Labor to our culture and to our way of life, we’ll have learned how we can’t work our way into heaven, but we can eat our way there.

   How does that work?

   In Mark 7, Jesus has just fed the 5,000 and has continued his public ministry in Galilee. He is attracting the attention of the religious authorities in the big city, and they have come to check him out. And they find something shocking.

   Yes, being easily offended by the behavior of others is not just a 21^st century social media phenomenon. 😊

   That’s where we pick up the lesson, in Mark 7:1-5,

7 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, ² they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. ³ (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; ⁴ and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) ⁵ So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”

   The leaders weren’t criticizing his disciples, they were being critical of the disciples’ teacher. Jesus.

   And they weren’t concerned about poor personal hygiene.

   They were concerned with the religious Law.

   Pharisees were laymen (only men could be Pharisees) who had done well enough and saved enough that they could turn the family business over to their son or sons and spend the rest of their lives learning the religious Law that had been given by God to define Israel, and to keeping that Law. They were highly respected, and every little boy wanted to grow up to be a Pharisee.

   And Jesus was always knocking heads with them.

   Why? Because their focus was on the letter of the Law, not on its purpose, not the spirit of the law. They believed that their relationship with God was transactional. Jesus proclaimed that is was given to be transformational.

   They had made the religious law a burden to the people, and this reading from Mark 7 is a good example.

   The difference between the letter of the Law and the spirit of it is like the little boy who went into the kitchen and found his mom putting the icing on a cake.

   He asked her for a slice, and she answered, “No. You’ll spoil your appetite.”

   Not long after, his mother had to leave the room and when she came back, she found the boy stuffing his face with cookies.

   “What are you doing?” she said.

   “I’m eating cookies. You said I couldn’t eat cake. But you didn’t say that I couldn’t eat cookies!”

   In this case, “Don’t eat the cake was the letter of the law.” The little boy was keeping the letter of the law, “Don’t eat the cake.” But the spirit of the law was, “Don’t spoil your appetite.”

   The Pharisees had concluded that as long as they did what the Law said, they were good with God, that God was required to bless them.

   The letter of the Law says “don’t do these things”, such as the requirements of the purity laws that the Pharisees quote from Leviticus, in today’s reading from Mark 7, that not keeping them would make you ritually unclean and therefore unable to participate in worship at the Temple.

   These requirements are not about physical cleanliness. People wouldn’t know about germs causing disease for another 1900 years.

   Many of the purity laws are in the Bible’s book of Leviticus, one of the primary books of the religious Law that the Pharisees studied. It’s the third book in the Bible and is about as far as a lot of people get after they’ve said, “I’m going to read the Bible, cover to cover!”

   The purity laws were given to define the identity of the Hebrew people, a people who had been plucked from obscurity and chosen by God to be God’s people. They were set apart from the other nations.

   They were blessed to be a blessing to the nations and a light to all people. They were to be a message to all people that God exists, and that God wants all people to receive His blessing. Part of that blessing was the Law, given to God’s people as a guide to lead them to the life for which they were intended, a life defined by their relationship with God.

   They were to be a particular people, and therefore the purity laws were designed to give them daily reminders to keep themselves pure. They were not even to wear clothes made of two kinds of fabric.

   The dietary laws, keeping kosher, included things like not eating dairy and meat in the same meal, not eating animals that were not one kind of animal or fish or were another kind but had characteristics of both.

   There was a reason for that.

   The spirit of the Law was to remind people that they were chosen. They were God’s people and that, in every way, they were a particular people, defined by God’s blessed Law. Don’t be a different thing. Don’t even be two things. Don’t compromise. Be who you are.

   That blessing was not an end in itself. God’s people were blessed in order to be a blessing to all people. All people.

   But God’s people didn’t always experience the Law as a blessing. People like the Pharisees had led them to see it as a burden.

   That’s why Jesus seems so harsh with the Pharisees, as we see in Mark 7, continuing with verse 6,

⁶ He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me;

⁷        in vain do they worship me,

teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

⁸ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

   The Law was given to lead people to a life-giving relationship with God. By the time of the Pharisees, people had made it an end in itself. It was complicated and burdensome.

