The Bread of Life

A sermon preached this past Sunday at Church of the Incarnation as part of a sermon series, "Food & Faith." Listen here.

Today's the last of our food & faith sermon series, so I thought I'd begin by talking about bread. Humans have been eating bread for milennia—but 20^th-century Americans were the first to eat sliced bread. Factory-made, soft, pre-sliced and pre-wrapped—is there anything better than sliced bread?

The first company to sell sliced bread was Wonder Bakers, the makers of Wonder Bread. Wonder Bread is the iconic sliced bread, with its logo of blue, red, and yellow balloons and its brilliant advertising slogans: “Wonder Bread builds strong bodies in 8 ways.” (Later, when they figured out how to inject even more artificial vitamins, it became, “Wonder Bread builds strong bodies in 12 ways.”) Wonder Bread is pretty remarkable really; apparently, it’s even been used as a sponge to clean the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.[1]

                                                                                                              

But we’ve just heard about some even more wonderful bread. Bread that's a cause for real wonder. Bread that makes people scratch their heads and ask, "What is it?" Bread so full of wonder that its name is a question.

I'm talking of course about manna, the mysterious, previously unknown food God provided the people of Israel in the wilderness. Manna appeared on the ground after the dew—“a fine, flake-like thing, fine as hoarfrost on the ground." The Israelites didn't know what it was so they named it "Watchamacallit." That's roughly what the word "manna" means in Hebrew: "whatchamacallit," "what's-it."[2]

We still don't know what it is. Some speculate that manna was honeydew, a sugary sticky liquid secreted by a particular kind of bug—that's right, bug poop. After all, that stuff is called "manna" in some Semitic languages. Or perhaps manna was something wholly new and miraculous. The psalmist calls it "the bread of angels." Whatever it was, angel's bread or bug poop, manna was white, reminded the people of Israel of coriander seed, and tasted like wafers made with honey (cf. Ex. 16:31). Some say that it tasted like whatever you liked best—like something from Willa Wonka's chocolate factory.

The manna came every day, and everyone could gather what they needed. But only what they needed—any leftover spoiled. The only exception was the sixth day of the week, when they could gather enough manna for two days, so that they didn't have to gather food on the seventh day, the sabbath. Israel ate manna for forty years while they wandered in the wilderness; it ended when they came to the Promised Land.

Manna was God's provision to feed his people in the wilderness. It was their daily bread given to sustain their lives in the desert. God gave his people manna that they might live; he rained down "bread from heaven" for his people to eat.

As "bread from heaven", manna points beyond itself. It points to Jesus.

In today's Gospel lesson, we heard how Christ identifies himself as "the true bread from heaven," the bread that "gives life to the world." Like the manna, "the bread from heaven," the Lord Jesus came down from heaven and become incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man. And just as the manna gave life to the people of Israel in the wilderness, so Christ Jesus gives life to the world.

Yet Jesus is better than manna—better even than sliced bread—because the life he gives does not end with death and because he satisfies our hungers. The people of Israel ate manna in the wilderness and they died, but Christ is the bread "which comes down from heaven" and whoever "eats this  bread will live forever" (Jn 6:58). The life Jesus gives outlasts death, because "by his death he has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again he has won for us everlasting life.”[3] Christ is more wondrous than manna—those who ate manna were hungry day after day, but those who feed on Christ Jesus will neither hunger nor thirst.

In the wilderness, Israel was hungry. Real hungry. Hungry enough to get a little desparate. Hungry enough that the grumbling of their stomachs consumed all memory of God's power in bringing them out of Egypt. The Plagues, the parting of the Red Sea—what are these when you're hungry to death? Believe you me, Israel was hungry in the wilderness.

The crowds alongside the sea of Galilee, across the way from Capernaum, were hungry, too. They'd just witnessed Jesus feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish, and there were lots of leftovers, but they hadn't had enough. Like Mick Jagger, they can't get no satisfaction—so they're looking for Jesus, hoping for more of the same, looking, in short, for "bread and circuses." Hungry for free food and a little excitement, smelling a little like teen spirit, singing that old Nirvana song, "here we are now; entertain us."

