Sermon for August 25, 2024

August 25, 2024

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott


John 6:56-69


And so, we come to the end of this collection of bread gospels—we’ve been hearing about Jesus as bread for six weeks now. We have contemplated what it means to have Jesus nourish us. We have heard the stories of the ways that God has provided sustenance. We have meditated on the idea of Jesus becoming part of our flesh, blood, and bones.

In today’s Gospel, we see two ways of responding to Jesus, and they are often the two ways that we see, regardless of what Jesus is trying to teach. We see disciples who go away saying, “This is too hard,” and we see disciples who stay with Jesus and tell him, “You have the words of eternal life.”

Of course, it’s Peter who proclaims his faith, and yet we know what happens to him. Under pressure, he’ll say that he never knew Jesus. So much for the words of eternal life. What are we to make of this text, where the one who stays by Jesus turns out to be one of the deserters in the end? Did he just not get enough nourishment from Jesus?

And yet, it’s Peter, one of the corner stones of the Church, church with a capital C. If we read the book of Acts, we discover that Peter is able to do all sorts of things that most of us mere mortals would never dream of attempting. We wish we knew the secret that Peter knows. We might wish we could get some of the supercharged bread that Peter has gotten.

Maybe we do and maybe we can.

Peter’s secret is that he returns to Jesus. At his core, he knows that Jesus offers him life. Even when it’s been too hard, even when he’s fallen away, he returns to Jesus. The secret to supercharged bread is to return to Jesus, time and time again. Our circumstances may change, but Jesus will be there, waiting on us, even when we fear we have declined invitations too many times to be welcomed back.

Jesus says we must consume his flesh and blood to be saved, and through the centuries, we’ve interpreted this idea through the lens of sacrament, which is appropriate. This morning, I want to think about this idea through a poetic approach. I want us to think about the different kinds of bread that we have tasted. I want us to think about how these breads represent Christ and the life that Christ offers.

I grew up in small towns in the south, and in the 1970’s, you couldn’t get the kinds of breads that you can get now. We had Wonderbread in grocery stores, and perhaps a whole wheat option, which was really just beige white bread. Grocery stores didn’t have bakeries, and there wasn’t enough interest in bread to open a stand alone bakery. I remember a time that my dad went to Washington D.C. on a business trip and brought back sourdough bread. It was amazing.

Sourdough is an amazing bread that can be made from any yeast spores floating in the air, as our youth sermon experiment shows us. Aficionados will tell you that San Francisco sourdough tastes different from an East Coast sourdough which would taste different from our mountain starter that we have here. These days, we have all sorts of recipes for sourdough starters, but as you can see, all you really need is some flour and water. We’ll see what kind of bread this makes, but it is the kind of bread that sustained pioneers in their long journey across a continent. Similarly, a few weeks ago, you might remember that we had grilled bread, the kind of bread that has sustained people across the globe from the reservations of Native Americans to Middle Eastern populations like the one where Jesus preached to Pakistan and points east. If you can heat up a stone in the fire, you can have this kind of grilled bread.

The nourishment of Jesus and the Christian life has sustained many a population in just this way. We don’t need a cathedral, and we don’t even need to stay in one place. We don’t need fancy equipment. Jesus has given us the basic tools: prayer and service to each other and retreat and more prayer and tending to the charity and justice needs of our larger communities.

For our communion bread most weeks, we have a basic bread made out of oats with some honey and  some brown sugar. It’s a bread that’s not too sweet, with some goodness from whole grains, but with white flour to provide a texture that is less dense. It would make a good sandwich, but it’s also good on its own.

I see this bread as a basic kind of Christian community, the kind that sustained our ancestors here in this county, the kind that sustains much of the Church still. Many sociologists have predicted the death of Christianity as populations became less persecuted. But even as we find ourselves in the enviable position of leading lives relatively free from oppression and brutality, we may find ourselves wondering if this lightweight version of whole grain bread is all there is. But Jesus reminds us that a better life is still possible. We may think that we can make it on our own, and for a time, it may seem that we can. But every life will have some hardship, and when those troubles come, the basic oatmeal bread of Jesus gives us a solid foundation. And even if our troubles seem minor by comparison to the troubles of those who endure slavery or war or displacement, they can still grind us down. Oatmeal bread provides a comfort and nourishment and gives us the strength to keep going.

What does life in Christ taste like when it’s at its best? What do we want our living bread to be for us? Today, we’ll have a different bread for Communion, a pumpkin bread, made with that gourd that is such a nutritional powerhouse. But it doesn’t taste like something that is good for us. No, it’s much more festive, with its cinnamon and nutmeg and other warm spices, with its pecans; it evokes Christmas morning and the first chill of autumn. It’s a good reminder that Christ calls us to an abundant life, a celebration. We often talk about the Christian life as a bedrock foundation to weather the storms of life. But it can be so much more than that.

As I think about the wide variety of bread that we can enjoy, I realize that I could keep this metaphor going: Christian faith as croissant, flaky and light, Christ as a pumpernickel bagel, densely packed with much to chew on. This diversity of bread leads me to reflect on the diversity of ways we have to live out our faith and how the responses of Christ vary—but all are valid. Some of us will fight bravely for justice, following the example set by Jesus. Others of us will follow Christ into the wilderness, knowing the value of contemplation that comes from solitude. Others of us will come to understand our Creator as we engage in acts of creation ourselves.

And we don’t have to choose just one approach. What nourishes and sustains us in one season of life may be different from what has gone before. But like a great bread recipe, we find that the Christian life offers us variations along with guidelines for how to make the most of our time in the kitchen with family and friends or interacting with our community of neighbors.

If we, like those disciples, feel this teaching is too hard, we remember that Jesus offers us life in abundance. Even if we’ve said, “No, I’m on a diet. This bread that you offer is just too much, too expensive, too caloric, too filling” Jesus continues to show up to tantalize us with this bread of eternal life in abundant forms and flavors. Like Peter, we can return to Jesus again and again, saying, “You have the words of eternal life.” Like Peter, and generations of Christians who come after him, we can realize that there’s no place else to go—and nowhere we’d rather be. Nothing else can nourish and sustain us the way that the bread of Jesus does.