   And God’s people didn’t keep the Law. At least not for long. They couldn’t earn their way to salvation. So, Jesus entered human history to suffer and die as a sacrifice, to put things right, to restore the relationship with God for which people were created. It was that relationship that preceded the Law, as Paul points out, in Romans 4:13,

¹³ It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 

  Abraham’s faith was reckoned to him as righteousness hundreds of years before the giving of the Law.

   The meaning of that faith, as the product of a living relationship with the one true living God, is a reminder that, though we may be done with 5 weeks of bread in our Gospel readings, there is still bread that must be eaten, as Jesus says in John 6:51,

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.”

   Jesus gave his flesh, broken and poured out, on the cross. We abide in Him and He abides in us. He is as close to us as the food that we have eaten becomes our body and blood. Jesus is the spotless lamb, the clean food.

   He is present in, with, and under the forms of bread and wine in Holy Communion. In that Communion, through a believing heart, by God’s grace, as 16^th century Church Reformer Martin Luther says, “The words ‘given for you’ and ‘shed for you for the forgiveness of sin’ show us that forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation are given to us in the sacrament through these words, because where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.”

   We can’t work our way to heaven, but we can eat our way there!

   Jesus says that we live from the inside out, that what we do is a product of who we are, and that what comes out of us is the life that comes from God or the sin that defiles us and separates us from God, in John 7:14-15,

¹⁴ Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: ¹⁵ there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

   We grow food in our back yard: bell peppers, grapes, lemons, figs, tomatoes, onions, pomegranates, and assorted herbs and spices. They are mostly organic. Mostly. 😊

   But Jesus is the clean food. Jesus makes us pure, even though we sin.

   Our natural selves, our selves without Christ, our not born-again selves, not-new Creation, not-Baptized selves is what brought evil into the world, and what continues to bring it into the world.

   Our reading from John 7 concludes with verses 21-23,

²¹ For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, ²² adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. ²³ All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

   By contrast is the fruit of the Spirit, whose description in the Bible’s book of Galatians begins with the words, “By contrast” in Galatians 5:22-23,

²² By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

   Paul ends these verses by saying that “there is no law against such things”. So don’t worry about the consequences of the religious Law. Be the Gospel.

   There is a difference between life in a relationship with God and life without a relationship with God, a stark difference. It’s not about you. It’s about Who you know.

   It’s been said that “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. That may be a cynical and sometimes all too realistic description of how some people get ahead today by the world’s standards.

   It’s also an excellent description of the Christian faith.

   Our biggest challenge in life isn’t our behavior, it’s the “you” that produces our behavior.

   The Christian life is not lived by how many religious laws you know. It’s lived in a living relationship with the one true living God. The Law is within you.

   Our transformed selves, our selves with Christ, our born-again selves, our new Creation selves, our Baptized selves are what point to the way things God made them to be and the way God will make them to be again.

   Labor Day is more than the de-facto beginning of Fall. It is a time for transformation, it is a time to refresh and renew, and for some it will be a time to reset. It’s also a time to repent; to turn around. It’s a time to remember who we are by knowing Whose we are.  It’s a time to reflect and to restore.

   It’s a time to commune with God in the only kind of food that endures forever, the food that has washed us and made us clean from Sin, the food that is Jesus Christ, broken and poured out, for forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation. It is a time to receive the clean food. Jesus. Broken and poured out for you. 

325 Staff of Life

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Staff of Life” originally shared on August 21, 2024. It was the 325^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   What image comes to mind when you hear the phrase, “The Staff of Life”? Today, we’re going to learn a new one, and what it has to do with the renewal of the Church.

   I walk with a hiking stick that we bought at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (now renamed the California Botanic Garden) in Claremont. Some might call it a “staff”.

   I carry it in case we run into coyotes or the occasional stray dog when Sally and I walk around our neighborhood.

   I’ve been told, though, that with my gray hair and long-ish gray beard, walking with a staff also creates a certain impression! 😊

   A staff can also be a group of people working to support an organization.

