Wonder Bread

Kerry Greenhill
Highlands UMC
August 2, 2009

John 6:24-35

I’ve always liked the name Wonder Bread.
I think it’s kind of genius.
I’m not endorsing the product, mind you –
just the name.
Bread is normally so ordinary,
such a humdrum part of our daily lives—
something to keep your hands clean while eating sandwiches—
that to suggest there’s something amazing about it,
something wonderful or wonder-working,
gives my spirit a little jolt.

In Jesus’ day, especially
bread was utterly ordinary –
mostly flat cakes baked on flat stones or in pans –
and essential for survival.
It was made from scratch by family members,
very possibly by people who had picked the wheat
and ground the grain themselves.
No plastic packaging,
nothing pre-sliced or nutritionally fortified.
Nothing fancy.
But very real. Solid. Familiar.
Not much to wonder about.

Today, of course,
with the convenience of supermarkets
and fast-food sandwich shops,
it’s easy to take food for granted
(like so many other things)
without thinking about where it comes from
or how it was made.
I know I am guilty of it;
I can count on the fingers of one hand
the number of times in my life
I’ve baked a loaf of real yeast bread.

Bread is the stuff of life
whether it takes the form of sliced bread or whole loaf,
tortillas or pita,
naan or injera.
Bread is still familiar. Solid. Predictable.

Except…
there was this one time
when I was in college
and our campus ministry, the Wesley Foundation,
held a worship service in a chemistry lecture hall.
Our altar was a covered lab table.
We celebrated Communion,
as was our custom,
and David – the campus minister –
had bought a loaf of bread from the grocery store,
one that looked pretty ordinary
on the outside.

It was covered during the sermon,
and it wasn’t until David took the bread,
blessed it,
and broke it open for all to see
that the jaw of every person in the lecture hall
dropped in astonishment
and wonder.
You see,
David had chosen this particular loaf
because it was labeled,
“Rainbow Bread.”
And as David continued through
the words of blessing and remembrance
we couldn’t stop gaping
at the rings of deep purple, bright orange
dark blue and vivid green
still showing in the broken loaf.

Now, as far as I can remember
it tasted pretty much like ordinary bread.
But after the service, as we stood around talking
one by one we started to exclaim –
“Hey, did you know
that your tongue is blue?”
“Look! Your lips are green!”
“David, what is in this bread?!”
And in that service,
we all wondered
at how the ordinary
had become extraordinary
and the Holy
had broken through our expectations
of a meaningful but routine ritual
to reveal something amazing and beautiful
right before our eyes.

Jesus was kind of like that, I think.
He seemed to delight
in subverting people’s expectations
neatly sidestepping their questions,
leading them by a roundabout path
to a place of new understanding.
He was constantly stretching people’s boundaries
pushing them out of their comfort zone
asking them to believe the incomprehensible
to trust the intangible
and to follow him on an impossible path.

Today’s passage in the Gospel of John
comes just after Jesus feeds the five thousand.
Afterwards, Jesus had gone up the mountain
for some quiet time,
and the disciples had set off across the Sea of Galilee
in a boat at evening.
The crowds didn’t see Jesus
walking to the disciples across the water,
but in the morning they realize
that only one boat set out from the shore,
and that Jesus wasn’t on it at the time,
but he doesn’t seem to be coming back down the hill
to teach or feed them again.
So the crowds head across the Sea after the disciples
and discover Jesus there with them.
You can imagine their double-takes.

As if his mere presence wasn’t enough
to make them wonder,
what he then says to them
definitely falls under the category of
“things that make you go Hmm.”

Instead of answering the question they ask,
Jesus questions their motives:
“Look,”
he says,
“I know you’re more driven
by your physical hunger
than by spiritual concerns.
But there’s something more,”
says Jesus,
“something beyond this life,
and through the Human One,
the one known as the Son of Man,
God is sending you food
for the spirit.”

Kind of a strange response to give to the question,
“So when did you get here?”

