READING: John Ch 6 v 24-35
Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.
When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” So they asked him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'” Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.”
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”
SERMON: Looking For God In All The Wrong Places
I have a pretty wide range of musical tastes. Anything from classical, pop, heavy metal, blues, easy listening, and country and western. There is an old country western song titled “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places”? The song by Johnny Lee is about a down and out cowboy, looking for love in bars and shallow relationships. “Looking for love in all the wrong places”.
Today we have a text that might go by a similar title, only instead of “love”, people were “Looking for God, in all the wrong places.”
God’s people in our lesson for today were reacting to Jesus’ miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Last Sunday’s reading from John recalled how Jesus fed a crowd of some five thousand people with just five loaves of bread and a few fish.
Quite the miracle! In response to that feeding, the whole crowd went looking for Jesus and more of that miraculous bread that he provided for them.
And why stop with just bread? If Jesus could make a meal for five thousand people, then surely he could provide them with health, wealth, and material prosperity above and beyond their wildest imaginings! Just follow Jesus and you can have all your earthly dreams fulfilled!
But you see, that was just the problem. God’s people were looking too low. They were looking for earthly treasures and earthly bread, when they should have been looking heavenly treasure and heavenly bread. They were seeking the gifts, but missing out on the giver.
“Give us more of this bread,” they said to Jesus. In response, Jesus gave them an answer they were not expecting. “Why toil for bread that does not satisfy? Why work for bread that will only perish?” He redirected their searching. He encouraged them to set their sights higher. He told them to look not just for earthly bread which will perish, but for the giver of all good gifts, the one who is the very “bread of life”, God himself.
Looking for love in all the wrong places. Looking for God in all the wrong places. Isn’t that what happens to us all when we fall in love with the gifts, but forget about the giver?
Bread is a pretty good gift. And we could think of a lot of other amazing things.
Just imagine a first century Biblical person being transported to our day and age, and all the material blessings, he or she might marvel at.
Can you imagine a first century person watching television for the first time? How amazed and awestruck they would be by the images and sounds, coming from a box? And not just a little box, but a wide screen “mega 54” TV” covering an entire wall? Or maybe it would be a tiny TV found in someone’s mobile phone.
Now days, you can watch a film, not just in the cinema, but also on your “mobile phone”!
And that would be only the beginning of all the marvels that first century person would behold. They would also see trains, planes, and cars. Food from all the corners of the world almost instantly available in the supermarkets. There would be sporting events to attend, dances, plays, and endless entertainment.
After such a feast of material blessings, what would that first century person say? “Give us more of this bread!” And who could blame them?
Earthly bread is good. Earthly bread is a gift from God. Earthly bread is a blessing meant to be enjoyed. How can we not like such blessings? How can we not love them? Yet what if there was something much better right around the corner?
Something better than the latest must have mobile? or other gizmo. Something better than a blockbuster DVD or even the best seats at a cup final?
And what if that one more “thing” was not a “thing” at all, but rather a “person” to enter into relationship with. A person who loves us with a love that is eternal, and absolutely inexhaustible.
Wouldn’t we want to set our sights just a little bit higher? Wouldn’t we want to pursue not just the gifts, but also the giver?
“Give us more bread.” How easy it is, to love the gifts but forget about the giver. No generation has been more materially blessed than this one. We have so much bread to marvel to at. And sometimes, we take such delight in our material “bread” that we become like little kids in a sweet shop.
We become mesmerized by all that surrounds us. Hypnotized by all the colour, sounds, smells, and tastes. “More, more, more!” we cry, “Give us more of this bread!” But here’s the problem with this earthly bread.
In our lesson for today, Jesus said, that earthly bread perishes. It only lasts so long.
I recently read about a very rare bottle of wine that was being auctioned off for over £60,000! As the bottle was being handled, it slipped from the holder’s hands and fell to the floor. The bottle shattered, spilling the £60,000 wine.
Was the wine still worth £60,000 now that it had been mixed with the dust from over a 1,000 shoes? I don’t think so! But that’s the problem with earthly bread. It perishes. It turns into trash in the twinkling of an eye.
And was that bottle of wine really worth £60,000 in the first place? The wine we serve in communion costs about £4.00 a bottle. Could any earthly wine really taste 20,000 times better than our £4.00 bottle of wine?
Don’t we eventually reach a point of diminishing returns?
Jesus was honest with people in today’s gospel lesson.
Earthly bread is good. Earthly fish is good. Earthly wine is good. All God’s gifts are good.
But the giver is infinitely better! And that’s the real bread we need. The real wine we need to partake of.
Jesus comes among us as the “true bread from heaven” that satisfies our deepest hunger. At communion Jesus invites us to a feast and at this feast we are served something better than a £60,000 wine.
Through the bread and wine of communion, God becomes present to us, to know and to love. Wouldn’t it be a shame if we missed out on this “bread from heaven”, come down to be among us in Jesus?
May we seek and enjoy earthly bread. But may we seek even more intensely, the giver of all good gifts, the “true bread from heaven”, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
PRAYERS
Lord, we give you thanks today for so many things, a thousand miracles we take for granted every day. Thank you for the vitality and diversity of the natural world. Thank you for the regularity and stability of the created world. Thank you for the way the body goes on functioning with such remarkable ingenuity. Train our hearts to be thankful so that we live daily out of a deep sense of gratitude and humility.
Jesus, Lord of life in your mercy hear us
We know that our world is both wonderful and flawed at every point. We see the symptoms of a disordered world in every news broadcast. Bless we pray those parts of the world which are especially damaged and in need of healing at the moment. Give them leaders of genuine calibre, and the support of the international community. And keep us from the sin of thinking that their problems are nothing to do with us, for we are all children of one heavenly Father.
Jesus, Lord of life in your mercy hear us
In the Church we hope to find a different way of living and sharing together, and so often we are disappointed. The flaw in creation is also in us and in the Church. Forgive us for distorting your gospel into our own possession and the likeness of our own prejudices. Give us joyful and generous hearts which allow you to work through us to bring meaning and beauty into your Church and world. Persuade us out of our arguments, inspire us out of our pettiness, and set us free to be agents of your Kingdom.
Jesus, Lord of life in your mercy hear us
We pray for people in any kind of need for whom this talk of ‘life in all its fullness’ would ring very hollow. Be close today to the lonely, the bereaved, the despairing and the desperate. Bless with hope those who are unemployed, homeless, deserted or friendless. Give your deep healing to the sick, the disturbed, the damaged and the lost. In our hearts we name in silence some of those we know to be in dark places today.
Jesus, Lord of life in your mercy hear us
You, Lord, came to give us life, and to do so you had to lay down your own life to bring us back to God. Help us this day to live as those who have been given the glorious liberty of the children of God, and who want to live our lives in gratitude and joy. So make us ready for that day when all that is good is caught up in the life of heaven and Christ is all in all.
Merciful Father, accept these prayers for the sake of your Son, our saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
And so we bind our prayers together in the words that Jesus taught his disciples …
Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,
For ever and ever.
Amen
Revd Kevin.
Associate Priest at St.Wilfrid and St.Thomas
