Bread of Life

The Orangeburg Series

Readers of past posts may recognize sermons in this series. To anyone who may be disappointed to see a "rerun," I apologize. I dare say, however, that for a preacher, revisiting familiar sermonic ground is as delightful an experience as a walk in a familiar wood or a stroll on a favorite beach.

October 2, 2011
John 6:22-35,47-51

Have you ever been hungry? Have you ever experienced that gnawing feeling eating at you because you haven’t eaten? Every one of us has been hungry at one time or another. Some people are hungry on a regular basis. According to the most recent comprehensive study of hunger in America, “one in six Americans. . . . cannot make ends meet and are forced to go without food for several meals, or even days.” Fifty 50 million Americans—33 million adults and 17 million children experience hunger regularly.

In the New Testament, all four gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—tell us that one part of Jesus’ earthly ministry was feeding the hungry. Again and again in the gospels, Jesus is said to have had compassion for the people he saw. He had compassion for people who were sick (Matthew 14:14) and compassion for people who were blind (Matthew 20:34) and compassion for people who were grieving (Luke 7:13) and compassion for people who were “harassed and helpless” (Matthew 9:36); and he had compassion, we are told, for people who were hungry (Matthew 15:32; Mark 8:2), and he fed them.

The good folk of First Baptist Orangeburg who gather on Thursdays to prepare and serve a hot meal to anyone in need, “anyone” numbering anywhere 125 to 175 people a week, are continuing the ministry of Jesus by feeding the hungry. And so do the good folk of First Baptist Orangeburg who gather in this space at 8:45 and 11:00 on Sunday mornings for the worship of God. “One does not live by bread alone” (Luke 4:4), Jesus said, quoting the book of Deuteronomy (8:3). Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6): blessed are those who hunger and thirst for right relationship with God and right relationship with the people around them.

You see, Jesus recognized that there is a spiritual hunger and there is a spiritual thirst that are every bit as real and powerful as physical hunger and physical thirst. And that’s why the meal-plan at First Baptist Orangeburg offers physical food on Wednesday evenings and Thursdays afternoons and spiritual food on Sundays.

In chapter 6 of the gospel according to John, the day after Jesus satisfied the physical hunger of a large crowd of people who were following him, the conversation turns from physical bread to spiritual bread. In verse 27, Jesus says to those who have come looking for him on the day after the feeding, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.” “For the bread of God,” Jesus says, “is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Those who had come looking for him “said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’ Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’” (vv 33-35).

As is always the case in the gospel of John, a conversation about something physical shifted gears to become a conversation about something spiritual. So, have you ever been spiritually hungry? Have you ever experienced that gnawing feeling eating at you because you haven’t been fed, because you haven’t eaten? Maybe you’re hungry now, and not just because you didn’t eat breakfast this morning, but because you are hungering and thirsting for something deeper than food and more satisfying than a drink. If so, you’ve come to the right place.

This table is set for those who hunger and thirst. On this table is the bread of life for you. On this table is the cup of new life for you. Just as this congregation prepares a meal and sets a table for “anyone in need” for the physically hungry in this community on Thursdays, so also this congregation prepares a meal and sets a table for “anyone in need” for the spiritually hungry in this community on Sundays. It’s the bread of life for you and for the world.

The legendary preacher Fred Craddock tells the story of the first church he served as pastor in the hills of east Tennessee, not far from a sleepy little hamlet called Oak Ridge. In the 1940s, when Craddock was pastor there, Oak Ridge, TN, suddenly became one of the leading centers of work on the Manhattan Project, the now famous code name for the U.S. government’s operation to develop the atomic bomb. Almost overnight, says Craddock, “that little bitty town became a booming city. Every hill and every valley and every shady grove had recreational vehicles and trucks and things like that. People came in from everywhere and pitched tents, lived in wagons. Hard hats from everywhere, with their families and children paddling around in the mud in those trailer parks, lived in everything temporary to work.”

The church Craddock pastored met in a beautiful little white frame building over a hundred years old. “It had beautifully decorated chimneys, kerosene lamps all around the walls, and every pew in this little church was hand hewn from a giant poplar tree.” After church one Sunday morning, Craddock asked the leaders of the congregation to stay, and he said to them, “We need to launch a calling campaign and an invitational campaign in all those trailer parks to invite those people to church.” “Oh, I don’t know,” one leader said. “I don’t think they’d fit in here.” Another said, “They’re just here temporarily, just construction people. They’ll be leaving pretty soon.” “Well, we ought to invite them, make them feel at home,” Craddock said. They debated the matter, he says, and time ran out. They said they’d come and vote the next Sunday.

