Making Conversation: Eat This, Not That (John 6:22ff)

Taco Bell vs. Texi Mexi

When was the last time you had a conversation about food? 5 minutes ago? Type in “conversations about food” into Google and you immediately get a long list of websites that provide food questions as conversation starters. Interestingly, the lists of food conversation websites includes a lot of ESL.. food is used to teach the English language. I was in a conversation this week over Taco Bell. We grew up in a household that didn’t eat tacos. In fact, I don’t think I had my first taco until I was in late elementary school. What’s funny is that a missionary from Africa who was visiting our house in Dayton showed up with Taco Bell. I should have known I would eventually live in the RGV because tacos immediately became one of my favorite foods. And mom and dad made Taco Bell one of the go to meals for Sunday afternoons when mom didn’t want to cook.

But the recent conversation this week about Taco Bell was this: I had Taco Bell in St. Louis. It’s probably the second or third time in the last 10 years I’ve had Taco Bell. Not to disparage our friends who work at Taco Bell here in the RGV, but if you’re a kid from Ohio and you move to the RGV, are you going to spend time and money at Taco Bell? We’ve got Texi Mexi, El Cien, Mario’s, Easy-to-Go, Julia’s… and that’s just Los Fresnos. Brownsville has another few dozen great Taco places… San Benito and Harlingen another dozen.. why would I go to Taco Bell? And I like Taco Bell.

Eat this. Not that. In the mid to late oughts there was a popular magazine column that became a book that became a series of books that became an app… one of the most popular eating enterprises in the world. And the entire premise is that there are better things we can be eating. This entire story today is running with that premise. There are things for us to eat preferable to other things we don’t need to be eating. Today we compare Taco Bell with Texi Mexi and El Cien. That’s this text. OK, not tacos. But there is a similar deal going on in this story about Jesus and his conversation with people that he fed with five loaves and two fish. We continue our series on Making Conversation.

Here’s where we are at:

Making Conversation:

Nathaniel and Jesus: The prejudiced

Nicodemus and Jesus: The seeker

The Samaritan woman and Jesus: The scandalous

The 5000 and Jesus: The materialist

The materialist is someone whose primary thoughts and goals in life are centered around what we have or what we don’t have, as well as physical comfort. What can be seen and proved dominates the way we view the world. And these are more important than what Jesus has to offer. That’s the difference between wanting the Mrs. Baird’s bread or wanting the bread of life. The difference between wanting the fast food versus the real thing.

And before we start slinging stones in our minds… we’ve all done this. And we do do this. Frequently. When I insist on my way, in the moment, and run over somebody to get it, I’ve traded the eternal for the temporal. I’m the supreme materialist, because what matters is what I can see, what I can touch… what I can have right now. When this happens, we need to come back to this story of 5 loaves and two fish and the conversation between Jesus and the crowd.

The Miracle

The conversation that Jesus has is the day after one of his most famous miracles. Jesus is teaching. More than 15,000 people are there. It gets late in the day. The people haven’t had anything to eat. There’s a boy there with 5 loaves and two fish. And Jesus feeds all 15-thousand. That is some miracle. The next day, the same crowd goes back to the spot and they don’t find Jesus. They make their way to the other side of the lake and find Jesus. And he engages them in a long conversation.

The Conversation

What drives this conversation is the difference between the way Jesus views the world and the way the crowd views the world. They are two different things. Have you ever had one of those conversations and you realize that you and the person you are talking to are not on the same wavelength? This is Jesus and the crowd. In fact, Jesus points it out immediately. They ask him “when did you get here?”, and Jesus ignores the question. He tells them they missed the point of the miracle. They’re only looking for him because of what he can do for their material hunger.

In fact, this conversation is driven by a series of questions, all by the crowd. It’s usually Jesus asking the questions, but that isn’t happening here. That should be a tip-off that something isn’t right here.

The Questions

The questions tell us everything we need to know about where the crowd is coming from and what they are thinking and their blindness about who Jesus is. Of course, this is also a mirror for the way we tend to think about Jesus.

When did you get here?

What can we do to perform the works of God?

What sign, then, are you going to do so that we may see and believe you?

What are you going to perform?

Isn’t this the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven?’

How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

The answers

I am the Bread of Life

I came down from heaven

The will of God is for everyone to believe in Jesus for eternal life

Anyone who believes in me has eternal life

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life

You can take those answers that Jesus gives and that is all you need to put all your eggs in the Jesus’ basket. Jesus unpacks the meaning of life here. You ever need to explain the meaning of life for someone, these statements of Jesus have it all. So much so, what Jesus says in this chapter is the basis for our name, The Table of Los Fresnos.

