"Bread of Life"
John 6:25-39
Abigail Chamblee, Westmoreland UCC
March 9, 2025
What do you hunger for?
Maybe today, it’s the many treats we have downstairs to celebrate Martell, including some delicious food his sister Mia has prepared and brought today – I am definitely hungry for that!
Maybe, on top of that, you hunger for an end to pain, mental, physical, or both. Maybe you hunger for a minute of peace and quiet–some peace from a constant phone notifications, or children yelling “mom!” “dad!”, or peace from difficult thoughts or memories that never seem to stop.
Maybe, you’re like me, when I first started to think about this question, and hunger for things to be different.
Maybe you feel like you’ve done all you can, like you try so hard every day, and something has gotta give.
Maybe you're thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if things were just different than they are right now.
If you had been dealt a different hand.
In today’s Scripture, Jesus tells us that he is the “bread of life”, that we must “believe” or we another way of translating is that is to “trust,” and we will be satisfied.
He says “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever TRUSTS in me will never be thirsty.
He says trust in me, trust in “ the food that endures for eternal life.” The disciples look at him and say okay great…. So when will we see this in action? See the “works” of God? See the proof?
And we ask the same – when will it be better? When will it be different? When will I have answers and the things that I hunger for? When will the pain cease, when will I feel secure in my job, myrelationship, my own skin? When will the news not cause me to panic every time I look at it? When will things be better? When will I feel satisfied?
—
What’s interesting is that this passage in John comes after two important stories that are linked together in 3 of the 4 Gospels. The first story is the Feeding of the 5000, where Jesus turns a few loaves and fish into enough to satisfy all the people who had come to see him, and the next story is Jesus Walking on the Water.
And then, obviously, in John, we get this passage about Jesus being the “bread of life”- and the disciples are somehow still confused and somehow still ask for more proof, despite having just witnessed two amazing miracles. And when we look at this story from here, it’s easy to judge them a bit, but also we are them. Each of us is just like each of the disciples.
We doubt, like the disciples doubted Jesus before he multiplied the provisions and fed the crowd. We are afraid, terrified even, like the disciples were as they tossed about in the boat on the stormy sea and saw a strange apparition approach them. And we often get confused or are
misguided, like the disciples in this passage, who have seen these miracles and still ask for more!
And that makes sense, because we are human too, just like them. We hunger for something different – to move forward or go back, even when we know things are not so simple, we still hunger for things to change, in our own lives and in the world. Even Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane asks for things to be different, for there to be a different plan, and a different story.
And as we hunger for better conditions, for calm seas and full bellies, Jesus says, “I am the Bread of Life,” trust me, and you will no longer hunger, you will be satisfied. You will live in the unending presence of God in the here and now and forever.
But this doesn't mean we get what we want, this doesn’t mean we get the change we think we need, and this doesn’t mean things are going to be good or even fine. We will still sit in our boats on the stormy seas, we will still show up to the crowd with too little to share. But it will be okay,
because we have the Bread of Life.
Because in this story, Jesus didn’t calm the storm, he walked on the water. Jesus didn’t take everyone’s order in the crowd, so everyone got what they wanted, he multiplied what he had, the loaves and the fish. Maybe you don’t like fish, but you're going to get fish.
And when the disciples wanted answers, Jesus usually didn’t make things the clearest - he gave a lot of stories, parables, and metaphors, like the “bread of life.”
But God was there in the storm, and God is with us now. Jesus was there in the storm, and Jesus is with us now. The Spirit was there in the storm, and the Spirit is with us now.
So let us trust in that, believe in that.
It won’t be easy, but we have this nice period of Lent to work through it and to help us lean into that!
Because this trust and belief is what fuels us, that is what keeps us going when we are hungry and empty-handed, that is how we keep going to love our neighbor and to do justice and love kindness, and be the people we are called to be as Christ’s followers. May we be part of the bread of life, and share that with each other.
Because things will be okay. Because each of us has the divine in us. It will be okay, even if it isn’t perfect. It will be okay.
I want to close with some words from Kate Bowler, a wonderful author who writes beautiful, honest prayers and devotions, who writes for what she calls “The Lives we Actually Have” and for our “Beautiful and Terrible” days.1
Let us pray:
Jesus,
“Teach us to hunger for what is good, and be filled.
There will be no easy addition or subtraction.
We will lose and we will gain,
And almost none of it will make much sense at the time,
And it will force our hands open.
In the ebb and flow of wins and losses, comings and goings,
May we look for the divine in the mystery of it all,
The stubbornness of flowers that still smile at us in the grocery store,
And the need for endless small reminders
That the pain of it all, the comedy of it all,
Will point us back to love.” [And to you.]
Amen
