Give Us This Bread

Scriptures: Deuteronomy 26:1-11, John 6:25-35

If you’ll look up at the top of your bulletin, you’ll note that this Sunday, which is actually the last Sunday of the liturgical year, is called Reign of Christ or Christ the King.  Next week is the first Sunday of Advent, which begins a whole new liturgical year.  So, we’re at the end of one period of time in our church’s life and about to get ready to start anew with the anticipation and sense of preparation that Advent can bring.

Last year, if you’ll recall, I used this last Sunday of the liturgical year to reflect on the idea of Christ as King.  Just to refresh your memory, here’s the last paragraph of that sermon:

One of Jesus’ answers to Pilate is:  “’You say that I am a king.’”  He doesn’t really affirm or deny it.  It’s as if he were saying, “It all depends on what you mean by ‘king’”.  Jesus is speaking not only to Pilate but to us and our uneasiness about the whole idea of Christ as King.  In order to accept this image of the Christ we have to change our whole perspective on what being a king means.  And so the qualifiers:  servant-king, shepherd-king, fisher-king; Jesus as the king of heaven, the king of sacrifice, the king of love.  We have to make these changes in our minds in order to accept the Christ who is king of us all and indeed of all the world.  Yes, let us sing “crown with your richest crowns”, but let us also remember that the one we worship is the lamb upon the throne.

My hunch is that some of you left that service feeling a bit disappointed.  This is the Sunday before Thanksgiving, after all, and even though it’s not technically a religious holiday, Thanksgiving has come to have some spiritual meaning for us.  Why worry ourselves about a theological issue like how Christ might be conceived as a King when our minds are starting to get in gear for what next Thursday is going to bring?

So, that’s the direction I’m going to go today.  I agree; it is important for our spiritual well-being to look at what the holiday of Thanksgiving holds for us.

The easy way to go would be to deplore the excesses of the day.  Pastor Donald Schmidt tells this story, which you may find to be a bit familiar:

“Some years ago several of us were invited to have Thanksgiving at a friend’s home.  She was a nutritionist, and one of the most intriguing things about the meal was that it was healthier and leaner than most times.  There were no potatoes and gravy, but rather a slightly flavored rice.  There was a salad with minimal dressing.  There were special things, too, such as an exquisite low-fat stuffing with bits of dried fruit in it, and a wonderful cocktail of cranberries, nuts, orange sections, and coconut in hollowed-out orange rinds.  All in all, it was a wonderful feast.

“Thus, it’s a little embarrassing to say that we came away from there feeling cheated.  Where was all the rich and fattening and gooey stuff we felt we deserved?  Beyond that, what was it that made us feel we deserved it?”  Pastor Schmidt then goes on to make the rather obvious point:  “Thanksgiving may include a turkey and pumpkin pie and sweet potatoes and numerous other treats, but is that really what it is all about?”

Well, of course not.  As we all know, it’s really all about being able to watch three football games.  OK, let’s not stay there – especially not after that dreadful Giants loss last Sunday.

It’s really kind of an easy thing to preach a Thanksgiving sermon.  We are, after all, a grateful people, and the “attitude of gratitude” that we offer during this season is one of the most natural things that we do.

Yet, it’s not always easy to keep that “attitude of gratitude” in our mind’s eye as we approach this season.  In this time of economic distress we may find that such an attitude is very hard to keep up.  Here’s a story from preacher James Long that may find resonance with where many of you are this season:

“I’ll give you an example.  A Christian named Tony remembered coming home after school and being called to a family meeting.  His father told the children that he had been laid off from his job.  Tony knew that his family was poor, and fear filled his heart.  What would this mean for him, his family, and his father?

“He asked his father, ‘What are we going to do?’  His father replied, ‘The first thing we’re going to do is buy some ice cream and give thanks to God.’ ‘Thanks for what?’ Tony asked.  ‘Thanks for our health, thanks for our family, thanks for being alive, thanks for ice cream, thanks for this sunny day, thanks for you Tony …’”

Now, there was a father who really had it together.  The key to finding an “attitude of gratitude” is to do something extravagant when you are in a situation of stress and strife.  James long goes on to comment:

“Thanksgiving is important, and I believe it is crucial to the life of any Christian congregation.  Someone once said that when a church is in trouble financially, it should not fundraise, but rather it should have a party.  It should celebrate the good things that God has done, and then later look at the finances.  Too many churches have died or almost died because of endless struggles to solve financial problems.  That is what Thanksgiving is about; having a trust in the future.”

“Having a trust in the future.”  Isn’t that what we are really all about?  We are a small congregation; our finances often look iffy.  We are losing key members – like the Beggs’ who are moving to North Carolina.  Yet still there is that trust in the future that no one can deny.  And that is a reason for thankfulness.

