GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD…
When I hold a hockey puck in my hands, it’s just a hockey puck. But when you place that hockey puck in the hands of Team Canada…aaahhhh, it’s just a hockey puck. It should have been a thing of beauty. Put a paintbrush in any of our hands and you might just paint a wall or two by sundown. But put a paintbrush in the hands of Rembrandt and you get a masterpiece. Place a gun in the hands of a hunter and it becomes a tool used for sport or obtaining food. But place that same gun in the hands of Dick Cheney and you better duck (excuse the pun). Quite simply, it depends on who’s holding these tools and how they use them that make the difference. In the right hands you get amazing results.
Put a small loaf of bread in the hands of Jesus and he makes a meal for thousands. Imagine what would happen if we put our limited resources in the hands of Jesus. Every Sunday that I preach I pray this prayer in a variety of forms: “Lord, take these empty words and make them mean something to someone.” And someone is usually encouraged or challenged or provoked to further thinking. It’s not my doing; I say “thank you” but Jesus deserves any credit. Imagine what would happen if you gave him your little bit.
But we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread…” and we can say this prayer two ways. We can pray like Jesus taught us to pray. Or we make it a demand… “Give us what we want. If you don’t, I won’t be faithful, I won’t believe in you.” We demand everything but we hesitate to put anything in his hands.
In the fourth sign John records, we see a beautiful miracle that teaches us something about Jesus and his ability to provide. We also will see that, like the other signs, there is something that disturbs us and challenges our willingness to follow Jesus. This is a simple story from our Sunday School lessons, but as we enter into it, ask the Lord to make this little lesson a lot for you.
1. Why were the crowds following Jesus?
This simple story seems to have been very important to the gospel writers in the first century. Other than the death and resurrection, this is the only miracle that all four gospels record. That should tell us something about this event. For John it follows the healing of the lame man and the explanation he gave for doing this on the Sabbath.
“Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee…and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover feast was near.”
Why were the crowds following Jesus? The answer is obvious: though John records only 7 signs for the purpose of this gospel, Jesus was healing a lot of people and doing amazing things. This story indicates that 5000 men were fed at this meeting, and every writer I have read insists that there were thousands more women and children besides. So approximately 10000 people followed Jesus around the shoreline of the Sea, about 12 miles around, and met him at the other side.
Can you imagine that many people leaving their work to go and follow a guy around? John also tells us that it was almost time for Passover, which means that these people were ignoring the most patriotic festival of the Jew to run after the miracle man. That’s like Americans ignoring July 4th to watch the Canadian House of Commons (though nothing miraculous happens there).
Why were the crowds following Jesus? Quite simply, they wanted to see the next trick. To be fair, some were amazed at Jesus’ teaching and his authority. But it was not a matter of belief; it was a matter of curiosity, piqued interest, fascination. Some were wondering whether Jesus might be the next in a long line of rebels to threaten the ruling powers. This could be exciting, they thought.
2. “Do we have enough?”
“When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.”
Jesus knew it was Passover time and so he decided to make a point with this crowd and reveal something of himself to them. But he also wanted to make a point with his disciples. That is why he asked Philip about the food. You see, Philip was a quiet, methodical type who figured things out. He calculated the problem in his head and said, “Can’t do it!” His mental math took into consideration the number of disciples times the amount of people plus labor, overtime and said there is not enough.
Andrew goes through the crowd to see if anyone brought a lunch to share. It is no wonder that Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland: He is not interested in spending money to feed the crowd. (He could be the Mennonite patron saint too). Ray Stedman says that Andrew uses a Scottish expression here concerning the boy he found with the lunch. He said, “Lord, there is a wee laddie here and he has five loaves of bread and two wee fishes.” But even then there is doubt in his voice…how could this feed everyone?
“Do we have enough?” That is the perpetual question in church too. If like Philip we do the calculations, if we need to see the outcome before we start the venture, then there is never enough. We look at our talents, our gifts, and we feel inadequate to serve, to lead. It’s not enough. If you are the kind of person who has to know how it will all turn out ahead of time, you will never take the job, the position in church, and you will never know the joy of living by faith. We can look at our Church Growth project and say “2.5 million dollars”, calculate in our mind how that works out, and we will wonder “where will this money come from?” Do we have enough? But if God has put this on our hearts, and we see this as a tool to open our church to the community by providing space for them to come, a building to use for events, a motivation for us to reach out, will God not provide? Or is this naïve? But the question, whether it is about you or about the Church, is always…do we have enough?
3. More than enough…but not enough
Well you know what happens. Jesus has everyone sit down and he takes the wee lunch and gives thanks. He probably said, “Baruch atah Adonai, elohenu melech ha’olam. Ha moatzi lechem min ha’aretz,” which means “Thanks God for the bread.” He blesses God in his prayer for his wonderful provision, not the bread itself.
How exactly Jesus performs this miracle is a mystery. Mark’s account in the Greek gives the impression that Jesus broke the bread once but kept on giving the bread as there was need. And they all were fed until they had enough. Middle Eastern custom requires you burp when satisfied. And there were 10000 people who were very satisfied.
