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.