![Picture](/uploads/5/3/1/4/53145165/published/011-8.jpg?1534184282)
Peter JB Carman
Emmanuel Friedens Church
Schenectady NY
August 5, 2018
I.
Stringing your food between two trees isn’t good enough any more.
Lynn and I went backpacking in the Adirondack Mountains some summers back. In the Adirondacks there were strict regulations about how to store food to protect it from the bears. All of the food had to fit in a bear canister.
Lynn and I squeezed it in. We were grumpy about carrying the extra ounces of the awkward bear-proof canister. Until we heard this sound one morning. When we walked over to where we had hidden it in a hollow tree-stump behind a rock and some sharp logs, the container had miraculously moved. It was forty feet away. And our brand new beautiful bear canister had something to remember our trip with: a deep gouge in the lid, where someone with sharp fingernails had tried to get at the food.
In the wilderness, the question of food can take on a certain edge.
II.
When the Hebrew slaves who had escaped could go no further, they complained to Moses. “Why did you bring us out into the wilderness to die?” Moses, caught in the middle between the people and God, took up the matter with the Holy One. So, God gave them some bread for their journey, some manna in the wilderness. They started collecting it to eat—although if they didn’t eat it the same day it went bad! Give us this day our daily bread! That was the day’s food. They learned the hard way to rely on a source of sustenance more profound than the fleshpots of Egypt. A feast of freedom.
Our reading from Scripture this morning is a New Testament riff on that old old story. It describes a difficult conversation. A group of folk came to Jesus. Jesus recognized these individuals, as having been there when he just organized the feeding of 5000! They were back for seconds. But what were they looking for? He sensed they were really after was miracles, magic, bread. Jesus sensed they wanted a sign! And they were still after the bread.
So, they said to him, "What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"
We will believe in you, Jesus, just do that bread thing again! But Jesus responds: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Human One will give you.” Jesus used the moment to make a point about the thrust of the story about manna. It wasn’t ultimately Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, he said to them: it was God. You are after the wrong kind of bread. Don’t put your trust in miracle-workers and free handouts. You need the bread that comes to you from God and gives life to the world.
Jesus said to them, "I AM the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
III.
D.T. Niles, a Methodist pastor from Sri Lanka, once said these profound words: “Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread.” There are parts of the world where many people know what it was to go hungry almost every day of their often-short lives. Here in the heart of prosperous North America, we in Schenectady live in community with widespread food insecurity for children and youth.
The world of Jesus also knew hunger all too well. In his time, lots of people were losing their traditional family farms –and homes-- to foreclosure by usurious lenders, forced to become migrant workers. New Testament scholar Bill Herzog asserts that many of these lived only a couple of years—because the work was too hard, and the pay they got, on the days when they got work at all—was not sufficient to put food on the table.
So, when we read Jesus’ back and forth with the people wanting another miracle, it would be a mistake to think that he says there is no importance to feeding the hungry! Jesus has just gotten done with the feeding of the multitude. It is not that he doesn’t care about hungry people. He is a poor man speaking to a crowd of poor people. His readiness to address issues of hunger is clear. But he wants to help them find a more profound and reliable source of sustenance.
There is a spiritual issue not far beneath the surface, wherever a few have far too much and many have nothing at all. Just ask the hungry people. And yet Jesus understands that he has to root his people in a source of power more profound than signs and wonders, empty promises and short-term solutions.
IV.
Jesus wants us to remember always that no human bread and circus, no handout, no wealth, no glorious picnic basket in the wilderness, however miraculously produced, can be substituted for the soul-sustaining love and power of a God beyond all our names and claims. And if the gospel teaches us anything it is that the love of God is only made real where human beings love one another—and show it on a systematic basis.
All of us human beings have a deep need to be held secure, to be cared for and fed. Maybe that is why we want to believe the promises of talking heads who tell us that they can make everything better. And yet Jesus is uncompromising in his faith in the One who gives life itself, rather than in any would-be human providers. Jesus tells us, for starters: “Don’t trust people who say they are going to give you a great handout, or a great hand-up. Don’t think that they are deserving of your honor and glory. It wasn’t even Moses who provided bread for you in the desert—that was God’s hand. Only God sustains. Only God provides—and you don’t need to trust any patrons, priests, pastors or politicians—not even Moses-- to get between you and that Source of life, that Place of Sustenance.”
