John 6:35; 41-51\

³⁵ 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.

⁴¹ Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴² They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” ⁴³ Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. ⁴⁴ No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. ⁴⁵ It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. ⁴⁶ Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷ Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰ This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

You know something about me?  I don’t give up very easily.  Sometimes that can be bad, but mostly it’s good.  Folks know that I’m committed to them, or to a cause, a community, etc. because I show up and I genuinely want to see things through.  It’s hard for me also to simply settle for something that’s not quite as good as it could be. 

As we’ve talked about before, this is really true in my life around relationships.  It used to drive me nuts when people think ill of me or try to put me in a box or label me.  That was both a gift and a curse…I worked hard on relationships most of the time.  Now, I’m committed to folks, and I want it to be reciprocated…and, I have to be careful that I don’t define myself by what others think of me, which, with my personality type, can be hard at times.  Its the work I’ve been doing most of my adult life, finding my true self and living into it.  In this season, I have found that I can be connected in a healthy way and not attached in an unhealthy way…a way that has expectations and a need for certain outcomes.  I can love myself and others freely in this season.  

When my mom was in the hospital and dying from cancer, life long friends of my mom’s, and relatives, would come and visited my mom and we’d catchup a bit, I would find myself trying to think of the person that they knew.  It’s like this in the passage this morning, when folks looked at Jesus and say, isn’t this the son of Joseph?  The kid we knew?  But, Jesus was now in his 30’s and was telling them something that they had not heard before.  

One conversation in the hospital was with the dad of one of my best friend’s growing up.  Great person, but his theological beliefs stemming out of an evangelicalism of his baptist identity is simply not where I am these days…I’m more in love with God than I have ever been and have experienced God’s love in deeper ways than I could have imagined, but I just can’t go with some of the views of God that were repressive and violent from my Baptist childhood.  At one point though in that conversation, I simply said that we may have different theological viewpoints, but that this relationship has always been so good…that this person I was talking to, a lifelong friend of my mom’s and my friend’s dad, was always and still is committed…and loves people and therefore, beyond the theology, in practice, he was so encouraging.

I think that’s what Jesus is getting towards throughout his life on earth, move beyond binary or dualistic thinking and move into relational and non-dualist or unitive awareness.  Be authentic in our love and commitments to one another.  I’ve had genuine folks throughout my life who have believed in me and have shown a certain kind of openness and vulnerability…I believe that shows a God who is faithful, even in the midst of my unfaithfulness, my doubts, my stuff…people keep showing up in my life, in our lives, that we connect with and can bring life…I think that the church should be a place where those kinds of folks congregate!  Don’t you?

As we practice genuine relationship, community, we are shaped into the people that God intends for us to be…even with all of the ups and downs and struggle, as well as the joy of relationships.  

Well, our passage this morning picks up from last week’s passage where Jesus is declaring himself to be the bread of life.  As we talked about last week, Jesus is saying that he has offered us his life, and that his life brings us an eternal sense of fullness, wholeness, and a sense of the everlasting hope of our lives being identified with Jesus.  Jesus’ bread, his life given to us, helps us to move beyond our lives being focused on our wants and even our needs, to the abundance of God’s connection with us, and all of humanity and creation.  

Yet, even after this declaration, even after all of the actions of God’s love through Jesus, people started to grumble, they started to feel a bit insecure, and made statements posed as questions, isn’t this Joseph’s son?  Who is this Jesus to say that his bread has come from heaven, that his life comes from the very presence of God and that he is in God’s presence even now?  

What these folks were trying to do was to put Jesus in a box, to take away the possibility of change and growth in their own lives.  They were afraid and acting out of a deep lack of self-awareness or others awareness.  They wanted to be independent, they didn’t get that Jesus was saying that they were wired for connection with others.  

It’s easy to get frustrated with the folks around Jesus.  Yet, when we stop and ponder our own lives, aren’t we the same?  Can’t we relate?  We think that we are so familiar with Jesus that we try to keep Jesus in a box.  This ultimately hurts us and stifles our own growth.  One cannot put Jesus in a box, a doctrine, an ideology, or even a building or a certain denomination or theology.  God isn’t offering us anything else but God’s very self through Jesus.  

Often times, we want to settle for something sweet and comforting, yet Jesus is saying that what he’s giving is much more substantial.  It’s the gift of God’s breaking into our lives and breaking us free from whatever we have become enslaved to that has prevented us from experiencing the wholeness of being fully human.  Jesus was, and is fully human, and by giving us the metaphor of bread, is saying that we can share in that fullness of humanity, in being the wonderful folks we were created to be, by giving up or independence for the joy of owning our freedom and identity as found in Jesus Christ.

But, we can’t earn or have others give us that identity.  Jesus doubles down in verse 43 and simply says, stop grumbling, you can get to the bread of life, to the God that you say that you love without being drawn to God by God.  He’s saying that if you have the love of God within you, you will begin to experience God.  That makes me stop a bit, we have to have some humility here and wait on God to call us towards him.  That’s hard, but, just like it is hard for me to wait sometimes…our hearts and lives have to be prepared, we have some growing to do.  

Jesus gives us a promise this morning though, the manna that the Jewish folks ate in the desert gave them nourishment for a time, but Jesus’ bread, his living and breathing bread, his life, will be intertwined with ours.  This bread, this life, is Jesus’ flesh.  The greek in verse 51 for flesh is Sarx.  It’s not another greek word sometimes used for body or life called soma.  This is Jesus’ flesh, it’s as if to say to us, I am making the sacrifice for you, I’m giving you my very flesh…not only for you, but for the world, all of it.  Friends, if we are going to grow, we have to be drawn out of ourselves by God.  We also have to be connected to others around us in a deep way, not just folks sitting with us in these pews, but the folks outside these walls, the folks in our neighborhood, the folks down in our lives, and random people that we meet, everyone.  We have to enter into relationships for conversion, not necessarily for others, but for ours…for a sense of mutual conversion, of shaping.  

God is seeking us out, may we seek God out as well in the depths of our lives and in the lives of those that we meet.  It may take us a while to see this God, yet, God is faithful, even in the midst of our unfaithfulness.