   Years ago, I was at a workshop on church staff leadership and development when one of the professors said, “Of course, Jacob leaned on his staff and then died” Hebrews 11:21 😊

²¹ By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, “bowing in worship over the top of his staff.”  (NOTE: “bowing” is translated “leaning” in some other versions)

   Bread has been called “the staff of life”. Why? Today, some people avoid bread. Too much gluten, a legitimate concern for some. Too many carbs. 😊 But in many places throughout the world, and for a very long time, bread was seen as nourishing, available, and affordable. Bread supports human life, like a staff supports human beings. Or maybe the expression comes from Leviticus 26:26, among a list of penalties for disobedience,

²⁶ When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven, and they shall dole out your bread by weight; and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied.

   Bread as the staff of life is a reminder that we need something to support us. Like the woman who was asked if her faith in Jesus wasn’t just a crutch said, “He may be a crutch, but he holds me up.”

   We see how that works in the reading that will be shared in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, John 6:56-69. Jesus is the bread of life. His body and blood are broken and poured out for us on the cross to restore a living relationship with God for all who believe. He is present in the forms and bread and wine in Holy Communion, broken and poured out for you, which means that the transformational relationship with God becomes who we are.

   It is as close to us as the food and drink that we consume becomes our physical body. It is us, temporarily. By contrast, Holy Communion brings us forgiveness of sins, life and salvation for eternity.

   It will be the fifth of five Sundays in a row in which the reading from John, one of the Gospels, is focused on bread. Bread, Bread, Bread, Bread, Bread. 😊

   The reading begins with a few overlapping verses from last Sunday, verses 56-58,

⁵⁶ Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

   A weird, hard to digest, analogy and a bold statement. And Jesus doesn’t try to explain his words or make it easy for us.

   In fact, our Gospel reading from John 6 begins by grounding them in history and then acknowledging their difficulty, in verses 59-64,

⁵⁹ He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

⁶⁰ When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” ⁶¹ But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? ⁶² Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? ⁶³ It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ⁶⁴ But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him.

   The life that Jesus is talking about is eternal life. It is given in the Holy Spirit. It has already begun in our baptisms. It can only come from God. And it does. And it has consequences.

   Jesus states this in the conclusion of this Sunday’s Gospel reading, in John 6:65-69,

⁶⁵ And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”

⁶⁶ Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. ⁶⁷ So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” ⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

   It’s no secret that most churches in the Western World are in decline.

   There are many broadly cultural reasons for why that is.

   But I want to extend an invitation to you who have left the Church, and who may or may not have left your faith, to reconsider, to return and reform.

   It’s time.

   The church is the Body of Christ. Christ is the head of the Church, and all baptized believers are the members of that Body. We are all different, and we each have something necessary to contribute.

   Maybe you’ve been put off by churches that are run to maintain merely human traditions and personal legacies, static cultural expression, social service agencies using religious language, or ones that are monuments to one generation’s values. You are a member of the Body of Christ. Return and reform.

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer said that as long as the word is rightly preached and the sacraments are rightly administered everything else is important, but not necessary. Return and reform.

   Maybe you’ve been drawn away by some other generation’s values. Maybe it was the sexual revolution. Maybe the Enlightenment. Maybe it was a time witnessing the decline of all Western institutions, values, politics, educational systems, cultures, whatever. You have gifts to give. Return and reform.

   Maybe Eastern religions have seemed more pure to you in the past, but you have become acquainted with them in practice, and you have become disillusioned in the present, as you were once disillusioned by Christianity and its lack of a consequential culture.

   You can go to a “Christian” culture, and you will find it appear to be secular. Look into the history of Western civilization for the reasons why. The Church was somewhat cowed by the “Enlightenment”, yet the objections to religion of those days seem quaint today. Ironically, they seem driven by more ignorance than enlightenment, at least in terms of what Christianity looks like from the inside, as opposed to those who shoot out its windows from the outside.

   It’s time for a second look.

