August 4, 2024
Pentecost 11, Year B
Epiphany, Winnipeg
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
In the church I grew up in there was a man named Einar. Einar was an old man, or so I thought. At the age I was at the time anyone much older than my parents was old, so Einar could have been 45 or 60 or 80. I’m pretty sure he was probably closer to 80. Kind of a small man, if I recall correctly. He lived in a small house with his adult daughter who had joys and troubles of her own. His wife had died several years ago and we knew how much he missed her. I think he had a simple kind of life: Not rich, not poor, not busy, not bored. Just a kind little man much older than me who had a smile.
I used to watch him go up to the rail on communion Sundays, and sometimes it almost seemed like he was running there. He seemed to stand taller, and he held his head high and moved forward with a kind of anticipation. I never saw his face when he had communion, but the pastor – my dad – often commented that Einar would just beam when he held out his hands to receive a little piece of bread. Just a little piece of bread. And I don’t know if he would express it this way or not, but my guess is that when he came up there he never went away from there hungry. And he never went away thirsty.
And it wasn’t just that he had a little piece of bread and a sip of wine. No, not at all. Einar had met the one who promised to be Bread of Life, and that Bread never ever left Einar hungry.
To be honest, I didn’t know much of Einar’s life other than what I saw on a Sunday morning. All these years later I know it’s safe to assume that he was hungry sometimes, because he had known grief and still carried it around, he probably had his own things going on inside – mental, spiritual, emotional - that only he knew, like most or all of us do. And he lived in a world just like we do where we wonder sometimes what is going on and how things could go so wrong, and maybe he like we would sometimes wonder if the world would survive this time around.
But everything I saw and everything I heard from those brief encounters on a Sunday morning were enough to show me that Einar knew something I was only starting to learn. There’s this Bread of Life, named Jesus, and that bread will never leave us empty.
I will confess that I’m always a little uncomfortable when these Bread of Life pieces come along in August every few years. On the one hand, they’re great, because I love bread and I bake bread and I eat bread. I’ve had so many good good times with friends when we have just broken bread together. Not communion, not a set apart special time, but just enjoying bread and maybe some cheese and maybe some wine and maybe some good sausage and olives and always good conversation and laughter and some tears as well.
On the other hand, my aging body – yes, someone who is the age I was back then might just look at me and see an old man, and that’s OK – my aging body isn’t so sure any more that it likes all that bread all the time. We’re not sure we agree with each other. Even more than all that, we know that there are so many people in the world and even just around the corner here who do not have any bread for this life right now. So when Jesus says things like “Don’t work for the bread that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life,” it somehow just doesn’t quite sit right with me sometimes….
…Because the Jesus who calls himself the Bread of Life is the same one who had just finished breaking bread with a crowd of thousands. Food matters. Now. The Jesus who calls himself Bread of Life sat on the beach a few days after he was raised from the dead. He sat there with a fire and some nice grilled fish and fresh bread, and do you remember what he said to his confused disciples who still couldn’t make sense of what’s going on? “Come and have breakfast.” And they ate bread together. The Bread of Life cares about real bread, real food, real comfort, real life.
On the other other hand, I know that I’ve been so hungry. I still am sometimes. Maybe a lot of the time. Now I’ve never ever not had enough bread, but I have been hungry. Hungry to know that I am loved, or more to the point hungry to be able to believe that I’m loved, even if every message says that I am. I’ve been hungry for hope when the world just seems to be so broken, or hungry for some kind of energy during those times when days just drag on, or hungry for contentment or peace or rest or courage. What are you hungry for, what are your empty places inside that cry out to be filled and nourished with some kind of bread that will not leave you hungry?
We’ve all been hungry sometimes. Still are. But after sixty years I’m starting to learn from Einar and from the people I’ve known and the people I see and hear right here that there is always Bread of Life. The hunger might last for a short time or a long time, but there’s always bread. It’ll show up. Sometimes it’s Bread of Life like real food, like the stuff you chew and swallow; but also Bread of Life that looks more like someone who listens, or it sounds more like encouragement, or sometimes like a challenge that wakes me up and puts me on a better path. It’s hard food to swallow but we all need that Bread of Life too. There’s always Bread of Life. Bread of Life that says “you matter and you are loved,” and you don’t need to earn that bread. It’s just the Bread that Jesus gives. And will not stop giving.
And with all that bread given for us, there’s always bread for us to give.
When I was as student at Camrose Lutheran College our concert choir went on a tour one spring to East and West Germany. The year was 1984, so the country was still divided in two and crossing the border from capitalist to communist and back could take forever. Longer than forever if you’re on a tour bus with fifty people.
We were crossing into East Germany and our bus pulled up beside a tour bus full of seniors. Their passports and visas were being processed and we were next in line, so the long waiting began. After we’d been parked for an hour someone on one of the buses held up a handwritten note to the window that just said, “English?” And someone on the other bus held up a note that said “Yes”, and soon we figured out that one of us was a busload of students from Canada and the other was a busload of seniors from the U.S. Several notes later we found out that they had already been there for two hours before we arrived, and they were bored and hungry and thirsty.
We weren’t bored or hungry or thirsty yet, so a few people on our bus got the idea that we should fill a few bags with some food that we had and see if we could send it over to them. We soon had four or five bags of bread and cheese and chocolate and a few pieces of fruit, maybe some chips…whatever we could find. Our choir director took the bags to the door of the bus and asked one of the young soldiers who had a really big gun if he could take the food over to the other bus. Oddly enough, in this high security, high suspicion, do everything properly and orderly atmosphere, the soldier said yes. He took the food to one of the guards at the other bus, who also said yes, and soon a busload of seniors were snacking on a treat or two from some nice kids from the Canadian prairies. And one of the people on that other bus held up a note that said, “it’s just like communion.”
It was just a little bread.
They still waited a long time, and we were there for five hours altogether. We ended up bored and hungry and thirsty too. And you know, none of us on those buses who had our own personal problems and fears and maybe even really serious issues didn’t suddenly become better and healthy and happy and well-adjusted forever. The countries we came from and the countries we were visiting, just like the places we call home now, didn’t suddenly become peaceful and free.
But there was some bread. And for a brief time on those buses we had the joy of sharing bread and generosity and a kind of communion through bus windows, even thanks in part to the surprising Bread of Life kindness of young border guards with really big guns.
There was bread. And that was enough.
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
And you, know, that’s the thing. Sometimes it seems that there’s just not so much bread. But there is bread, even on a Sunday morning for a bunch of people like us, with all the stories being told in our own lives.
There’s always some bread. Bread of Life. Jesus. Wherever we are.
AMEN.