I’d like for you all to imagine yourself sitting in a doctor’s office exam room, waiting to speak to a new doctor about an upcoming surgery. As you glance around the room, you see all the medical posters about the internal organs, the skeletal system, and a poster displaying the inner workings of the heart. The exam room is clean, and professional looking, and everything about the staff that brought you in, and the ambience of this room puts your mind at ease. This new doctor, you think, will definitely be able to take care of me.
Then there is a knock at the door, and in walks a young man wearing scrubs and soft, comfortable shoes. Something at the back of your mind sparks up a bit, and you think he looks vaguely familiar. Is this the doctor? Or an assistant?
“I thought that was you! It’s Tim,” the young man says, “It’s so good to see you again!” He shakes your hand and says, “I used to hang out with your kids all the time, back in elementary school.”
And suddenly you recognize him. Timmy? The same Timmy that couldn’t figure out how to use a can opener? The same Timmy that used to knock things over in your house all the time because he was so incredibly clumsy? The same Timmy that flunked 3rd grade? The same Timmy that would ignore what adults told him and do what he wanted to? The same Timmy that lied whenever you caught him doing something wrong? That Timmy!?
Doctor Tim sits down in the chair, and says to you, “I’m so happy you’re here. You’re in good hands with me. Let me assure you that I will do my absolute best with your open heart surgery!”
I’m sure that your immediate reaction at that point would likely be – “My surgery is a bit more involved than using a can opener. Not gonna happen, Timmy.”
Just like with Timmy and his amazing ability to break things, the people that knew Jesus were saying things like:
“I remember his parents, and how he got lost in Jerusalem when he was 12! They had to come back and find him!”
“I remember one time he built a table with one short leg, and it used to wobble constantly!”
“Come on now! This cannot be the Messiah! I used to babysit him!”
And they started to grumble among themselves. Those who were opposed to Jesus, because of how they knew him way back when.
Two weeks ago, we heard the story that set up this entire talk about the Bread of Life, the feeding of the five thousand. It was there that we learned that this entire conversation is set within the context of the Passover. And that Passover setting was intended to evoke the ideas of freedom from slavery, and a new promise of God’s provision. The reference to Manna from heaven in last week’s Gospel passage also brings the readers of John’s Gospel back to the idea that something new is going on. Something big is happening.
We learned last week that by calling himself the Bread of Life, Jesus had upended their view of the Messiah, and shifted their thinking from seeing God’s provision as merely physical and for their present reality, to thinking of God’s provision for all eternity, and seeing that God’s freedom and provision is intended for all people, for the entire world. All that people needed to do was to believe in him.
But here’s the problem – at least for some of the people. To believe in Jesus meant to give up control, to give up power, and to give up the hope of future power. And we all know that people in power never want to relinquish that power willingly. This is why they start grumbling amongst themselves. They heard the claims that Jesus made, they followed his logic about eternal life, and they recognized that Jesus’ way of saving the world would require that they surrender their current power, and any hope of future power – because a Messiah that refused to be made king by force would be a Messiah that would require them to make sacrifices. And so, of course, they grumble.
The interesting thing to note here, is that the word that John uses for “grumbling” is the same word that is used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures for when the people “grumbled” to Moses about not having bread to eat. They “grumbled” about being hungry, and they wished that God had let them die in Egypt instead of bringing them into the wilderness. And so, God provided manna – that is, bread from heaven – and their ancestors ate from it. John is trying to make a direct correlation between the people of Israel on their exodus out of Egypt to this moment in time, when some of the people confronted with the true Bread of Heaven in the person of Jesus grow skeptical.
Which makes Jesus’ response about manna so much more poignant and direct.
He had already told the people not to work for the bread that perishes, but to work for the food that endures for eternal life. And now he takes their comment about their ancestors ate Manna from heaven, and says:
“Yes. Your ancestors ate manna from heaven. But guess what? They still died.”
Which is to say, “All that you are working for, this earthly power, this earthly wealth, this desire that the Messiah comes and does what you want – all of that is still just thinking about the here and now, this present age. Don’t do that. Work for the things that are eternal and will carry you through more than just this life by believing that God has sent me.”
And the people grumbled.
One of the phrases that may be going through your mind right now is, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” And that is definitely what is going on with Jesus and those who opposed him. Just like we wouldn’t want a clumsy little oaf like Timmy doing our open heart surgery, these people didn’t want to wrap their heads around the idea that the future of their faith revolved around a carpenter’s son, someone they had known all of his life.
For those of us who come to church, we may be thinking, “Oh good! I already believe in Jesus. I’m not opposed to thinking of Jesus as the spiritual manna from heaven.”
But there is more to the Bread of Life than just the belief that Christ died and rose again to begin our reconciliation with God. There are the promises that Christ made for those that follow him, such as peace, joy, love and patience. There is the matter of life, eternal life, and even, the promise that Christ came that we have “abundant life.”
What is this abundant life?
Every Sunday, here at St. Alban’s, we sing the song, “Let there be peace on earth,” right before the Passing of the Peace. And the words within that song state that if God is our creator, then we are all siblings, and all of us are children of God.
What that means is that the promise of abundant life, the promise of peace, of joy, of patience and forgiveness of sins has been inherited by all of us. We are all living members of the body of Christ and heirs of God’s eternal kingdom.
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, our New Testament passage today, he says:
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
God has offered all these promises through believing in Jesus, the Bread of Life, and you, and I, and each of us, has become an heir in God’s kingdom because of it. And if each of us is an heir, then we ought to treat each other as royalty and respect the dignity of everyone. It is when we are imitators of God, that this abundant life begins to take hold, and this blessed ideal of peace, love, forbearance and tolerance starts to take shape in our minds and we can almost touch and feel and see how an abundant life could form among a community of believers. We can smell the sweet fragrance of love, joy, peace and gentleness wafting through the room, as we imagine what a life of sacrifice for God and each other can manifest in our lives and community.
And then Timmy walks in. Clumsy, oafish, not-so-bright Timmy. Timmy, whom we know just a little too well, and whom we cannot trust to do the right thing. Timmy, who irritates us at our core, and makes us not just skeptical, but whose actions grab our heart and harden it, so that we directly oppose the idea that anyone should show any sort of love and patience to him. Timmy, whom we wish could be taught a lesson.
For Timmy’s sake, of course.
This response is the exact same response that those who opposed Jesus had. Just like them, we do not wish to give up any kind of power, and we most certainly do not want to imitate God, and offer ourselves as a sacrifice and fragrant offering for God’s work of reconciling the world to himself. Especially if the person who needs to see our sacrifice is Timmy.
But this is precisely the work that is needed.
And this is why we too, sometimes, grumble and complain, and stand in opposition of the work that God is doing in this world.
We all have at least one Timmy in our lives. Sometimes multiple Timmys. We need to identify the Timmy in our life, and recognize that they are just as much a child of God as we are. That they have inherited eternal life and forgiveness of sin, just like we have. That they have the promise of eternal life, just like we do. And we need to try and understand why we are so opposed to them and what they do – because our opposition is often more based on what’s going on inside of us, than what’s going on with Timmy.
And then, we offer them the Bread of Life through the same compassion and love, through the same grace and mercy that Jesus offered us when he offered his life for our sake.
Because then we will in fact, begin to smell the sweet fragrance of Christ in our midst.
And we will recognize that the Bread of Life is food for everyone.
[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on August 11, 2024.]
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