The crowd was hungry. Israel was hungry.

Maybe you're hungry, too. I'm not talking about physical hunger—I doubt any of you here are that kind of hungry—although now that I've mentioned it, you're probably only going to be thinking about lunch! I’m not talking about that kind of hunger; I'm talking about a deeper hunger. Call it spiritual hunger, if you want. Whatever you call it, if you're this kind of hungry, you know what I mean.

Maybe you're hungry to feed an addiction. Maybe you're hungry for sex, hungry for money, hungry for power; hungry for knowledge or meaning. Maybe you’re hungry to make sense of your identity. Maybe your debt is gnawing at you.

Or maybe you're hungry for peace, for a little bit of hope, for a return of joy. Maybe you're hungry for love. Maybe you’re hungry for righteousness or justice or truth.

But then again, maybe you don't feel hungry at all. You've eaten and had your fill; you're feeling fat and happy. Maybe you're satisfied with what you have or with what you can get. Maybe you're even a little complacent, feeling a little drowsy, leaning back in your chair, unbuckling your belt. However you slice it, you're not hungry.

Whether you're hungry or not, Jesus says to you today, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst." His words are for all of us. If you're hungry, hear this: Jesus will satisfy your desires. If you've eaten your fill, hear this: You'll always need more of him.

Jesus is the bread of life. Whoever comes to him will never hunger, and whoever believes in him will never thirst. But how does Christ satisfy our hunger and thirst?

Think about what hunger and thirst are for, about why we eat and drink. Most simply, we eat and drink to live. Our most basic hunger is for life. It's a hunger we humans share with all other living creatures. All living creatures—from the tiniest phytoplankton to the greatest blue whale, from house plants to homo sapiens—unconsciously or consciously—seek to live. All creatures hunger for life, because no creature has life in itself. The life of all creatures comes from the outside. The need all creatures have for some source of nutrition makes this absolutely clear; if we do not eat, we die.

All creatures receive their life from God, who is the Giver of Life. As Creator, God is absolutely and qualitatively different from all his creatures. God alone has life in himself. God's creatures do not; we live only insofar as he gives us life. As the psalmist puts it, "with you is the well of life" (Ps. 36:9). All God's creatures depend absolutely on God, looking to God "to give them their food in due season," as another psalm has it (Ps. 105:28). As creatures, our life comes as a gift from God the Giver of Life.

And so our hunger for life is ultimately a hunger for God, who is Life itself.

We’re all of us hungry for God.

Trouble is, we deny that hunger, that need. Our basic sin is to turn away from God, to turn, in our pride and self-deception, from the "well of life" and strike out to live from our own resources and for ourselves. Of course that doesn't work out so well—even if we don’t realize it. Our need for God is absolute; we need him more than bread; we are literally nothing without him. Deep down the hunger for God continually gnaws at us, try as we might to ignore it or to take the edge off by "eating" lesser things. But nothing other than God himself satisfies that hunger or slakes that thirst.

Here’s an illustration of what I mean: Audra and I once lived in Russia for a few months. After we’d been in Moscow a while, we got hungry for fajitas, and so we went shopping for tortillas. But we couldn’t find any! not even in high-end grocery stores. No tortillas, anywhere. Finally we settled on a substitute: lavaash—a thin, flat bread from central Asia that comes folded up because one piece is roughly a square meter in size. Now, I like lavaash a lot—but it’s a lousy substitute for a tortilla. It gets all mushy and falls apart. And that’s not what you want when you’re eating fajitas. Only an actual tortilla will do; there’s just no substitute for the real thing.

So, too, there’s no substitute for God himself. Nowhere else will we find the life we’re hungry for. Still, we're pretty good at distracting ourselves from that hunger for God at the core of our being—and our culture is particularly adept at producing cheap imitations—so many Wonder Breads—that can for a time produce the illusion of fullness. Half asleep, we wander in a wilderness.