Jesus is explaining things along the way. In between all of these questions, he is telling them that they missed the point of what happened… and they not only fail to see what he is saying about being the Bread of Life, they double down on their unbelief and their desire to have their immediate needs met. All they see is bread. They are driven by a reality that can only believe what can be immediately seen and consumed. There is no entertaining the possibility that what happened yesterday cannot be scientifically explained. Maybe this guy has a direct line to God’s magic, but there is no entertaining the thought that there is something different about Jesus himself. And they go so far as to throw him under the bus… “isn’t this the son of Joseph?” Jesus was born in scandal. They haven’t forgotten that Mary was pregnant before she and Joseph were married. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus carry that stigma all of their lives… and here, it is used against Jesus’ claim to be “from heaven” and the answer to all of their desires and needs as the Bread of Life.

The Confession

When the crowd leaves. They’ve had enough of Jesus and his instance that He is the Bread from Heaven. And it’s just the disciples… it’s Jesus’ turn to ask questions:

You don’t want to go away too, do you?

And it’s Peter… good ‘ole Peter, the one who was constantly in trouble with his mouth.. Peter makes the confession that the crowd couldn’t bring themselves to make. And his confession is in the form of a question:

John 6:68-69 “To whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Where are we going to go? Where else are we going to go in order to find meaning in life? Where else will we find forgiveness? Where else will we go to get the love we long for? Where else will we go to make sense out of all of the chaos? To whom will we go? You have what we need… you have the words of eternal life. What flows out of your mouth, Jesus, is enough for us. What you say… your words of grace, and forgiveness are the very essence of life. Elsewhere, Peter says stuff like this and Jesus is quick to say… you didn’t come up with this on your own. Because he can’t. He wouldn’t. We wouldn’t. Even our faith is a gift. At the end of the day, what Peter says is true for every single person who has ever walked the planet. Money, fame, relationships, security, hard work, all those things that you and I are constantly leveraging for meaning… none of those things provide hope or grace or forgiveness or life. None of them.

Our Conversations

This world operates on the scientific worldview. Things that we can explain. If we can’t explain it, we certainly are not going to find the answer in the supernatural. In a Person who came from Heaven to give us meaning. The Bread of Life who gives us life sustenance. Watch any news program… and you have it everywhere. When a car runs into the concrete barriers and holds up traffic on I-77 what do we call that? An “accident”. Is it? When the weather person tells us that the low pressure meeting the high pressure is going to give us rain and wind… that’s science. When Russia invades Ukraine and men and women and children are caught in the crossfire, it’s a “conflict”. We use all sorts of words that science gives us to explain our world. And there’s nothing wrong with that, until we rule out the supernatural hand in all of life.

There is this presumption that we are on our own. I think the most-used phrase for me in conversations here in Los Fresnos is “God knows all about it.” I find myself constantly saying that in many conversations because we act as if God is at a distance. We live as if God is at a distance and has left us to on our own to figure everything out. He’s not interested in my work decisions. He’s not interested in my family relationships. He’s not interested in what is happening with my bank account. He cares, but he cares from a distance. And so I have to remind people… God knows all about what you just said. And he cares. He is with you in the moment.

But that kind of thinking, that science can explain it all, that God is real, but he’s distant, that he cares, but he’s not in the moment… that all comes from focusing on earthly bread. It’s the same mistake that this crowd was making with Jesus and we do this all of the time.

So how do we bring this into our conversations… and our own self-talk during the week?

God knows.

God cares.

God loves.

God forgives.

People need to hear this. They don’t know it, but they want to hear it. This is the gospel for you and for them. God is not distant. God is in the moment. With us. There are opportunities like this all of the time. It’s not hard to just say a short word that God knows about what you’re going through. God loves you and he cares about what just happened. And if need be… God forgives you. This is More Jesus for More of Life in our conversation.

And then this final piece, the one that Peter is speaking:

Jesus is everything.

Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

This is how we bring Jesus into all areas of our lives. These simple phrases and truths. We tell them to ourselves. We tell them to the person who is hurting. The person who questions. We don’t need a theology degree. We don’t need to be a pastor. We don’t have to have the Bible memorized. This is our life. We speak what Jesus has done for us. And to us. And what is for us is for them. For people who want Taco Bell. For people who cannot see beyond the immediately obvious. For them. For all of Los Fresnos. Eat this, not that.

Let’s Pray.

Jesus said that we are to eat his flesh and drink his blood for eternal life. That’s this. Right here, right now.