   Live in our country and disparage Christianity itself, insult Jesus, burn Bibles, worship as you choose, even start your own religion, and see what happens. Nothing. We will even be polite; we will seek your welfare.

   Go to any other country in the world and act in the same way to its, in many cases, exclusive religion, or even just its majority religion, and what will happen? You will be very fortunate to just be expelled from that country. More likely you will be expelled from your freedom, or worse.

   Why is that? Because the Christian influence on Western Civilization has included the value of each individual self, the external nature of truth, and the love and grace of God for each person as a liberating force.

   Maybe you’ve grown up a bit. There’s a kind of American energy in being independent, but it brings its own restrictions, and even its own illusions. Learn the freedom of being dependent on Jesus. Help bring the church to its core self, a community of people who love Jesus. Return and reform.

   Returning is normative in Christianity.

   But here’s the really difficult concept of John 6. It’s expressed in verse 65. It’s knowing that returning is not up to us. It comes from God.

⁶⁵ And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”

   The birth of Jesus, the parable of the lost sheep, and of the Good Shepherd, the cross, the Resurrection, the Day of Pentecost all remind us that God seeks us out.

   Maybe you have just tried to be a good person, but wondered if you have been good enough? Has not, as one of my philosophy professors once said, most if not all of the world’s evil been done by people who, in their heart of hearts sincerely believed that they were doing good? And does that not tell us that our need is not to think that we are good, but to acknowledge that we need a savior, and that we have that Savior in Jesus Christ? Return and renew.

   Churches will welcome you, even it for some it will only be superficially so. Be better. Be understanding. Love them. They are your brothers and sisters, they are fellow members of the Body of Christ. Return and renew.

   Maybe you’ve just lost touch with the basics of being a Christian, and now need to name the Name.

   Pastor and author Tim Keller said, “When people tell me that they once were believing Christians but now have rejected it all-I often ask them (after long, close listening) why they originally believed Jesus rose from the dead and how they came to decide that he now didn't. They usually say it's a helpful question.”

   The world is changing. It’s always changing, but we are the generation that has experienced accelerated change. We are feeling the effect. We know something new is coming. Will it be something better, or something worse? Return and reform.

   What is God calling you to be? What is God calling you to do? I think it was Rick Warren who said, “Our task is not to ask God to bless what we are doing. Our task is to ask that we may do what God is blessing.

   A guy goes into a restaurant and sits down. The server comes by and gives him a menu and a breadbasket and says, “Please take your time. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

   The guy is looking over the menu when he hears, “Nice tie.” He looks around and sees no one. He goes back to the menu and hears, “Nice shoes, too.” He spins around but sees no one. He focuses on the menu and hears, “Nice haircut.” But no one’s around.

   Just then the server comes to take his order and the guy says, “Excuse me, but I keep hearing nice things being said about me but there’s no one around me.”

   “Oh,” says the server. “That’s the bread. It’s complementary.”

   Jesus is the bread of life, and that bread is free. He is the bread that transforms and becomes us, the staff that supports us.

   Jesus says, in John 6:51,

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.”

   Some people may have been avoiding carbs in the past, but carbs are making a comeback among dieticians as a necessary part of our diet.

   In fact, when I was competing on a Masters Swim Team, carb-loading the night before a meet was a common practice among swimmers because the body consumes carbohydrates as energy.

   Be that. Be a person who is fed with the food that is true food. The food that feeds us forever Be fed for life in the world as a member of the Body of Christ, and for eternity with the gift of Jesus on the cross, the staff of life. 

324 Bread That Lives

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Bread That Lives” originally shared on August 14, 2024. It was the 324^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   If you wanted to describe what Jesus did for us on the cross, you couldn’t find a more difficult way than the way Jesus describes it in John 6. Today, we’re going to find out why that’s a good thing.

   The 2024 Paris Olympics have concluded, and now the focus is shifting to the next Summer Olympics in 2028. That one will be held here in Los Angeles!

   My wife, Rev. Sally Welch, a Disciples of Christ/UCC clergyperson, was a chaplain in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and, who knows, maybe again!

