Are you still hungry? - August 9. 2009

Year B
10th Sunday after Pentecost
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
John 6:35, 41-51

Why do we say a table blessing today?
A group is seminary students asked why do we still say table blessings today. In its original intention, table blessings were said because you never knew the condition of your food. In times without refrigeration, you could only hope that you would not be poisoned by the food you needed so desparately, so you prayed over it.
And of course, you never knew when you were going to eat, so you were grateful for what you received.

Do we still need to?
Today, especially in America, we do not have to worry as much if our food will harm us. More importantly, we tend to take three meals a day for granted, we just assume that we will always have enough to eat. So we really have to bless every meal that we get?

Of course we need to
Today, we may eat much more extravagantly than those before us, but we still need to be thankful for what we receive. We still need to acknowledge the fact that everything that we receive is a gift from God.

Food is still important to us
We may get too much of it, but we can still be grateful to God for the food that we do get.

Bread was considered a staple of life – every culture eats some kind of bread.
Bread has always been considered a staple of the human diet. Every culture in the world eats some kind of bread. (not me, I don’t care for bread, and will not eat it unless I have to.)

Jesus has been telling us that he is the bread of life
This is the last week of our study of John 6. Jesus has been telling us that he is the bread of life. That his teachings are our staple as Christians. We need bread, but more importantly, we need Jesus.

Levels
Fed,
Told to read the word of God
He is the bread
This bread is from heaven
Jesus taught this lesson to the people of his times in many ways, but more importantly, on many different levels. First he fed them real bread so that they could pay attention to the teaching. Then he told the them the word of God from heaven. Then he explained that he is the bread of life, and then he explained that what he had to teach was indeed bread from heaven, just like their ancestors received manna from heaven.

Why this offended the jews
This was very offensive to the Jewish population. Why would anyone associate themselves with bread from heaven. It was offensive for them to eat flesh and blood. So they were offended by Jesus message. But Jesus knew this was the case. He knew this would be a hard message and that many would need to fall away – because they could not bear what he had to say. No one should believe that they knew the word of God, only God knew the word of God. And God would never come in human form.

Spiritual practices of life – to truly be able to experience life
Forgot all about the bread – but remember the lesson
For Christians we don’t have to get caught up on the physical reality of what Jesus is saying. Jesus knew that the bread was important, but the bread would pass away. But the point of believing that Jesus us the bread of life should stick withus.


Early church thought of as cannibals- eating flesh and blood
Many people were critical of the early church, they thought they were cannibals, eating the flesh and blood of Jesus.

Not so – gather together in community, praying together, living together helping together, most importantly believing in Jesus together

Life is made up of many struggles, many pressures, many opinions, many decisions – but there is only one Jesus

We Didn’t read Ephesians this morning – in the scripture, Paul tells us to be imitators of Christ –
Imitate the ones we love and admire.


Jesus did he best to imitate God – and succeeded

Story of pastor visiting
There was a pastor who visited a woman in the hospital. She was very close to dying. And when you came to see her, she did not always open her eyes. On the day that pastor visited, she did not immediately open her eyes to greet him. But when she did – she told him that she thought that he was Jesus coming to visit her. He told her that when she did finally reach heaven and talked with Jesus, he hoped that Jesus did indeed look just like him. As Christians we are called to be mistaken for Jesus by many people. And in turn Jesus looks just like us in the face.

But the story – when I get to heaven and see Jesus – as if Jesus saw me – if He looks like me.

The point of bread from heaven – we are the bread of life from heaven, when we imitate Jesus.

Mutual love – we are in a mutual relationship, we look like Jesus and Jesus looks like us.

We will be studying John 6 for two more weeks. Two more weeks of this bread of life. John says that Jesus is bread, light, gate, shepherd, life, vine. All images that he uses in the book of John.

There is no one image that captures the full meaning of Jesus or of God’s love for us.

There is no one person who can be the body of Christ – we are all Jesus in our own way – when we come together and take the bread and believe it is from heaven.