In trying to make sense of it,
the people draw on their religious tradition.
The last time someone important
said that God was sending food,
was when the children of Israel, led by Moses,
were wandering in the wilderness
after escaping from Egypt
and God sent them manna
to sustain them.

The manna was both
an answer to their physical need
and a sign
that Moses was God’s messenger.

In a time of rumbling stomachs
and uncertainty about the future,
God had come through for them,
and God’s people were reassured
that they were still in God’s hands.

The people following Jesus
are hungry too.
I don’t know about you,
but I spent enough years as a starving student
never to pass up a free meal when it’s offered.
I can hardly blame the crowds
for hoping there might just be one more
miraculous feeding.

Instead
Jesus tells them
of a bread that does not perish
as did the manna in the desert,
but bread that endures,
the bread of God
that comes from heaven
and gives life to the world.
He speaks to them of the difference
between physical hunger
and spiritual hunger,
between the bread that fills the body
and that which fulfills the soul.

I think we know a little something today
about confusing the two.
The prevalence of eating disorders,
substance abuse and other addictions,
even the increase in obesity, diabetes,
and high cholesterol
speak to our search,
individually and as a culture,
to fill the spiritual emptiness
we all face
at some point in our lives.
Hey, no judgment here;
I’ve been known to drown my sorrows
in a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, too.
The temptations we face today
in a modern and affluent culture
are quite different from those
faced by the crowds following Jesus in his lifetime
or even by folks in less developed nations today.
Bread is necessary for survival—
especially among those who are poor and hungry,
never quite secure in knowing
whether they have bread enough to last the week—
and so Jesus taught his disciples
that it was okay to pray for it daily.

And I think it’s important to note
that Jesus did actually make sure
that the people’s bellies were full
before he tried to talk to them
about spiritual matters.
It’s not that our bodies don’t matter,
or even that they’re separate from our souls.
The incarnation is all about
the spiritual becoming known through the material,
the Holy taking on flesh
and moving into the neighborhood.

But as Jesus is recorded as saying in another gospel,
the body is more than food,
the whole person is physical *and* spiritual
(and emotional and intellectual)
and so people cannot live by bread alone.

As Simone Weil,
20th-century Christian mystic, activist, and philosopher,
“The danger is not lest the soul should doubt
whether there is any bread,
but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself
that it is not hungry.”

Seeing spiritual hunger for what it is,
naming it and realizing it cannot be satisfied
by filling the belly
or dulling the senses
is the first step toward finding a path
of genuine spiritual engagement.
But you have to know you’re hungry first.

And the crowd doesn’t really seem to get that.
They’re still focused on the prospect
of not being physically hungry ever again.
Which is why they’re probably even more confused
when Jesus tells them,
“I am the bread of life.”

What a weird and wonderful thing to say.
Have you thought about that?
What it means to think of Jesus
as the bread of life?
To feed on him in our hearts.
To take him physically or spiritually into ourselves.
To draw nourishment from him,
knowing that it is life-giving
in a way that endures.
A little bit later in the chapter,
when Jesus talks about how his followers
will have eternal life if they eat his flesh
and drink his blood,
the disciples say, “This teaching is difficult.”
Which may be the understatement of the year.
On the other hand,
a lot of Jesus’ teachings were difficult.
He didn’t dumb things down,
or “keep it simple, stupid.”
He spoke in metaphor and parable,
image and story,
sometimes seemingly incomprehensible,
leaving room for his audience
to come to their own conclusions.
He taught in rich layers of meaning
in a way that reminds me of a hearty, whole-grain bread.
Sometimes you have to chew on it a while,
break down the tough or fibrous husks
to get to the nourishing kernel inside.

If Jesus is the bread of life,
how does he fit into your food pyramid?
Is he a quick sugar-fix snack when your energy is low?
Dessert that you only indulge in occasionally?
The vegetables your mother always made you eat
even though you thought they were disgusting?
Is Jesus your secret addiction
or your comfort food?
Your guilt-laden diet regime
or your healthy, daily lifestyle?