V.
In Rochester New York, in the summer of 2007, refugees from Burma were starting to arrive daily. Their families were often broken apart, in transition. When Farida arrived, aged twenty-one and a little, she had been separated from the parents with whom she lived, because she was considered a single adult. She could either come first, alone, or not come at all. She did not know if she would ever be re-united—were they even going to be sent to the same country? A Muslim, in Rochester she had been given an apartment room with two other non-Muslim women—she liked them well enough but she could not even eat the same food. And she was devastated to be separated from her community.
I was present at the moment when Farida first met Kyaw Than, another Muslim, who had just arrived with his wife and with four little children. The six of them had arrived a week before, with little more than the clothes they all wore on their backs. As I introduced Kyaw Than and Farida, I mentioned to him the situation of her separation from family. He spoke at once. “You must come and live with us,” said this man who had nothing, turning to the woman who had nothing. He sounded almost angry…perhaps he was, at the injustice of the situation. “You are my sister now. If need be you can live with us forever.” That day, Kyaw Than’s wife also warmly welcomed Farida, who went to live in their little second floor apartment.
Some months later Farida was reunited with her family. I last saw Kyaw Than at Farida’s wedding to a young man who had arrived since—we were all sharing a fine halal meal of goat meat curry and rice, followed by a wedding cake American style.
The man who had nothing had been willing to share everything with a young stranger…a sister in faith. And at her wedding it wasn’t just Muslim families there. They invited all their new friends. We were all together, rich and poor, Muslim and Christian and Buddhist and Animist, American, Karen, Sudanese and Burmese. Sitting on the same floor, eating together.
When we break bread together, as clumsy as we are—when we break bread together, and share what little we have with each other, one with another, friend and stranger and yes even enemy, all together at a common table of love… that’s a life worth sharing. That’s where it starts! That’s where we meet Jesus. That’s bread from heaven, costly and rare, full of grace, and abundant beyond all reckoning. It starts with what we have, that’s all. It starts with a little bit, and it continues until it is all we have.
Emmanuel Friedens Church
Schenectady NY
August 5, 2018
I.
Stringing your food between two trees isn’t good enough any more.
Lynn and I went backpacking in the Adirondack Mountains some summers back. In the Adirondacks there were strict regulations about how to store food to protect it from the bears. All of the food had to fit in a bear canister.
Lynn and I squeezed it in. We were grumpy about carrying the extra ounces of the awkward bear-proof canister. Until we heard this sound one morning. When we walked over to where we had hidden it in a hollow tree-stump behind a rock and some sharp logs, the container had miraculously moved. It was forty feet away. And our brand new beautiful bear canister had something to remember our trip with: a deep gouge in the lid, where someone with sharp fingernails had tried to get at the food.
In the wilderness, the question of food can take on a certain edge.
II.
When the Hebrew slaves who had escaped could go no further, they complained to Moses. “Why did you bring us out into the wilderness to die?” Moses, caught in the middle between the people and God, took up the matter with the Holy One. So, God gave them some bread for their journey, some manna in the wilderness. They started collecting it to eat—although if they didn’t eat it the same day it went bad! Give us this day our daily bread! That was the day’s food. They learned the hard way to rely on a source of sustenance more profound than the fleshpots of Egypt. A feast of freedom.
Our reading from Scripture this morning is a New Testament riff on that old old story. It describes a difficult conversation. A group of folk came to Jesus. Jesus recognized these individuals, as having been there when he just organized the feeding of 5000! They were back for seconds. But what were they looking for? He sensed they were really after was miracles, magic, bread. Jesus sensed they wanted a sign! And they were still after the bread.
So, they said to him, "What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"
We will believe in you, Jesus, just do that bread thing again! But Jesus responds: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Human One will give you.” Jesus used the moment to make a point about the thrust of the story about manna. It wasn’t ultimately Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, he said to them: it was God. You are after the wrong kind of bread. Don’t put your trust in miracle-workers and free handouts. You need the bread that comes to you from God and gives life to the world.
Jesus said to them, "I AM the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
III.
