Sermon Tone Analysis

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.