Good Morning!!

What a gorgeous and perfect day to worship and celebrate together
outside!

With Family, Friends, and even some of our beloved pets.

On this beautiful day, we’ll share TWO meals together:
The Eucharistic meal: here during our worship,

And a celebratory picnic meal after our service.

So it’s really fitting that we hear some words from Jesus today, about
eating, and drinking the living bread.

Jesus said “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.”

Our lectionary has given us this “bread of life” discourse for the past three
weeks.

And in that time, We’ve heard a lot about Jesus flesh and blood.

Anyone walking into a Christian church for the first time in the last few
weeks would likely be disturbed:
If not slightly creeped out:
Or at the very least,
Confused by all of this bizarre talk.

And then there’s the flip side:
Some of us are so used to hearing this weird stuff,
That we stop actually HEARING it.

We’re used to hearing “On the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took
bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it, gave it to his disciples
and said, “Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you.”

When we’re familiar with the larger story, and we hear Jesus words “I will
give my flesh for the life of the world.”
We know he’s alluding to his crucifixion:
His sacrificial death for all of us.

And even though it sounds weird,
we have some sense of what Jesus means when he says :
Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life,
and I will raise them up on the last day,
for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”

We have SOME sense that all of this is an image for the Eucharist
For the celebration of communion:

The first of two meals that we’ll share together today.

But it’s also MORE than that.
And the meal we’ll share together at this table is just the beginning.

In fact, the words that we hear today, (and for the past three weeks) are
words that Jesus spoke in the FIRST year of his public ministry.

With these bread of life passages coming so early in Jesus’ ministry,
Johns Gospel makes clear that all of this business about flesh, blood,
Bread, and Eucharist isn’t just about the night before Jesus died.

It’s not just a remembrance of that night that Jesus sat with his friends and
told them to “do this in remembrance of me.”

Because Jesus was alluding to all of this way before the institution of the
first last supper.

These words, coming so early on in John’s gospel is a signal to us that the
flesh, blood, bread, and eucharist is about ALL of it:
Jesus’ whole life:
And not just the events of his last days.

Jesus’ WHOLE life institutes holy communion.
And real communion:
REAL Eucharist:

Is about much more than a tiny piece of bread and a little sip of wine once
a week.

Real communion is our whole lives:
And the WHOLE of our lives.

Jesus’ institution of Holy Communion isn’t confined to the night before he
died,
And our faith is not confined to Jesus’ death and resurrection either:
But in Jesus’ whole life.

From Bethlehem, to the sending of the Holy Spirit, and everything in
between.

The feedings, the miracles, the healings, the trial, the walk to the cross, the
empty tomb, and the appearances in the garden.

All of it.
Everything Jesus did:
Who Jesus was,
How Jesus acted,
Is a part of God’s revelation to us,
And Jesus’ invitation to “do this” in remembrance of me.

We are invited to take Jesus’ whole story and make it a part of our own.

God took not only a piece of bread and a sip of wine:

But God also took Jesus’ WHOLE life:
Blessed it: Broke it:
And gave it to us.

And in return, we don’t just show up for a piece of bread and a sip of wine
once a week.
We are to actually let the story of God’s love for us take us:
Bless us: Break us:
And give us back to the world.

And not just on Sunday morning.
But our whole lives,
And our whole selves.

So it makes sense that we would do things a little bit differently today.
Getting out of the building,
And worshipping together in the beauty of God’s creation.

And not only that:
But we’ll bless much more than bread and wine today.

Normally, we bless our pets in October:
Around the feast day of St. Francis.

But we’re doing things differently this year!
As a reminder of the Wholeness of God’s blessing:
We bring before our Lord today not just bread and wine,

Not just our selves, our souls, and our bodies,
But our pets,
And maybe even our special stuffed animals!

Or maybe there’s something else you’d like blessed today:
A piece of jewelry,
Or maybe even a rock from the church yard:
Bring anything you’d like forward,
To remind you of the wholeness that Jesus blesses us with.

Because Real communion, Real Eucharist:
Is about more than bread and wine.

It’s about the whole of life.
The wholeness of life:
All of it:
Blessed, Broken, and shared.

Amen.

Hunger and Satisfaction.
We find this tension in ourselves every single day.

People say that you shouldn’t go to the grocery store when you’re hungry.
You’ll end up buying things that you don’t need.
Things that wont actually satisfy your hunger.