That's why we so desperately need to hear Jesus saying, "I am the bread of life." Because in saying this, Christ identifies himself as the source of life. And he reminds us that we are indeed hungry. He reminds us that we do not have life from ourselves, but live only by God's gracious gift. He teaches us that we do not live by bread alone, but by him. As Augustine says, "We live by him, by eating him; that is, by receiving himself as the life we do not have from ourselves."[4] Christ is the bread of life; when we feed on him, he satisfies our hunger.

Christ is the bread of life; he gives himself for our nourishment; he gives himself for us to eat. We eat him when we believe in him, when we find our refuge in him. We eat him when we obey his teaching, when we walk in his Way, when we heed his voice. We eat him when we ruminate on Scripture, because he is the Word of God that all Scripture speaks. We eat him in prayer, eat him when he feeds us with his Body and Blood. Christ is the bread of life; he gives us everything we need. He is our Life.

In a few minutes, when we come to Communion, I’ll hold up a wafer of bread and say to you, "The Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven." It's true. Christ Jesus feeds us in this Bread and this Wine.

So, come on! Come eat your fill of the Bread of Life.

Come, if you're hungry. Come seeking Christ for his own sake, not for something else[5]—he alone will satisfy. Remember all that he has done for you, humbling himself, dying and rising for you, giving you new life.

Come, even if you're full, if you're not feeling hungry. You, too, come with empty hands. You, too, need to eat. You, too, need the nourishment Christ gives. Your life also is a gift.

To all of us, Jesus says, "I am the bread of life.” So, let’s eat!

Amen.

---

[1] Art Morella, “How the Phrase ‘The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread’ Originated,” The Atlantic (Feb 8, 2012).

[2] Nahum Sarna, Exploring Exodus.

[3] Preface for Easter, The Book of Common Prayer 1979.

[4] Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John 26.19.

[5] Cf. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John 25.2.

Setting the Lord's Table: Reflections on Altar Guild Ministry

Detail of miniature of the Marriage of the Lamb, "Dyson Perrins Apocalypse"
(England, 13th c.) [J. Paul Getty Museum]

by Audra Yoder

I

Feasts hosted by lords or kings in medieval England were occasions of great pomp and ceremony. Elaborate rituals governed every aspect of the decking of a great feudal hall. The rites of preparation began in the morning with the laying of the tablecloth, and culminated in the evening with the ceremonial uncovering of the lord’s bread and utensils in preparation for eating.

The retainers charged with the task of laying the tablecloth had the highest honor. While the hall was being prepared, these retainers—known collectively as the “affinity” of their lord—were required and expected to behave as though they were in the presence of the lord himself. They were to bow, to avoid turning their backs to the high table, and to observe every detail of etiquette even in their master’s absence. In ceremonial practice, the presence of the lord’s table was equivalent to the presence of the lord himself.

In the same way, altar guilds are charged with assuming the Lord’s presence as they handle his dishes and table linens. As a generous host delights both in the anticipation of beloved guests and in their presence, altar guild members solemnly rejoice in the preparation of the Table, knowing that its Guest and Head is already present. When we approach Christ’s Table, we approach Christ himself. The technicalities of our Eucharistic theology ought not to affect how we behave in the Lord’s presence.

There is a unique joy in altar guild ministry, because it affords the opportunity of serving Christ, the clergy, and fellow parishioners on different levels simultaneously. In a lower sense than the Sacrament itself, altar guild service brings into being that which it represents—the communal Supper of the Lamb. Truly, those with whom we Commune are our companions in the highest sense—the word “companion” means literally “one who breaks bread with another.” In the Eucharist, Christ is simultaneously the Host, the Guest of honor, and the Meal itself. Like the medieval host, he shares his bread with his companions in order to communicate and realize two essential truths: that he is the provider of the food, and the one who elevates his companions by sharing his bread, and by extension his life, with them.