In the passage from Deuteronomy that we read the people are thinking about the land that has been promised to them.  We are a people of God’s promise, and we have been offered the land, just as the Israelites have.  And so it is up to us to make thankful offerings to the Lord our God, just as the Israelites have.  As Anna Grant-Henderson, a member of the Uniting Church in Australia, has said, “The overwhelming message is one of deep thankfulness for what God has done for them.  The Credo in vv.5-9 names the acts of salvation which God has provided:  God heard their affliction and saved them by leading them out of Egypt and into the land which God had promised them.  The response to God’s acts is this act of thankfulness by giving back to God the first and best of the produce of the land.  God acts first and the people respond to the gracious and loving acts of God.”

God has acted in our lives.  That is the first thing to be thankful for.  I trust that it is at the forefront of your Thanksgiving prayers this Thursday.

Then there is this strange yet familiar statement in the 5^th verse:  “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor.”  There are all kinds of ways to go with this line.  Part of me wants to go to the issue of immigration, since that looms so large in our national consciousness.  “He went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien,” our text tells us.  Do we not resonate with this sense of history?  No matter where we come from, somewhere in our past we have been aliens, “few in number”, as the text says.  We have been exiles and foreigners.  That’s what we need to remember as we enter into this whole debate about immigration issues.  Our faith – our denomination – calls us to offer an extravagant welcome – and that doesn’t mean just to those newcomers who come in our door on a Sunday morning, but also to those who appear as alien to us, at least initially.  Abraham and Sarah were immigrants who left the land of their birth and became resident aliens.  Then there was Joseph, caught up in a whirlwind of family, economic and international conflicts as a detained alien whose traumatic journey ultimately gained him legal status and enabled him to feed his family back home.  Moses, a child truly left behind, became a resident alien in Egypt.  The Israelites later spent many years living in exile, resident aliens all.  Ruth remained with Naomi as a resident alien in Israel and became the great-grandmother of their greatest king, David.  And let us not forget Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus, who fled their homeland under threat from an evil tyrant to become resident aliens in Egypt, living there until the threat back home ended with a regime change.  We are a people of a religious heritage that includes all kinds of aliens and immigrants – God’s own people, as we said last week, God’s peculiar people, who are invited to offer an extravagant welcome to all those who like the wandering Aramean find themselves far from home.

Now, it may seem strange to you to mix in the idea of immigration reform with a thanksgiving sermon.  But it’s not really all that far a stretch.  We are a nation that was built by immigrants, and a large part of our sense of gratitude has to do with those who have come before us and built that which we are now able to claim.  There is, unfortunately, a mean spirit abroad in our country about immigrants today, which we need to let an “attitude of gratitude” overcome.  We are all ultimately from somewhere else, and along the way we have found welcome from the grace and mercy of God.  This is where our giving of thanks intersects with the wandering Aramean who focuses for us who it is that merits our gratitude.  Walt Kelley’s Pogo famously said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  We can paraphrase that to say, “We have met the immigrant and she is we.”  In the economy of God there are neither enemies nor aliens nor immigrants – there are only those who, having wandered into Egypt, shall, as our text tells us, “celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.”

The celebration that the Israelites are entering into “with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you” is because they have been delivered from slavery.  That’s very much like the feeling that an immigrant has coming from an oppressive situation into one that tastes of freedom.  Metaphorically, they have been given the bread of life.

In our gospel text from John the people are clamoring after Jesus, even following him across a sea, because they have experienced his feeding of five thousand people with five barley loaves and two fish (provided, incidentally, by a small boy, which is a nice touch to add in John’s gospel).  They are somewhat miffed, because it seems like he is trying to get away from them – and they want to see more signs and miracles.  But Jesus is having none of it.  His response is quite direct:  “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”  (Son of Man is a title that Jesus often uses for himself.)  Sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it?  This statement is akin to the one we were talking about last week:  “Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Once again, as we talked about last week, the issue here is one of focus.  They ate their fill of what Jesus was able to provide; now, he wants them to focus on that which truly sustains them:  the bread of heaven.  And even more audaciously, Jesus identifies himself with this:  “’I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Dr. Keith Wagner comments on these lines with these words:  “To understand Jesus as the bread of life is to be passionate about our faith.  It is to seek after his word and to follow his teachings.  To ‘come to him’ means we may have to rearrange our lives and shift some of our priorities.  To come to Jesus means we must leave something behind.  To be persons of passion means we make sacrifices and we truly have an appetite for the ‘bread of life.’”

When the people heard this description:  “’For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world,’” they were quick to say, “’Sir, give us this bread always.’”  But just possibly they weren’t aware of the implications.  To believe in Jesus as the bread of life means that your life will be challenging people to change, your life will be speaking truth into darkness.  What Jesus is really saying would sound something like this:  ”I am the bread of life.  I am the one who will feed your heart and soul.  If you give your life to me and trust me, you will never be without meaning or purpose in your living.”  Come to me, Jesus implores, and never be hungry or thirsty again.  The word of God is the real bread of life.

This is something truly to be thankful for this Thursday.  We can make of this holiday a holy day by reflecting on all that God has done for us and then looking for concrete ways to act in order to show our appreciation to God.  Thanks be to God who gives us the bread of life.

Amen.

Dave Pomeroy

First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
November 21, 2010