The next Sunday, they all sat down after the service. “I move,” said one of them, “that in order to be a member of this church, you must own property in this county.” Someone else said, “I second that.” It passed. I voted against it, Craddock says, but they reminded me that I was just a kid preacher and I didn’t have a vote.”

Decades later, after Craddock and his wife Nettie retired to north Georgia, they took a ride one morning north to Tennessee to see if they could find that little church for which Craddock still held such fond and painful memories. The roads had changed. The interstate now goes through that part of the country, so he had a hard time finding the way, but he finally did. He found the state road, the county road, and the little gravel road. Then there, back among the pines, was that little building shining white. The parking lot was full—motorcycles and trucks and cars packed in there. And out front, there was a great big sign: Barbecue, all you can eat. It was a restaurant, so they went inside.

The pews were pushed against a wall. There were electric lights, and the old pump organ was pushed over into the corner. There were aluminum and plastic tables, and people sitting there eating barbecued pork and chicken and ribs—all kinds of people, lots of different people from lots of different walks of life and lots of different places. In the course of the meal together, Craddock said quietly to his wife Nettie, “It’s a good thing this is not still a church; otherwise these people couldn’t be in here.”

The church is not a private dining club in which the food and drink are prepared for property-owners only, members only The meal plan of this congregation is the banquet of God in Luke 14 to which everyone is invited, the hungry, the thirsty, the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind— physically and spiritually alike.

Whatever your grief, whatever your fear, whatever your loss, whatever your need, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6). That’s nothing less than a promise of God, and that’s why if you come here with a gnawing feeling eating at you, you have come to the right place. Because here is the bread of life prepared for you. Here is the cup of new life prepared for you.

We’re going to pass it around. We’re going to share it with each other. And we’re going to go from this place to share with the world the good news that when you hunger and thirst, there is bread of life for you and a cup of new life for you. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Let’s eat and drink together.

Copyrighted © 2011 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.

Bread for the Journey: Nutrition for the Spirit

Matthew 4:1-11
Third Sunday after Epiphany 2011

Two weeks ago, when Carol Stilwell introduced the theme of our 2011 Stewardship Emphasis, “Bread for the Journey,” she said, among other things, that we were going to “have fun.” When’s the last time you heard “stewardship emphasis” and “fun” in the same sentence? To be honest with you, at the time she said it, I didn’t have any more idea than you did that one week later people would be throwing paper airplanes in church and contemplating a ride on the secret slide.

Last Sunday was either a complete breakdown in spiritual decorum around here or it was a sign of life, vitality and vigor in a congregation otherwise known for its seriousness. We take church very seriously around here, and we always have—for 180 years this November, this congregation has been taking church seriously. If you don’t think so, just look around you. Do you see how serious everyone is? This is serious business. We do serious very well around here.

But last Sunday, we showed that in addition to having the capacity to buckle up and buckle down, we also have the capacity to lighten up. This morning, I want to follow up on the lighten up to suggest that on the journey of the stewardship of our lives we must also open up. Open up.

Years ago, I heard Randall Lolley preach a sermon in which he echoed the song of the nuns in “The Sound of Music”: “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” Randall Lolley was once the president of a formerly good little Baptist seminary in North Carolina; and he has served in addition as Senior Pastor of the First Baptist Churches of Winston-Salem, Raleigh and Greensboro. Few individuals in the two Carolinas have left more finger prints on moderate Baptist life in these parts than Randall Lolley has. But more of us here this morning know of Maria than we do Randall.

For those of you who are young enough never to have seen the musical or the movie, Maria is a young nun about whom there are many complaints among the other nuns in the abby: “She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee; Her dress has got a tear. She waltzes on her way to Mass And whistles on the stair. And underneath her wimple She has curlers in her hair. I even heard her singing in the abbey. She’s always late for chapel, But her penitence is real. She’s always late for everything Except for every meal. I hate to have to say it, But I very firmly feel Maria’s not an asset to the abbey.” Another nun pipes up to counter the prevailing mood when she sings, “I’d like to say a word on her behalf: Maria makes me laugh.” “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” the nuns sing. “How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? . . . . How do you keep a wave upon the sand? Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria? How do hold a moonbeam in your hand?”