II

In 1939, a German sociologist named Norbert Elias published a massive work that would later be translated into English as The Civilizing Process. Elias attempted to trace the evolution of modern manners and thereby to articulate what exactly differentiated the “civilized” from the “uncivilized” in the European mind. Like any good scholar, Elias avoided placing value judgments on changes wrought by centuries-long historical processes. Still, it seems to me that some of his arguments point to what our contemporary society has to gain by communing together at the Eucharist:

“People who ate together in the way customary in the Middle Ages, taking meat with their fingers from the same dish, wine from the same goblet, soup from the same pot or the same plate…such people stood in a different relationship to one another than we do. And this involves not only the level of clear, rational consciousness; their emotional life also had a different structure and character. Their affects were conditioned to forms of relationship and conduct which, by today’s standard of conditioning, are embarrassing or at least unattractive. What was lacking in this courtois world, or at least had not been developed to the same degree, was the invisible wall of affects which seems now to rise between one human body and another, repelling and separating, the wall which is often perceptible today at the mere approach of something that has been in contact with the mouth or hands of someone else, and which manifests itself as embarrassment at the mere sight of many bodily functions of others, and often at their mere mention, or as a feeling of shame when one’s own functions are exposed to the gaze of others, and by no means only then.” [1]

A great deal has been written on the multitude of ways in which the Eucharist breaks down barriers between people, and between people and God. I am expressing no new insight when I say that the Eucharist both transcends and transforms human cultures, overcoming prejudices and divisions wrought by sin and uniting people to each other and to God. Just as Christ’s Incarnation shattered the barrier between human flesh and Divinity, the Eucharist feeds and unites us physically and spiritually, nourishing our whole selves, our souls, bodies, and relationships.


[1] Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, vol. 1, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 60. I hope readers can forgive me for taking Elias’ words out of context and using them in a way he certainly did not intend. The entire work is a most thought-provoking and interesting read, and remains very influential, although sociologists and historians today object to his arguments and methodology.

Paschal Meditation: By the Sea of Tiberias

Detail of miniature, S. Netherlands, 15th c.

I

“Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach” (Jn. 21:4).  As the day dawns, “the bright morning star” (Rev. 22:16, cf. 2 Pt. 1:19), the light who is not overcome by darkness, the risen Lord, stands on the shore.  He stood by the Sea of Tiberias, and they saw his glory, but they did not yet “see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:2), as he will be revealed on that other shore of “the end of the age” (cf. Mt. 13:47–50).  It is not yet that Day when “there will be no more night,” but very early in the morning they glimpse the one who “will be their light” (Rev. 22:5).

II

By the Sea of Tiberias, Jesus says to the seven disciples, “Come and have breakfast” (Jn. 21:12).  They saw “a charcoal fire” with “fish on it, and bread,” provided by the Lord himself; to these he asks them to add some of the one hundred and fifty-three fish they had just caught at his word (21:9–10).  And as he did by the same sea before his resurrection (6:1–13), the risen Lord “took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish” (21:13).  He who said, “Whoever eats me will live because of me” (6:57), feeds the seven by the sea.  

III

The seven are fed by the risen Lord, “the Fish, which was raised from the deep to be the food” of the faithful.*  Jesus, “the bread that came down from heaven” (6:58), feeds them.  To what he himself provides, he adds the fish received as his gift.  He feeds them that they might “abide in him” and he in them (6:56).  As Augustine puts it, “The fish roasted is Christ having suffered; he himself also is the bread that comes down from heaven.  With him is incorporated the Church to participate in everlasting blessedness.”†  The breakfast on the beach is a foretaste of “the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:9).

* Augustine, Conf. 13.23.34.

† Augustine, Io. ev. tr. 123.2: “Piscis assus, Christus est passus. Ipse est et panis qui de coelo descendit. Huic incorporatur Ecclesia ad participandam beatitudinem sempiternam.”

The Ascension

Today is the feast of the Ascension.  What do Christians mean when we confess our faith that the crucified and risen Jesus has "ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father"?

