The Ninth Sunday After Pentecost 2 Samuel 11: 26 – 12: 13a

Sunday, August 2, 2009 Ephesians 4: 1 – 16

The Rev. Bambi Willis John 6: 24 – 35

Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”

John 6: 26

Some years ago an elementary school teacher was teaching his class about road signs. He first held up a red octagon and asked what the sign meant. The class responded in unison: “Stop.” He then held up a yellow circle with a black X running through it and the letter “R” in two of the quadrants and most of the class said “Railroad crossing.” Finally he held up a yellow square with an image of a car and driver in the middle. Two squiggly lines ran out from behind the car. “Does anyone know what this sign means?” he queried. No one in the class said anything for awhile until one young boy offered: “Watch out! Snakes following behind.” We can only hope that by the time that young man learns to drive he will learn squiggly lines mean slippery roads not snakes.

Signs are a kind of short hand, pointing beyond themselves to a deeper level of meaning. Some signs, like road signs, have a single meaning – we all know that a red octagon means “Stop.” But other signs, like the American flag or a wedding ring, carry multiple layers of meaning. The American flag can mean the land that lies between Mexico to the south and Canada to the north; the flag can also mean freedom and democracy and a particular way of life. A wedding ring can mean that I am entitled by law to make decisions on behalf of another in the event they cannot make decisions for themselves; a wedding ring can also be a sign of faithfulness and love. Flags and wedding rings evoke more than one meaning.

In our reading from the gospel of John this morning Jesus chides the crowds who are following him saying: “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” The crowds are among those five thousand people who feasted just the day before on a miraculous abundance of bread and fish. Jesus seems to be saying that the feeding of the five thousand was much more than just a free meal.

In the gospel of John, unlike the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, we do not have a story about Jesus taking bread on the night before he died and saying to his disciples: “Take, eat: this is my body. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the gospel of John at the Last Supper, Jesus washes the feet of the disciples and tells them to love one another as he has loved them. In the gospel of John, the closest we have to the drama we act out every Sunday in the Eucharist is the story of the feeding of the five thousand.

All four gospels have in common a story the story of the feeding of the five thousand; in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, we have in addition, a meal shared by only the disciples and Jesus on the night before Jesus dies in which Jesus gives the meal, the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine a new meaning, a symbol of his life and death. In the gospel of John, we have only the story of the feeding of the five thousand and now Jesus’ declaration: “I am the bread of life.”

For our evangelist John, the feeding of the five thousand is a sign of God’s desire to be for us, a symbol of our communion with God through, by, and in the work of Christ. God wants us to live, not die, and hosting five thousand for dinner through the ministrations of Jesus is the way God chose to communicate that message.

For our evangelist John, as others before him, a shared meal was a sign of hospitality and friendship. We all need to eat in order to live but we do not need to eat with others. Eating with others maintains not only our biological needs but invites us into conversation, to share ourselves with others, to pontificate and negotiate, to review our days and make plans for the day to come, to give advice and get advice, to laugh and to cry, to pass along to the next generation the traditions of our families and to hear from them that eating together is boring, better replaced by Facebook and Twitter. A shared meal is a symbol, a symbol of our desire to be with others around our common need to eat.

So, on one level, our weekly Eucharist is about sharing a meal with others, a very token meal for sure, but bread and wine nonetheless. Our Eucharist is a shared meal, even if the wafers at 8:30 look nothing like what you would offer to a guest in your own home. Be that as it may, the Eucharist is a meal, a meal shared with others, and is a sign of hospitality and friendship in much the same way every invitation to dinner (or lunch) is a sign of a desire not just to eat but to include others in our life, a symbol of our desire to be with others.

But now John says something incredible: “I am the bread of life.” The bread we share, the food that brings us to life is Christ. Christ is God’s desire for us to live as the creatures God created us to be, creatures made for communion with God and one another. In Christ, God reveals God’s desire to be with us and for us and for us to be with and for one another. In Christ true human being is revealed to be life lived in communion, not in isolation, in relationships determined by love not fear, by sharing ourselves with one another, not using others to meet our needs.

The Eucharist is a divine drama, a mystery that reveals God to us in the life and death of Christ. In Christ, God reaches out to us, inviting us to find our life not on our own terms but on God’s. In Christ, God reveals a world in which people are not just nice to each other but love each other, loving to the point of suffering for one another. In the Eucharist, this world is exposed as a place in which we are afraid of one another, fearful that if we really share ourselves with others we will be ridiculed or dismissed or possibly exploited.

The Eucharist is a sign of a kingdom yet to come, a kingdom God, not us, will bring into being. In Christ God reveals God’s kingdom to us and human being as God created humanity to be, a way of being together you and I can only imagine. The Eucharist is a foretaste and always is celebrated under the shadow of the cross. Christ suffered death not because people were not being nice to each other but because God refused to return evil for evil. Christ laid down his life, the gospel of John tells us: “No one takes it from me.” The church can get into a lot of trouble and often has when we forget that Christ was crucified precisely by the “good” people, the “religious” people. Jesus’ life and death was, and continues to be, a threat to a world in which only the strong survive and love has been reduced to a warm and fuzzy feeling.

We are fed this morning and every Sunday, not with five barley loaves and two fish as on the day Jesus fed the five thousand, but with bread and wine. The bread and the wine are sacramental, “outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace,” the grace of God in revealing Godself to us in the life, death and resurrection of Christ, the revelation of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a communion of love into which by grace we are invited to share in and show forth. We take part in this holy eucharist so that we might become bread and wine to the whole world, instruments of God’s love, mercy and peace, signs and symbols to others of Christ.

One day we will not need signs, symbols, and sacraments. One day, God will be all in all and what we can only barely imagine now will be. One day the whole world will be gathered together as one, fed by the hand of God, satisfied to the full. “For now, we see in a mirror, dimly,” writes Paul, “but then we will see face to face. Now I only know in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” For now, we must use signs and symbols – a sanctuary, a bit of bread, a sip of wine, an empty cross, a baptismal font, a holy table. For now, breaking bread together is the sign of the mystery of faith: Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.