Or: If I go out to dinner:
And eat an appetizer, salad, and the main course meal:
I usually feel worse:
Even if I was REALLY hungry.
When I over-fill: I can’t even function for the rest of the evening.
(I’ll have to remember this while I’m in door county this week!)

Shoveling it all in when you’re hungry wont actually satisfy you.
And you’ll just be hungry again…

We have a hard time stopping when we’re satisfied:
When we’re feeling Just right.
We have a hard time just sitting with “enough.”

We meet Jesus in today’s gospel just after he has fed the multitudes.

We pick up right where we left off last week:
The people were hungry, there was limited food:
And so Jesus turned a few loaves of bread:
And a few fish:
Into enough for thousands to eat.
For thousands to be filled.
There were even baskets full of leftovers.

Everyone had their fill of bread and fish.
They had the pleasure of eating enough.
They supposedly ate until they were satisfied:

Or at least satisfied for a brief time:
They had enough:
For a brief time.

Funny thing about “enough.”
Just what is “enough”?
“Enough” for us humans:
Is rarely enough.
We seem to always want more.

And even for the multitudes:
Eating that miraculous meal during Jesus’ time:

Enough wasn’t really enough.
Because the people weren’t merely hungry for food:

The people Jesus had fed wanted a guarantee that they would always have
enough.

Jesus’ provision of plentiful bread seemed to them something they wanted more
of.
They wanted Jesus to continually give them more.
So they pursued him.

They thought if they could have him, they could have bread –
limitless, wonderful, unending bread.
They thought, if they could just find Jesus: they would have enough.
But enough would never be enough:
People will always want more:
Yet not the “real more”
Not the more that will truly and actually satisfy.

Jesus fed hungry people.
He knew that people need to eat.
He told his followers to feed people:
real, physical, tangible, nutritious food.
But he also promised that he himself would be enough.

He didn’t want to be just a provider of physical bread.
To do miracles, so that people could eat a lot of food, from a little.
He wants to be our bread –
our sustenance, our nourishment, our daily strength, our source of satisfaction.

Physical food alone cannot satisfy our whole hunger.
The multitudes thought that they wanted unlimited food and drink:
They searched for Jesus—wanting him to give them more food:
And Jesus redirects their quest:
Telling them what they don’t really want to hear:
Yet it is an extreme word of Hope:

Jesus says: “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the
signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”
Its as if he’s saying: You just want more food: But that will never satisfy you!!

He goes on to say: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that
endures for eternal life.”

The people want the food:
And Jesus redirects them: by giving them himself.
His very self:
The only food that will ever really last:
The only food that will ever really satisfy.
The only food that we ever REALLY need.

Jesus is bread, but he wants to fill the hunger of our hearts and not just our
stomachs.
He wants to fill the gnawing, aching emptiness that we try to fill with lesser
things:
That emptiness that we try to fill with that appetizer, salad, and full course meal:
Or with junk food on a hungry trip to the grocery story.
Or with money:
Or with alcohol:
Or with big houses:
Or with big churches:
Or with power:
Or with worrying about having enough of anything.

None of those will ever be enough.
None of those will ever satisfy:
They will only possess us.

Jesus invites the multitudes,
And us:
To allow ourselves to fall into the hands of the one for whom we were made:
To be fully satisfied and fed by the only one who can truly feed and satisfy us.

Jesus is daily sustenance.
He is bread to be savored, gathered around.

Bread to inspire thanksgiving, to remind us of the wonder of life, to strengthen us.

We can contemplate him thoughtfully, chewing slowly, pondering:
But we will be satisfied: If we come to him:
Open to whatever he places in our outstretched hands.
And trusting that whatever He places there:
It will indeed be enough.

As a matter of fact:
The verb used in John’s gospel for believe:
Can also be translated as TRUST.
And I wish we read it as TRUST.

When Jesus urges the multitudes to strive for real satisfaction:
Through believing in God:
He’s also telling them to TRUST.
To TRUST that God is enough.
To TRUST that God alone can satisfy the hunger.
To TRUST that our abundant God has graciously given us everything we need:

And those other things:
That we cling to in hunger:
Are the things that will never satisfy as God does.

Jesus was taken, blessed, and broken.
He is to be shared.
He is enough to satisfy our every hunger:
He IS the bread of life: Whoever comes to him:
Whoever trusts in that truth: Will never be hungry.

Amen.