Because this image reminds me of the phrase
learned years ago in school,
“You are what you eat.”
What we take into our bodies
becomes part of us,
determining whether we are healthy or not,
whether we have strength to go about our daily lives
or are weak and cranky from hunger.
The same is true for our spiritual diet.
Without the sustenance God offers,
we are at risk of starving to death.

“I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me
will never be hungry,
and whoever believes in me
will never be thirsty.”

The bread of God
is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.
Life abundant, surprising,
colorful and unexpected.
A real kind of Wonder Bread.
No wonder that the people said to Jesus,
“Give us this bread always.”

Amen.

Keep in Touch

Keep in Touch
February 8, 2009
Montclair UMC, Denver, CO
Rev. Kerry Greenhill

Isaiah 40:21-31
Mark 1:29-39

I sent out my annual Christmas letter by email this year.
On January 6th.
Among my friends, I was not the last to do so.
After all, we save paper, save money on stamps,
and reduce the clutter on other people’s counters.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
It used to be that keeping in touch
meant writing letters
with pen and paper
or perhaps a typewriter;
making an occasional long-distance phone call
and lots of visits –
I know many of you remember those days
and don’t understand why no one writes letters any more.
The ways we keep in touch today
don’t have much to do with actual touch:
email, cell phones, text messaging, facebook
virtual communities are springing up all over
and people are communicating their whole lives
to an unseen, unknown audience (or readers)
through blogs (weblogs), vlogs, YouTube,
webcams, Twitter updates and chat rooms.
We seem to be a society
that has overdeveloped the technologies for communication
and risks neglecting real face-to-face relationships.
Yet I think the human instinct for physical connection will prevail.

Touch is something we literally cannot live without.
It is necessary for human life.
It signifies relationship, presence, intimacy.
It can bring healing, wholeness, wellness, health.

Jesus was a great practitioner of touch.
He touched those who were considered
“untouchable” by society,
healing the sick, those troubled by demons,
even those who had experienced disability since birth.
More than the physical cure, though,
the touch of Jesus restored people to wholeness:
he restored them to relationship with others,
to connection with their community.

In today’s story from Mark,
We continue straight on from last week’s reading –
it’s the Sabbath,
Jesus has gone to synagogue in Capernaum,
and cast an unclean spirit out of a man,
provoking awe and wonder among those who are gathered:
he teaches with authority!
Meaning, his ability to put words into action is unmatched.

Jesus then goes home with Simon & Andrew;
it turns into a “working lunch,”
as religious leaders sometimes have with their parishioners.
Learning that Simon’s mother-in-law is ill with a fever,
Jesus touches her, takes her by the hand,
and lifts her up – described in language that calls to mind
both Jesus’ body raised up on the cross
and the Eucharistic bread lifted up for blessing
in the last supper
and our remembrance of it.
And she is healed of her fever,
and gets up and serves them.

Do we bristle that Simon’s mother-in-law, who isn’t even named,
is healed of a potentially life-threatening fever
only to get up and go about the domestic chores
of serving these male guests?
I think we can be pretty confident
that this story about Jesus is not trying to teach us
that women should focus on household chores
rather than taking the time they need to be well.
There are plenty of other stories
about the ways in which Jesus sets women free
from the bondage of gender-restricted domestic roles,
to counteract a possible misinterpretation here.
No, this unnamed woman,
defined by her dependence on her male relations,
is touched by Jesus
and restored to life and service.
This is not about getting on with domestic servitude,
but being freed for servant ministry.
I’ll come back to that in a minute.