Over the last year or so I have wondered a lot about this question, which seems to fall under what Fergus Kerr calls "philosophy of theology."  That is, Christian confession of the Ascension raises a number of philosophical questions for theologians to face squarely.  The Ascension also presses questions of what we mean by "heaven" and in speaking of whether and how Christ is present in the Eucharist.

One common objection to the doctrine of the Ascension in the modern era is that it seems to hinge upon a cosmology that modern science has shown to be false.  But the logic of the doctrine of the Ascension does not require a view of the universe in which heaven is (literally) above the earth.  I love the Orthodox icons of the Ascension precisely because the iconography suggests that the ascension entails Jesus entering God's dimension, as it were.  The deep blue shape behind the ascending Jesus suggests a parting of the veil of the cosmos, affording a glimpse into the presence of the Almighty, thronging with mysterious winged creatures.  Another way to think of the Ascension might be in terms of time rather than space: Jesus has entered God's future, and we await our Lord's return to bring to fulfillment that future which began dawning during his earthly ministry.

On the Feast of the Ascension, Christians celebrate the risen Jesus, in the fullness of his humanity, returning to the bosom of the Father "to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing" (Rev. 5:12) and to send the Holy Spirit.  This Feast is about the victory of the Lamb who was slain: Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur.

Liturgy and the Parousia

“The motif of the Parousia becomes the obligation to live the Liturgy as a feast of hope-filled presence directed towards Christ, the universal ruler.  In this way, it must become the origin and focus of the love in which the Lord can take up his dwelling.  In his Cross, the Lord has preceded us so to prepare for us a place in the house of the Father.  In the Liturgy the Church should, as it were, in following him, prepare for him a dwelling in the world.  The theme of watchfulness thus penetrates to the point where it takes on the character of a mission: to let the Liturgy be real, until that time when the Lord himself gives to it that final reality which meanwhile can be sought only in image.” 
- Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life

As part of my internship this summer, I've been teaching a class on eschatology (we're calling it "The End of the World").  I have made use of Joseph Ratzinger's brilliant textbook, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, which he wrote for the Dogmatic Theology series, edited by himself and Johann Auer.  As previous posts may suggest, I have found it to be full of extraordinarily rich theological insights.

The above passage is a good example of the richness of Ratzinger's theological vision, and one that has made me look at the liturgy in a new light.  For Ratzinger, the Eucharistic Liturgy figures the Parousia and the Parousia interprets the liturgy.  That is, insofar as Jesus is present in the bread and wine, the Liturgy is an actual foretaste of the Lord's second advent.  Therefore, the Eucharistic Liturgy is an image of the Parousia, of that great Day when the Lord will return in power and glory to "judge the quick and the dead." 

The Eucharist then is not only about remembrance, anamnesis, of Christ's life, death, resurrection and ascension, but it is also a looking forward.  As one of the eucharistic prayers in the Prayer Book has it, we come to the Table (which is also called the altar because on it we remember the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ, the true Paschal Lamb, who is also the one true Priest) "looking for his coming again with power and great glory."  Before this we say, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,” echoing the words of the crowds who greeted Jesus as he went to the Cross, and welcoming his presence as the Host of the marriage-supper of the Lamb of which the Eucharist is a foretaste.

Coming to the Eucharist with these ideas rattling around in my head has helped me appreciate both the solemnity and the joy of it.  As Geoffrey Wainwright, in his nourishing study Eucharist and Eschatology, writes:

"In the eucharist the Lord comes to judge and to recreate; to cast out what remains of unrighteousness in His people, and to continue the work of renewal begun in baptism; to threaten the world with an end to its old existence, and to give it the promise, through the new use to which bread and wine is put, of attaining to its true destiny."  

In other words, solemnity, because if the liturgy is a Parousia in miniature, then it is also a moment of judgment.  Joy, because the heart of  Christian hope is expressed in the cry, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!" (1 Cor 16:22; Rev 22:20).