The faith we hold on the journey of our lives from God, with God and to God, is in some ways like a moonbeam. The only way to hold it is with your hands wide open. As soon as you make a fist, the moonbeam is no longer in your hand. Our journey is with open hands, not clenched fists. Our hands are open in thanksgiving to God. Our hands are open in welcome and embrace to each other—and to the so-called “other,” as well, whoever that might be. Our hands are open in compassion and generosity. How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? Only if you keep your hands wide open. Sometimes when I pray, I pray with my hands tightly clasped as I was taught to pray when I was a child. But sometimes when I pray, I pray with my hands relaxed and open to receive, to accept, to allow God in.

In this morning’s gospel lesson from the fourth chapter of the gospel according to Matthew, Jesus is in the throes of a wilderness experience. Far from family and friends and temple and everything familiar, the wilderness experience of his journey becomes a place of temptation. He was famished, verse 2 tells us, hungry, starving, when the tempter rightly points out to him that he has the power to provide for himself the bread that he needs and wants to satisfy his hunger. All you need to do, the tempter says, is to “command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

Remember, now, this is the Jesus who will turn water into wine, who will turn five barley loaves and two fish into enough to feed thousands, who will turn the bread and the wine of a Passover meal into a new covenant. The insidious power of temptation is that it always invites to do something that we are eminently capable of doing. It always invites to grasp something that will satisfy a certain want or need we have. In the throes of his wilderness journey, Jesus could have reached down, laid hold of a stone, and turned it into the bread he wanted and needed to satisfy his hunger. But instead, he stood with his hands open to receive, to accept, and to allow God. And as he did, he quoted the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

On the journey of our lives, there is the physical bread, the food we need to provide our bodies with the nutrition necessary to survive and to thrive. But there is another kind of bread; it is the food that provide our spirits with the nutrition necessary to survive and to thrive, regardless of our physical circumstances. A malnourished and shriveled spirit can be as detrimental to the quality of a human life as a malnourished and shriveled body can. It doesn’t always show on the outside, but if you watch long enough and listen carefully enough, you can recognize them in others—and in yourself.

With apologies to T.S. Eliot, I call them the hollow men and women. They are robust on the outside but shrunken on the inside. They are well fed in body but malnourished in spirit. It can happen to any of us. The reality of our journey is that all of us pass through a wilderness experience sooner or later. All of us experience a hollowness that comes with a loss of spirit. Sooner or later, all of us come to place of hunger that we cannot satisfy. But Jesus’ words in his own hunger and deprivation remind us to keep our hands open, to open up to receive, to accept, to allow God in to provide the nutrition for our spirit that we need every bit as much as we need the nutrition for our body.

Now, I’m going to take the time to insist that there is no body/spirit dichotomy here. There no “never-the-twain-shall meet” in relation to our physical selves and our spiritual selves. Each is a component of the other. During the wilderness experience of his journey, Jesus recognized the physical temptation that came with his hunger for the spiritual temptation that it was. The spiritual temptation was to grasp control of his own wellbeing out of the hands of God and by his own power to craft on his own a solution to his wants and his needs. But the inner voice of the Holy Spirit at work in Scripture said, “Not so fast my friend.” “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” The physical and the spiritual components of our living are not “either/or”; they are “both/and.”

Some of us here this morning find ourselves very much like the people in chapter six of John’s gospel who when Jesus said, “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world,” they responded, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus answered, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:33-35). This bread for the journey, this nutrition for the spirit, cannot be grasped or seized. It can only be received, accepted, allowed in with hands wide open.

So the next several times you pray, let me suggest to you that you practice praying with your hands relaxed and open as a reminder that in addition to buckling up and lightening up, we must open up. Our journey is with open hands, not clenched fists. Our hands are open in thanksgiving to God, and our hands are open in welcome and embrace to each other and to the so-called “other,” whoever that might be. Our hands are open in compassion and generosity.

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? Only if you keep your hands wide open.

Photo by Sharon Mollerus, used by license under Creative Commons.

This material is Copyrighted © 2011 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.