2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
Psalm 130
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
On Wednesday evening, I was at Sullivan’s Funeral Home at the visitation for Miss Adra.[i] When I got to the chapel, right next to the book there were several pictures; including a picture from Adra and Albert’s wedding. They were standing right down here where the table is right now. They had just said their “I do’s” and were about to spend the first night of over fifty years together as man and wife.
In the midst of all of this, what drew my attention were the brass candle holders behind them. I saw those candle holders and wondered how many people had been married under their light. On Thursday morning, I was sitting next to Tom Malcolm during the funeral. When he saw that picture he drew my attention to it. I smiled and mentioned the candle holders. He saw them and remembered his daughter’s weddings.
When I asked Tom for permission to mention this he wrote me back:
The immediate memory that came to mind was the organ pipes in the background of the picture. The flash moment left only a wisp of time to take in the candleabras and regret that I was, as you say, “flooded” with instant memories of a setting long ago and I remember little else from the photo. Sad to say, I would have to see it again to know what event it saved. The mind says, “We were there, twice, and in this special place and time.” I could say with some certainty that the candleabras are the same… perhaps in the mind's eye the entire setting was the same. That was the moment of value and for a second, my thought was “Thanks for the memory.” That happens a lot.[ii]
Well, I don’t think Tom should as he said “regret” being flooded with those memories. I believe it’s amazing and it’s wonderful how the split second the appearance of something familiar, like organ pipes and candle holders, can bring back memories. With a simple glimpse, a world of reminiscing begins. Suddenly thoughts of weddings and marriages, children and grand children and now great grandchildren flood our minds; all from pieces of metal.
With the look in his eyes, I was able to share that moment with Tom and in the midst of the sorrow of Miss Adra’s funeral was a different kind of moment. It was a moment that became more than the sum of its parts.
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| Organ Pipes and Iron Candle Holder in the chancel of the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas. Photo by Paul Andresen |
Behind me is an iron candle holder. This is one of the candle holders we currently use during weddings. In this congregation today are people who have been married under its lights. There are brides, grooms who remember these lights. There are wedding party members who remember these lights. Some of you are parents of children married under these lights. Some of you are children whose parents were married under these lights. These are special for me too because they are the lights that shined during the weddings I have celebrated in your midst.
Out of brass and iron, wax and wick come memories. These are just ordinary things, and like all ordinary things they will come and they will go, I don’t know where those brass candle holders are, but what they represent is not lost.
On a more difficult note, let me take off my rose colored glasses. I know that not every moment in every marriage is light and joy. That’s the nature of marriage. That’s the nature of life on Earth. And those memories come back with these candle holders too. They’re important to remember too.
Jesus said “I am the bread of life.” “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” “He who comes to me will never be hungry.” “If anyone eats this bread he will live forever.” Now that’s some bread. That’s the most special bread on Earth. It’s the most important bread on Earth. But if there is one thing that needs to be said, it’s that our relationship with bread is different from those living in the Holy Land . One of the best understandings I have found was this from Bill Hinson in “The Power of Holy Habits”:
I heard an Armenian describe the bread of life. He said that Westerners do not understand what Jesus was saying when he said, 'I am the Bread of Life.' In the Middle East , bread is not just something extra thrown in at a meal. It is the heart of every meal. They have those thin pieces of pita bread at every meal.[iii]
This isn’t so different from traditional Mexican cuisine. Substitute “tortilla” for “pita” and you are on your way. Many Middle Eastern cultures today do this with naan, another kind of flat bread made with yogurt. As for me, I can’t imagine a hamburger without a bun. We don’t have the same relationship with bread, but there are still echoes in our meals today. Continuing Hinson’s words:
Those strict people would not think about taking forks and putting them in their mouths. To put an object in your mouth defiles it. You certainly would not take a fork out and put it in again and go on defiling yourself like that. Instead, you break off a piece of the bread, pick up your food with it and eat it.[iv]
So where we often use bread as a side dish, in the time of the Lord bread was instrumental to the meal. In Jesus’ time meat was rare for regular folks. Fruits and vegetables had their seasons. Grain kept so bread was available. Bread was a staple.
So out of something ordinary, out of something people ate at every meal, out of the most basic component of every meal, Jesus made his point about who he is. Again, from Hinson:
Indeed, the only way you can get to the main dish, he said, is with the bread. Jesus was saying that the only way you can come to life is through him. That is why he was saying - I am the Bread of Life; I am the only way to come to life.[v]
When choosing something to compare himself to in John’s gospel, Jesus chooses the most important things in the lives of the people of Israel , bread and water. Jesus chose things the people could not live without. It’s as easy as that. We can’t live without Jesus; he is the way to life eternal. He made that point clear to the people who heard and he tries to make that point just as clear to us.
In his most recent book, the Rev. Dr. Michael Jinkins writes of the great German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Jinkins writes, Bonhoeffer “protests against our tendency to let the decisive theological question ‘Who are you?’ dissolve into questions about ‘how’… The how questions are the fragmenting mechanical, manipulating questions, the debilitating questions about mere techniques and technologies.”[vi] Bonhoeffer makes a point that is abundantly clear from our reading.