   Plans are already being made for a car-less 2028 L.A. Olympics, with plans for a major improvement in L.A.’s public transportation system, which is hard for us to imagine.

   Venues for the competitions have been identified and will be improved for the 2028 Olympics. We won’t need to build too many new facilities because we already have 10 major league professional sports franchises, and the facilities that they require. Plus, we have many venues for the minor competitions from the 1984 Olympics that are still in use. But we will still need to get around.

   Land was cheap when the L.A. area was developed, so we built out instead of up. Cars were affordable for most people, so L.A. built a freeway system to accommodate them.

   But now land is expensive, and so many cars are bad for our health, so planners are rethinking how to move locals around, as well as visitors.

   Like the Olympics, the system of readings from the Bible used by most churches in the world unites us. What is the best way to get its message around?

   The reading from the Gospels that will be shared this coming Sunday is John 6:51-58.

   It will be the fourth Sunday, out of five in a row, in which the main theme of the Gospel lesson being read around the world will be bread.

   Bread. Bread. Bread. Bread. Bread. 😊

   Why? Because bread is relatable. Bread is a nearly universal daily necessity. It’s the food that everyone knows.

   Even in places where rice is the staple instead of wheat, where Jesus might have said, “I am the rice of life”, people make and eat bread in many forms. In Northern China flat bread, buns, pancakes, stuffed bread, even something like a donut or “churro” are all common.

   In John, chapter 6, verse 51, a verse overlapping from last week’s reading, we see this:

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.”

   We know bread, but what is living bread? We know that bread helps give us life, but what bread can give life to the world?

   Wheat bread will only feed us for this life, but Jesus gives us the bread of life that will endure forever. Jesus gives us himself. Broken and poured out. For you. The living bread that gives us life is the death of Jesus on the cross.

   How can this be? God takes us into the deep water and surface currents of the gospel of John to explain this, in verses 52 through 57:

⁵² The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ⁵³ So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵ for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶ Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 

   So, what is he talking about here? “The Jews” refers to the Jewish leaders, as everybody around Jesus, including Jesus, was Jewish. The leaders argued among themselves about what Jesus was saying. And with good reason.

   The early Christians were accused of cannibalism by their ignorant or hostile opponents. Even today, in places where Christianity is newly forming, Christians are accused of the same thing by those who are hostile to Christianity.

   We know that the forms of bread and wine in the sacrament (sacred event) of Holy Communion don’t chemically change even as Jesus is present in, with, and under those forms.

   But whatever we believe about the mechanics of Holy Communion, we believe it is holy communion. We commune with the one true holy God in a sacrament begun and commanded by Jesus Christ, his living presence in the forms of the bread and wine.

   In this sacrament, as 16^th century Church reformer Martin Luther writes in his Small Catechism, “we receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. For where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.”

   If eating bread and drinking wine did that by itself, we’d have a lot of saved people in this world, but it is not just eating and drinking.

   Luther says, “It is not eating and drinking that does this, but the words, given and shed for you for the remission of sins. [He puts those words in bold.]

   “These words”, he says, “along with eating and drinking are the main thing in the sacrament. And whoever believes these words has exactly what they say, forgiveness of sins.”

   When we say “we believe” we mean more than just intellectual agreement. We mean that we have repented, that we have turned around from everything that draws us away from God, and toward everything that God uses to draw us to God. And we mean that we are defined by a living relationship with the one true living God that makes us naturally want to please God. That’s why we do what we do. And all of it is made possible by Jesus’ death on the cross and the resurrection that validates it. We have been made a new Creation through faith. Jesus gave his life and then took it back again. Jesus is the bread that lives!

   Sally and I have concord grapes growing in our back yard. They were there when we bought the house. The old trunk is huge, and the vines have kind of entwined themselves among many other forms of foliage.

   The grapes are ripe now and they are sweet.  They remind me of the jelly on my favorite sandwich, peanut butter and grape jelly.

