Proper 13B (Pentecost 11 2024)

Text: “35 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.’” (John 6:35)

Today we turn away from the Gospel of Mark for a moment (actually today and the next three weeks) and turn to the Gospel of John. Over the past two weeks we’ve heard Mark’s description of the feeding of the 5,000 and what followed. Now we see, in a sense, the rest of the story. We turn to this discussion between Jesus and the 5,000 Jesus had fed the day before. Jesus had made quite an impression the day before. The miraculous meal that He fed the crowd had them seeking Him out the next day— literally finding boats and crossing a lake to find Him. But, when they get there, they show that bread is the only thing they’re hungering for is bread. They followed Him, not because they are hungering for Truth, but because they want their stomachs filled. So Jesus challenged them. “27 Do not work for the food that perishes,” He told them, “but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal” (John 6:27). “Believe in me,” He told them (John 6:29). Believe that I am the Son of Man, sent here by God the Father to give eternal life. He wanted to do more than just fill their stomachs. He wanted to give them eternal life.

We will hear more of this discussion next week and we will hear the culmination in two weeks. We are working our way through the rest of John 6 for the next two weeks. In the end, when Jesus pressed them to seek for more, those thousands of people disappeared back into the wilderness. They could not accept what He taught. That is, if you will, the rest of the story.

There is much more that we will get to next Sunday and the Sunday after that but, for today, let’s deal with the first question: What are you hungering for? What are you here for?

No, you’re not here for a meal. You’ll get that soon enough— after we’re done— when you go to brunch with your friends. But what are you here for?

You don’t need to answer now. You’ll tell us in time. You’ll tell us what you’re really here for based on what you grumble about. Based on what you complain about. I would suggest to you that the things you grumble about— the things you complain about— say as much about you as they do about anything that goes on here.

That was certainly the case here in John 6. In John 6:30, the crowd asked Jesus, “What sign will you perform to prove that we should believe that you are the Son of God?” They even suggested one that He could do for them: He could keep feeding them. “31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’” (John 6:31). It’s incredibly ironic that that was the sign which the crowds asked for from Jesus. Why did God give the Israelites manna in the wilderness? Our Old Testament reading reminds us exactly why. Look back at the very beginning of that reading for a moment. What does it say? “The whole congregation of the people of Israel… grumbled against Moses and Aaron.” If there is a single refrain through the whole 40 years they spent in the wilderness, that would probably be it: The whole group grumbled. They complained. And, as they did, they showed where their hearts really were. Think about what their complaints say about where their hearts really were. If they cared about having been set free from slavery in Egypt, they would not have come to Moses complaining. They would have come with gratitude rather than with grumbling. If they were hungering for the Promised Land that He was taking them to, they would have asked for the food that they needed with a much different heart. No, they showed where their hearts and minds were at through their grumbling. They didn’t care about the Promised Land that God was leading them to; they didn’t care about the slavery that they had been delivered from with miracles and signs and wonders; they cared about their own comfort, their own bellies.

What do your complaints say about you? What are you really here for?

Let me ask you, flat out: Is making sure everyone is comfortable really our top priority? Making sure that everyone is happy? Because if that’s the case, then you don’t want me for your pastor, you want my wife. If that is what you really want, then you don’t want a pastor; you want a hospice nurse.

There are nurses who come running when there’s a ‘code blue’ and someone needs to be resuscitated; they care for the people on ventilators; they do that kind of care where you stop at nothing to keep the patient’s body going; they care for people by pushing them try to get them better and stronger and healthier.

Then there are hospice nurses. They make sure that people are comfortable while they’re dying. It’s a time for keeping things as comfortable and familiar and normal and routine as they can be. It’s a time when you don’t ask very much of the patient. They’re not ‘learning’ and ‘growing’ at that point. They’re not trying to get stronger or healthier. They may not even be eating or drinking any longer. They are dying.

Is that what you’re here for? Is this congregation dying? If we are, it’s only because we have walked away from Jesus, chasing after other things.