Jesus never once tells the people “how” he did what he does. He never shows us how a miracle happens. He never shows us that, as a friend of mine once told me he suspected, the feeding of the 5,000 happened because everyone stopped being greedy for one moment, opened their lunch pails, and shared their meals with one another leading to a surplus of food. (As if that wouldn’t be a miracle!)
Jinkins goes on to make a very astute observation: Good answers only come from good questions. He tells us that the right questions the church needs to answer have nothing to do with how and everything to do with who. The right questions according to Jinkins are “Who is Christ? and Who does Christ want us to be?”[vii] The answer to this first question is what we hear today, Christ is the bread of life that fills us. Christ is the one who satisfies our thirst.
The answer to the second is our vocation.
The Jews (As I’ve said before; John used the phrase “the Jews” to mean “the leadership” not “the people on the street.”), these leaders begin to grumble about his claim. “How can he say ‘I came down from heaven’ if we’ve known him since he was a baby born in Jerusalem ?” Their grumbling makes Bonhoeffer’s and Jinkins’ point. When the “how” question gains traction the “who” question gets lost.
When we focus on what we know and understand and try to fit everything into our understanding; we grumble, we complain and we try to fit our square pegs into God’s round holes just like these Jewish leaders did. On that day, they failed to ask “Who is this?” and instead went for “How does he make this claim?” What they don’t realize is that the answer to the first question is the answer to the second.
The answer to “who” is the answer to “how.”
In John 4 Jesus calls himself the living water. In this passage Jesus calls himself the bread of life and the drink that ends thirst. Jesus shows us all that out of something ordinary something extraordinary comes. Many didn’t understand. That’s nothing new. This was true in the day of Jesus. It was true before the day of Jesus. It is still true today. In our over-enlightened “How does it work?” world, we won’t understand as long as our understanding is shrouded in human sin.
It is only when we begin to answer the questions “Who is Christ? and Who does Christ want us to be?” that anything else comes into place. As Jinkins says, these questions drive all of our other questions. These are the questions we must ask if we are to have any future as the Church Christ called to be his body.
The PC(USA) Directory for Worship says this about the bread we are to use for the Lord’s Supper:
Bread common to the culture of the community should be provided to be broken by the one who presides. The use of the one bread expresses the unity of the body of Christ.[viii]
What this meant when we lived in the Ozarks was that the bread we broke was a loaf of French bread from Wal-Mart because in Northwest Arkansas there is no bread more common to the culture of the community than something you get at Wal-Mart. For us, this means Al and Bonnie go the store and pick up a pack of rolls. There is nothing wrong with either of these breads.
Because of who we are, we aren’t required to go to Rome or Louisville or Dallas and get special church-approved bread. Jesus used the loaves of the community. Jesus was referring to the bread that everyone ate, not some special bread that is blessed because of what it is or who makes it.
What makes the bread special, what makes that meal special, is that it is the sign and seal of eating and drinking in communion with the crucified and risen Lord.”[ix] It’s not the bread that’s special; it is who instituted the meal and what he said about it that makes the bread special.
With the candle holders, brass and iron, wax and wick stimulate memories. These are just ordinary things, but what they mean to us makes them more than ordinary. In an even better way, Jesus took something ordinary; something used everyday, and made it holy.
Jesus does the same with us. When we ask “Who am I?” the answer is “I am a child of God.” What makes us special is not what we make ourselves but what God makes us. It’s the “who” question again and the answer is “God makes us who we are.” From there we must answer the next question Jinkins asks, “Who does Christ want us to be?"
Jesus said “I am the bread of life.” “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” “He who comes to me will never be hungry.” “If anyone eats this bread he will live forever.” In the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Communion, out of something ordinary comes the sign of God’s promise to us; the visible sign of God’s invisible grace. Now that’s some bread. That’s the most special bread on Earth. It’s the most important bread on Earth.
[i] Adra Marie Abraham, September 27, 1925-August 4, 2012, http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/marshallnewsmessenger/obituary.aspx?n=adrah-marie-abraham-ryan&pid=159010370
[ii] Personal correspondence with this permission: You may use anything of the incident you wish…
[iii] Hinson, Bill, “The Power of Holy Habits.” Nashville : Abingdon Press, 1991, page 39. Found at “Living Bread,” HomileticsOnline.com Animating Illustrations, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=1652, retrieved August 7, 2012
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Jinkins, Michael, “The Church Transforming: What’s Next for the Reformed Project?” Louisville , KY : Westminster John Knox Press, 2012, page 20-21
[vii] Ibid Jinkins, page 21, italics in the original text.
[viii] W-3.3610, Bread, PC(USA ) Book of Order, Directory for Worship, 2011-2013.
[ix] W-2.4001.a., Jesus and the Supper, PC(USA ) Book of Order, Directory for Worship, 2011-2013.
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