   One of my favorites lunches throughout my life has been centered around bread. I prefer fresh whole wheat bread, though a nice double-baked rye bread with caraway seeds is good too. Inside that bread is extra-crunchy peanut butter and Welch’s grape jelly. That Welch is no relation to my wife, Rev. Sally Welch. 😊

   The bread that feeds us in life is rooted both in our physical needs for food and in our emotional needs for connection with our past, and with our culture.

   One of my nieces, an excellent cook, once posted a picture on Instagram of a gourmet pizza that she had made for her lunch. I responded with a description of my lunch: an apple, a piece of string cheese, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She responded, “Uncle David, you’re regressing. That’s the same thing my 8-year-old has for lunch!” 😊 That’s OK, I thought, it feeds me physically and emotionally.

   But bread can feed us in spiritual ways as well. It is the common means by which we uncommonly commune with God in, with, and under those forms of bread and wine (or grape juice).

   Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you,” words he uses when making an official pronouncement, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”

   These are hard words for us to hear and understand. They command our attention. But they convey their message in words that are easy to understand: “living”, “eternal”, and “true”.

   This text from John concludes with the words of Jesus in verse 58:

⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

   Jesus’ presence is not a metaphor, it’s Jesus’ presence even though we aren’t eating flesh and blood. It’s the real presence of God. The forms of bread and wine (or grape juice) don’t change, but Jesus is present in, with, and under those common forms.

   The bread of the ancestors of the Jewish people was manna, the dew-like substance that would spoil in a day that God gave to the children of Israel to eat after he had liberated them from slavery in Egypt. They ate it in the desert, waiting for the promises of God. They learned that God would provide for them every day, and they learned to trust God.

   Jesus is the bread that came down from heaven that lasts forever. He has provided salvation for us on the cross. We open our hearts to receive it, trusting God to keep God’s promises. And we tell others where to receive it.

   There are a lot of people coming to L.A. for the Olympics in 2028.

   There are a lot of people in the L.A. area right now, and every one of them needs to be fed or they will die, and that death will be final and eternal. But Jesus is the living bread. He is the bread that gives eternal life.

   I like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but no matter how many I eat in this life, I will get hungry again, but Jesus gives us the bread that is the cross. The cross is the means by which God reconciled us to Himself, granting life and salvation to all who receive the gift of faith.

   There are a lot of Christians in the L.A. area, and we all need to be regularly fed by God’s Word and the sacrament of Holy Communion. The good news is that, though we too die, our eternal life has already begun. It began in our Baptism.

   But there are people all around us who are starving spiritually. They are frustrated because they cannot come to God, even when they don’t know it.

   But God comes to them. That’s the good news. We can be the means that God works through so that others come to know Jesus.

   D. T. Niles, the 20^th century Celanese (or, today Sri Lankan) evangelist, ecumenical leader, and hymn writer, once said, “Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread”.

   Church reformer Martin Luther said almost the same thing hundreds of years earlier, “We are all mere beggars telling other beggars where to find bread”.

   Let’s think about that for a minute. “Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.”

   That is all we do when we share our faith. We who have been found point the way to receiving Jesus, the bread of life. The bread that came down from heaven and will endure forever.

   Do you remember when Allison Chao, a 15-year-old girl from Monterey Park, went missing a few weeks ago?

   It was on the news every day, presented with a sense of urgency, and people all over Southern California were worried about her. She might have been in danger. She was helpless and needed to be found.

   How can we develop that same sense of urgency for finding the people who are spiritually lost and in great spiritual danger today without Jesus?

   I think that it can only come when we realize how lost we were apart from God and how good God is in seeking us out to bring us into the relationship with God for which we were created. That is our story. The one we share, especially with our friends and family. We once were lost, but now are found by God’s amazing grace!

   I think that Jesus uses such difficult imagery for the meaning of His work on the cross in today’s Gospel lesson because he wants to get   our attention with extreme language in order to convey a sense of urgency for sharing the Good News.

   A sandwich will nourish us for a limited time. Holy Communion gives us a stark contrast between the world that is and the world that is to come, in communion with the real presence of Jesus.

   Share what you have first received. Share the bread that lives: Jesus.