There was more than enough bread and fish. But it really wasn’t enough. They would be hungry again. These people could not live on signs and wonders, they needed more. And Jesus was showing them more than bread, he was showing them himself in this miraculous feeding.
Remember the Jewish Passover was near. Jesus leads these people into the wilderness, just like Moses led the Israelites into the desert. And just like Moses asked God to send manna from heaven, Jesus provided bread from heaven. But Moses goes up on the mountain to give the law, while Jesus goes up on the mountain to give life through the Spirit. Moses delivered them from Egypt but Jesus can deliver them from the death of sin. The imagery is unmistakable. Even the twelve baskets of leftovers symbolizes the new Israel Jesus is creating out of people who follow him.
But these people could not see past the bread and the other signs. They were caught up in their own preconceived ideas about who Jesus was and could not see the truth. Jesus even dumbs it down for them when they find him again. Jesus told them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty…Your forefathers at the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread…” (6:35, 48-51). Don’t you get it?
We are not always so smart ourselves. We don’t always see the truth either. Take heaven for instance. We look forward to heaven because there will be no more pain, we will have a perfect body without those aches and shakes. We won’t have problems and we will have a great place to live. And if you go to heaven and enter with that attitude, the angels will say to, “Oh sure, it’s all about you.” Excuse me? That’s right, it’s all about you. When we get there we are going to realize quite jarringly that it is all about Jesus. We’re the guests, but it’s his party. Forget the crown, forget the new body…only one thing matters and that’s Jesus. Being with Jesus should be all we want.
Now, come back to earth. It’s no different. It’s not about what Jesus can do for you per se, that’s not the focus anyways. The focus is Jesus. Look past the bread and the prayers for this and that, and look full on Jesus. Christianity is too much about us and not enough about Jesus.
Let me change what I said before…you won’t get to heaven if it’s all about you.
4. Why are you following Jesus?
“After the people saw this miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.’ Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.”
The conclusion that the people came to was not too far off. They were right that Jesus was the Prophet of Deuteronomy 18:15: “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him,” Moses said.
These people were the poorest of the poor. The barley loaves the little boy gave up were poor man’s bread. If anyone could make a feast out of such meager resources, he should be king, they thought. And they were ready to make Jesus their king by force if necessary.
Certainly Jesus wanted to be their king, but he said to them, “…you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill…” What was the crowd’s response? Show us a sign so that we will believe you. Show you a sign?
Instead Jesus’ words are offensive, repulsive and even gross. “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” You hear communion; they heard cannibalism. You think bread and juice; they would have thought of the movie “Alive” where a South American soccer team’s plane crashes in the Andes Mountains and they are forced to eat the dead. It’s revolting.
As a result, if you read the end of chapter 6, many of Jesus’ disciples turn away from him. Jesus even has to ask if his original twelve want to leave him. But they respond “Lord, to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
His words are offensive at times. I preached on his turning water into wine and some of you thought I was telling you to drink wine. I preached “pick up your mat and walk” and some thought I was insensitive to the truly helpless. Jesus’ words do that – they prick at our sore spots. I unpacked the peace position some time ago and now am I a warmonger? Jesus didn’t want a throng of people following him because he did nice things. So he told the truth and the truth swept some of them away. He took away that which we thought was safe to reveal how insecure we are. He knocked down our pet subjects to show that what we really need is Jesus alone.
Eat my flesh; drink my blood – that’s not a rallying call. Eat my flesh…consume me, be consumed by me, Jesus says. For I am life and you will know life when you give your all to me.
Why are you following Jesus?
Are you following him because he gives you daily bread? Jesus is safe; a safe place to run when things don’t go our way. And we pray for daily bread, for what we need.
Are you following him because he is a king? Maybe, but we can force him into a place that he doesn’t want to be. He wants to be lord of your whole life, not just part of it, not just for politics sake, or here in church…he wants to be Lord of all your life.
Are you willing to give him your little, no matter how vulnerable it makes you feel? Can you give him your feeble gift believing he will make it great? Give him your finances so that he can build his kingdom? Give him what little you have? Will you?
Will you eat his flesh and drink his blood?
In his best selling book called, “Into Thin Air,” Jon Krakauer relates the hazards that plagued some climbers as they attempted to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Andy Harris, one of the expedition leaders stayed at the peak too long and on his descent, he became in dire need of oxygen.
Harris radioed the base camp and told them about his predicament. He mentioned that he had come across a cache of oxygen canisters left by the other climbers but they were all empty. The climbers who already passed the canisters on their own descent knew they were not empty, but full. They pleaded with him on the radio to make use of them but it was to no avail. Harris was starved for oxygen but he continued to argue that the canisters were empty.
The problem was that the lack of what he needed had so disoriented his mind that though he was surrounded by something that would give him life, he continued to complain of its absence. You might say that the very thing he held in his hand was absent in his brain. The lack of oxygen had ravaged his capacity to recognize what was right in front of him. What oxygen is to the body, the Bread of Life is to the soul. Many of us are suffocating and starving and we don’t even know it. We think we have Jesus figured out but we might be way off. Jesus is offering life to us while we run around trying to appease our appetites.
Give us this day our daily bread…give us Jesus, as we give ourselves to him.
AMEN