D.T. Niles, a Methodist pastor from Sri Lanka, once said these profound words: “Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread.” There are parts of the world where many people know what it was to go hungry almost every day of their often-short lives. Here in the heart of prosperous North America, we in Schenectady live in community with widespread food insecurity for children and youth.
The world of Jesus also knew hunger all too well. In his time, lots of people were losing their traditional family farms –and homes-- to foreclosure by usurious lenders, forced to become migrant workers. New Testament scholar Bill Herzog asserts that many of these lived only a couple of years—because the work was too hard, and the pay they got, on the days when they got work at all—was not sufficient to put food on the table.
So, when we read Jesus’ back and forth with the people wanting another miracle, it would be a mistake to think that he says there is no importance to feeding the hungry! Jesus has just gotten done with the feeding of the multitude. It is not that he doesn’t care about hungry people. He is a poor man speaking to a crowd of poor people. His readiness to address issues of hunger is clear. But he wants to help them find a more profound and reliable source of sustenance.
There is a spiritual issue not far beneath the surface, wherever a few have far too much and many have nothing at all. Just ask the hungry people. And yet Jesus understands that he has to root his people in a source of power more profound than signs and wonders, empty promises and short-term solutions.
IV.
Jesus wants us to remember always that no human bread and circus, no handout, no wealth, no glorious picnic basket in the wilderness, however miraculously produced, can be substituted for the soul-sustaining love and power of a God beyond all our names and claims. And if the gospel teaches us anything it is that the love of God is only made real where human beings love one another—and show it on a systematic basis.
All of us human beings have a deep need to be held secure, to be cared for and fed. Maybe that is why we want to believe the promises of talking heads who tell us that they can make everything better. And yet Jesus is uncompromising in his faith in the One who gives life itself, rather than in any would-be human providers. Jesus tells us, for starters: “Don’t trust people who say they are going to give you a great handout, or a great hand-up. Don’t think that they are deserving of your honor and glory. It wasn’t even Moses who provided bread for you in the desert—that was God’s hand. Only God sustains. Only God provides—and you don’t need to trust any patrons, priests, pastors or politicians—not even Moses-- to get between you and that Source of life, that Place of Sustenance.”
V.
In Rochester New York, in the summer of 2007, refugees from Burma were starting to arrive daily. Their families were often broken apart, in transition. When Farida arrived, aged twenty-one and a little, she had been separated from the parents with whom she lived, because she was considered a single adult. She could either come first, alone, or not come at all. She did not know if she would ever be re-united—were they even going to be sent to the same country? A Muslim, in Rochester she had been given an apartment room with two other non-Muslim women—she liked them well enough but she could not even eat the same food. And she was devastated to be separated from her community.
I was present at the moment when Farida first met Kyaw Than, another Muslim, who had just arrived with his wife and with four little children. The six of them had arrived a week before, with little more than the clothes they all wore on their backs. As I introduced Kyaw Than and Farida, I mentioned to him the situation of her separation from family. He spoke at once. “You must come and live with us,” said this man who had nothing, turning to the woman who had nothing. He sounded almost angry…perhaps he was, at the injustice of the situation. “You are my sister now. If need be you can live with us forever.” That day, Kyaw Than’s wife also warmly welcomed Farida, who went to live in their little second floor apartment.
Some months later Farida was reunited with her family. I last saw Kyaw Than at Farida’s wedding to a young man who had arrived since—we were all sharing a fine halal meal of goat meat curry and rice, followed by a wedding cake American style.
The man who had nothing had been willing to share everything with a young stranger…a sister in faith. And at her wedding it wasn’t just Muslim families there. They invited all their new friends. We were all together, rich and poor, Muslim and Christian and Buddhist and Animist, American, Karen, Sudanese and Burmese. Sitting on the same floor, eating together.
When we break bread together, as clumsy as we are—when we break bread together, and share what little we have with each other, one with another, friend and stranger and yes even enemy, all together at a common table of love… that’s a life worth sharing. That’s where it starts! That’s where we meet Jesus. That’s bread from heaven, costly and rare, full of grace, and abundant beyond all reckoning. It starts with what we have, that’s all. It starts with a little bit, and it continues until it is all we have.