Jesus knew how to keep in touch with others.
I mean, we have no records of any letters he may have written;
we don’t know if he did follow-up visits
with those he had healed
to ensure they were making a full recovery.
But he was in touch with the reality of people’s lives.
He knew about the pain and suffering
of those who were unseen and untouched
by most of society.
He came to synagogue and cast out a demon.
He went to Simon and Andrew’s house
and healed Simon’s mother-in-law.
When the Sabbath was over at sundown,
he healed the dozens or hundreds who came to the door
seeking healing, wholeness, restored relationship.

But he also took time apart from the crowds,
while it was still dark,
seeking out a deserted place to pray.
He knew he needed to keep in touch with God.
This is a pattern that is repeated throughout the Gospels:
Jesus teaches, heals, engages people
and then he withdraws to pray.

It’s the disciples who want Jesus
to be more than in touch:
they want him to be constantly available,
defined by the expectations of the crowd,
anxiously trying to please others,
easing their own anxiety.

Sound familiar?
When thinking about our communication technologies today,
what worries me even more than their touchlessness
is that there seems no limit
to our belief in the goodness of reachability,
of perpetual sharing of what was once considered private.
We have lost a sense of boundaries.
Reality TV shows, Blackberrys and iPhones
have us convinced that fulfillment in life
means constant connection with as many people as possible,
or at least availability to all people at all times.
I’m as drawn in as anyone of my generation –
I love the way Facebook allows me to know
what my friends from all stages of my life
and now located all around the world
are doing at any given moment,
and the way they can comment on my own “status updates”
in real time.

More and more, our world is being drawn into the belief
that “community” or “intimacy”
is defined not by depth of communion
or the hard work of living together in love,
but by the surface area of our lives
that is available for public consumption.

There’s a website called LarkNews.com
that offers fake news stories,
satire with a Christian flavor.
Their current edition includes the following article:

LEWISTON, Maine — Recently, several hundred members of Holy Trinity Church watched pastor Jeremy Woods eat breakfast, work on his sermon and make a Starbucks run. Woods had just joined a growing group of pastors who are broadcasting their lives 24/7 on the Internet.
"When I first heard of going live I thought, 'This is the future of pastoring but I'm not sure I like it,'" Woods says. But after a month he says he "totally digs it."
"It's the next step beyond blogging or even live blogging," he says. "It's about sharing life."
The trend is believed to have started in 2004 when Rick Givens of New York's West Side Church decided to make himself "more accountable and accessible" by webcasting every waking moment live. But his pioneering effort has forced other pastors into awkward decisions. Donald Taylor, 37, of Nebraska didn't want to go live, but relented because of pressure from his board. He hated his first week.
"It was like being in prison. You never have a moment to yourself," he says.
But soon he began to enjoy having a constant audience. His wife particularly likes it because "he behaves more," she says. "It's like having God looking over your shoulder. You never know who's watching."

Jesus models for us
the importance of staying in touch
not with the crowds who define social norms and expectations,
but with God,
the Source of Life.

I suspect many of you are more faithful than I am
about making time for God in your lives.
Don’t be shocked!
Ministers often feel that our whole work life revolves around God
and we forget that we need to relate to God
not as an object, the theme of our vocation,
but as the Holy One who actively calls us to this sacred work,
and who wants to remain in relationship with us,
as Someone who might actually have wisdom to share with us
as we travel this journey together.

This keeping in touch with God can happen in different ways.
For some people, reading the Bible brings them close to God
and allows them to hear God’s Word for them in new ways.
For others, prayer is like a conversation,
describing what is happening in their lives
and asking for God’s help and guidance.
Still others know God’s presence most through stillness and silence,
Resting in God’s love without the need for words.
Perhaps you keep in touch with God by walking in the park,
or spending time with your grandchildren,
volunteering to help those in need,
or gardening or cooking or building things or creating art.