There used to be a list of seven deadly sins. They’re still deadly, even though we don’t talk about them as a group very often. There is one of the seven that is largely forgotten. It’s the sin of sloth. It is truly as deadly as any of the rest.

You see, sloth is not just physical laziness. It is a state of listlessness, of apathy, of drowsiness, or indifference with regard to the Lord's Word and Sacraments, as well as one's vocational duties to their neighbor. It runs to all sorts of things to distract you, to numb you to sleep in this world of tears. Simply stated, you and I would rather go through life metaphorically drunk and asleep than sober and awake. That is what the sin of ‘sloth’ means.

How well does that describe our world today? How well does that describe you and me— distracting ourselves with softball and camping and hunting and all of the rest rather than hungering for God’s Word.

What are you here for?

Whatever it is you hunger for, it won’t be long before you’re disappointed—just like the crowds were soon disappointed in Jesus—because He didn’t come to give you whatever your heart desired. They chased after Him that day because He had filled their stomachs. And they were soon turned away because He would not just be their bread dispenser, because they could not accept His teaching. What will lead you to turn away when you don’t get it—more than that! when He tells you that you need to give up those appetites.

Jesus confronted the crowds in today’s reading because they were following Him for the wrong reasons. His Word still confronts you, too: He tells you that you must stop hungering after your own sinful desires. He tells you to be holy as He is holy. And when you don’t measure up because of your lusts He condemns you. You and I are just as sinful as the people in the Gospel lesson who had Jesus right in front of them and thought Him to be just a man, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother they knew.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” Jesus said on another occasion (Matthew 5:6). Christ did not come to give you every desire of your heart; He came to satisfy that hunger and thirst for righteousness.

“10 With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! 11I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. 12Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes! …15 I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. 16 I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word” (Psalm 119:10-12, 15-16). That is the hunger He came to feed.

He did not come to make you comfortable. He came to give you something far greater. He is the Bread of Life. He came down from heaven to fill your true and greatest need. He came to take upon Himself all your evil thirsts and hungers and pay the full price for them, the wages of your hungers, of your sin: death eternally in hell. That horrible price that was meant for you. He drank the cup of God’s wrath down to the dregs. Every last drop of God’s wrath over your sin was poured out for Him—not just to leave the cup empty, but to fill it with blessing for you, filling your cup until it overflows.

You don’t have to go seeking Him out. Jesus comes to you, right here, and wherever even 2 or 3 people are gathered in His name. And He comes to you in order to prepare a feast for you. There, on Calvary’s cross, He “6 [has made] for all people a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. 7 [Because He has swallowed] up on [Mount Calvary] the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. 8 He [has swallowed] up death forever…” (Is 25:6–9).

Repent. Repent of your sinful appetites. Repent of your good appetites that take priority over God. Repent and feast on Christ. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” Jesus said, “for they will be satisfied.” This is most certainly true. He is the Bread of Life that has come down from heaven that you may eat of it and never die. You who once were dead in your trespasses, walking in the lusts, the passions, the hungers of your sinful nature have been fed with the Bread of Life. The great feast of His Word is ready to satisfy the hunger that goes far beyond food with the assurance that you are a child of God, putting all of those other things that you look to in order to find your happiness and satisfaction back into their rightful place. In the process, they once again become true blessings from God, enriching your life.

He offers you the feast of His body and blood, the true manna in the wilderness of this world, to strengthen and sustain you, day by day and step by step on your way to the Promised Land. He offers you the feast of His body and blood, the bread of life, the medicine of immortality, with the assurance of Job that even after your “skin has been destroyed” along with every evil hunger and thirst, He will raise you up on the Last Day to live bodily with Him.

In the meantime, the feast He gives strengthens you to continue to learn and grow. Remember that quote from Martin Luther that we referred to several times back in 2020? “This has happened so that we might learn to trust God and so that we might learn what it means to love one another”? Through the Word and Sacraments— through Christ dwelling among you and within you— you learn and grow each day. You get stronger and healthier at the task of “1 walk[ing] in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:1–5).

“35 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst’” (John 6:35). Grant this, Lord, unto us all.