Texts;
Exodus 16.2-4, 9-15
Ephesians 4.1-16
John 6.24-35
by Colleen Clayton
May I speak in the name of the Holy & Blessed Trinity, One God in three persons.
I was once told the true story of a church that, after a long hiatus, had begun to thrive again. People started to come back, and others joined them. Things began to get crowded and chairs needed to be brought in from the hall each week in order to accommodate the growing numbers. A good thing, you would think, but instead of receiving encouragement and support from the congregation, the vicar received complaints that the chairs needed to be moved.
Although Moses and the people were wandering in the desert, it is not an entirely dissimilar situation. Through Moses, God has led the people out of slavery into the wilderness, moving towards the promised land and yet they tell Moses that it would have been better if he had left them to die by the Lord’s hand at the flesh-pots in Egypt where they could eat their fill of bread, rather than following God into the desert to die of hunger.
Now, in the Gospel reading set for today, we hear that the people are looking back through rose-coloured glasses on that chapter in their history, not remembering the complaining and the repeated failure to follow God, but only remembering that God fed them with bread from heaven. Jesus is rightly dubious about their motives, telling them that they are only following him because he gave them bread and that, instead of looking for a quick bite to satisfy their immediate appetite, they should be seeking what will sustain them forever, the true bread of heaven.
Jesus tells them that in order to receive the food that endures for eternal life, they must believe in him, the one whom God has sent to be that bread for them. Well, they say to Jesus, Moses gave the people bread, what are you going to do to make us believe that God has sent you?
Just as the crowd is following Jesus in order to see signs or to get a free meal, it is clear that they are missing the point about the manna that their ancestors ate in the wilderness. It was not Moses who produced the manna, but God. It is not a story about bread but about God’s presence.
The story of the people in the wilderness is a story about the relationship between God and people. It shows God’s faithful provision and love for God’s people despite their human weaknesses. They doubt God’s presence, they follow other gods, they complain, they display the full gamut of human failings, and yet God never takes God’s presence away from them. God is with them in a fiery pillar at night, a cloudy pillar by day, God is with them in the manna, in the quail, in the water, that springs from the rock. No matter what the people do or don’t do, God’s love and presence is constant.
Long before Moses led the people into the wilderness, he met God in a bush that burned and was not consumed. God sent him to set the people free and Moses was afraid, so he asked to know who was sending him and God replied, I AM. This is the same God that we meet in Jesus who says, I AM the bread of life. God’s love and God’s presence is unchanging, it is only our sight that fails us.
During the week, I was reading some of the history of the St Matthew’s Cheltenham parish, from its very beginning when a parcel of land was cut out of the parish of Brighton, to its peak size in the 1960s. I read of the overflowing Sunday School that necessitated new buildings, of the hard work and enthusiasm of the Anglican Men’s Group and the Mother’s Union. It was a time of great confidence in the church.
Perhaps in times of great abundance it is easier to believe in God’s presence with us. But perhaps when all of society is in sync with us and when they want what we have, it is also easier to forget that it is God on whom we rely, God who feeds the people, not us, God alone in whom our confidence should rest.
The social landscape has changed a great deal since the ‘60s. The institutional church is on the nose. She has failed. She has doubted God’s presence, followed other gods, complained, and displayed the full gamut of human failings, and yet God never takes God’s presence away from her. In her desperation the church seems to be asking what sign Jesus will give us that we should believe in him, and Jesus still says to us that it is God who gives the true bread from heaven. The bread that gives life to the world (paraphrase of 6.32-33). I AM is still the one who gives us the food of eternal life
How will we know when we have found this bread of heaven? Human beings will always doubt God’s presence, follow other gods, complain, and display the full gamut of human failings, but when we remember our hunger and our longing to be fed, when we turn again to God, we will know the bread of heaven because it gives life to the world.
The test of anything is not whether we like it, whether it suits us, whether it is the way things have always been done, whether it fits with what our forebears would have wanted. The test is certainly not whether something allows us to continue to live in the way that we have been without any inconvenience.
The test is only ever, does this give life to the world? Does this build relationships between people, and between people God? Does this dissolve barriers, feed the hungry, give true freedom to the oppressed, does this make us at one with God?
The answers to these questions are not always straight forward. It is not always easy to judge what is life-giving. There can be deeply held convictions on both sides of a debate, and it is not always easy to see how an impasse can be resolved. This is where St Paul’s words to the church in Ephesus can help us.
‘… lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace … building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ … speaking the truth in love, growing up in every way into Christ’ (Excerpts from Ephesians 4.1,2,12,13,15).
And as we live, grow, follow our calling, it is God the Holy Trinity who gives us food that will last for eternal life. God who creates us, Jesus who shares our humanity, the Spirit who guides us. This is where true life and lasting nourishment is to be found; in relationship with the God who creates, redeems and makes us holy.
The Lord be with you.