Keeping in touch with God is important
not only because God wants to stay in close relationship with us,
but also because it is how we become our best selves.
God loves us unconditionally:
the everlasting, Holy One of Israel,
renewer of strength and unsearchable of understanding,
is the one who redeems us and sustains us
for the work of building the kingdom,
the work for which God created us and to which God calls us.
But as humans with a tendency to turn from God
and to miss the mark of what God desires for us,
if we only keep in touch with ourselves
and with the people around us,
we run the risk of being driven
not by love
but by fear.
We are anxious creatures sometimes.
And when a bunch of anxious people get together,
they like nothing better than to spread the anxiety –
after all, then there are more people to carry the burden, right?
The problem is that anxiety multiplies.
Misery loves company,
not always so it can feel better,
but sometimes so others can feel just as bad.

We see that happening here with Jesus and the disciples.
Jesus has a very successful day on the trail,
having just begun his campaign for the kingdom.
Exorcisms, healings, teaching with authority:
all received well and giving him a big surge in the polls.
And then he disappears.
Now, Simon, Andrew, James and John
have only recently been drafted onto Jesus’ team.
They’ve only seen him in action a little while,
and this is the first time he’s pulled this stunt on them.
It won’t be the last…
but they don’t know that yet.
They get up early in the morning to plan the day,
maybe grab some breakfast before the healing clinic opens again,
and Jesus is nowhere to be found.
He’s vanished.
Panic sets in.
Where did he go?
What is he doing?
What if we can’t find him?
What will the people think?
We’d better find him, and fast!
So they hunt him down,
and find him,
predictably to our ears
but apparently a surprise to all of them,
spending time alone in prayer.

When they meet up with Jesus,
the disciples can’t quite admit
how scared they were
about his absence.
Everyone is searching for you,
they tell him.
We weren’t too worried,
but all those people out there—
those who are sick, the ones with demons—
they didn’t know what to do!
You’d better come back fast
and get to work helping them
before they get too worried.

But Jesus isn’t fazed.
He’s been keeping in touch with the Creator,
waiting upon the Lord,
renewing his strength
through communion with the everlasting God.
He has been refreshed
in his understanding of what his purpose is.
In response to the disciples’ anxious clinging, he says,
Let us go on to the neighboring towns,
so that I may proclaim the message there also;
for that is what I came out to do.

Perhaps Jesus knows that if he stays in Capernaum,
people will become focused on his ability to heal
and to cast out demons,
and they will cling to him as a wonder-worker,
not looking to God to renew their strength
and not empowered to serve one another
as Simon’s mother-in-law is.

You see,
what is interesting to me
about the healing of this unnamed woman,
is that her immediate response is not worship,
not words of gratitude,
not wonder or amazement,
but immediate commitment
to self-giving service.
The Greek word translated as “serves” in this verse
is the same word translated in some versions as “ministers”
as the angels ministered to Jesus at the end of his time in the desert.
It is also the word from which we get the English word “Deacon.”
Simon’s mother-in-law is healed from her fever,
and she begins a servant ministry as the first deacon.
She is the first one healed to respond so whole-heartedly.
And though Mark has yet to tell us
that what it means for Jesus to be the Son of God
is that he is willing to serve others,
and even to suffer and die,
here we have a kind of foreshadowing,
an implicit teaching of what it means
to become a disciple,
to be touched by God through Jesus:
not only to leave behind one’s family and livelihood,
but to get up and serve
on a day that permits rest
as a sign of love and kingdom commitment.

We are finite, flawed, and fallen;
We need to stay in touch with God,
for it is “waiting” for God
that will renew our strength
and reveal our purpose, our vocation,
our mission.
We, too, need to learn when it is time to move on
to continue to spread the Gospel
in other places,
whether literally moving in space,
or spiritually moving on to the next phase of our lives.
We cannot linger in the luxury
of the miracle of healing,
nor dwell in the demands of the needy crowd.
Keeping in touch with God
allows us to find our deepest, best selves,
to know how our heart’s deep joy
can rise up to meet
the world’s deep need,
not trying to fix everything
or save everyone,
but bearing witness to God’s healing touch
in whatever small way we can.
May you know God’s touch
and be empowered to serve.
Amen.