SERMON ON JOHN 6:35, 41-51

SERMON ON JOHN 6:35, 41-51 AUGUST 10, 2006

GRADE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH

Tonight’s sermon is structured as a Bible study rather than as a speech. So, please have your Bible (or a Bible) open to the Gospel reading: chapter 6 of the Gospel of John. I have just read it to you, but now I invite you to look at it more closely. It contains some beautiful words, some profound truths, and some challenging and intriguing statements—all by Jesus. What do they mean to me and you?

For the past two weeks, our Gospel readings have been from this same chapter—specifically around the topic of eating and feeding. And based on those readings, we shouldn’t be surprised that tonight’s passage is all about food again, with some people lining up to receive it and, as usual, other people choosing to go hungry.

At verse 35 of chapter 6, Jesus has just finished feeding over 5000 people and then walking on water! But the skeptics are insisting on a sign before they will believe his claims about himself. They remind Jesus (as if he needed reminding!) that God gave their ancestors a special food called manna when they were without food in the desert. The clear implication was two-fold: They were saying, “We believe in God because He gave us a special sign of His power and authority, a sign just for us.” It was a sign just for us. And, “We know what we believe,” they were saying, “because our forefathers actually saw something.”

But Jesus replied, “‘Listen, let’s stop talking about something that happened a long time ago to a bunch of people who are now dead! Stop thinking about your stomachs for a minute. Let’s focus on the Real Thing, right here, right now! I’m talking about a meal that God is offering now that will go on forever, for everyone in the world who wants it.” And, at that point, some of his listeners lined up: “’Well, okay, then, give us that bread!’” (John 6:34).

But then Jesus clarifies the menu. He says, “I am the bread of life.”

And then what does verse 41 say? When they heard that, some people began to grumble: “‘Isn’t this Jesus, Joseph’s son? Don’t we know his mom and dad? How can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” In other words, “Wait a minute! Don’t we know this guy?! Didn’t he grow up just around the corner?! And now he’s claiming to be something special—someone sent from God! Who does he think he is?!” Needless to say, they weren’t interested in receiving what Jesus was giving.

So, here’s the crux of our study: WHY DO SOME PEOPLE LINE UP FOR BREAD, BUT OTHERS DO NOT?

One answer to that question, I think, was made plain to me many years ago, when I first began public school teaching, in Preston County, WV—way over in the high mountains near Maryland. For that first teaching job, I drove over an hour to get to school and then again to get home every night, on terrifically narrow and windy road. In fact, I totaled a car driving to school my second week. I loved the job and was very glad to get it, but for the entire year of teaching 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grades geography, reading, and American history, I was paid only $5,200. So, even at a full-time job for which a college degree was required, my earnings kept me below the federally determined poverty line. All of which meant that my husband and I were eligible for federal food stamps.

Maybe that doesn’t mean to you what it meant to us, but both my husband and I had been raised in severely impoverished places where “welfare” was a way of life for generations of people. But we had not been raised like that. To us then, in our narrow way of thinking, being “on welfare” was something no self-respecting person would do. We thought it was something to be ashamed of. I know better now; I understand more about life. But then, we absolutely would not go down to the “welfare” office and pick up those stamps—even though it would have meant a big difference in how we were able to live. So my husband hitchhiked to and from law school, and I sewed my own clothes by hand because we were too proud to take what was being offered to us for our own good.

And that’s one reason why some people line up for Bread, but others don’t.

The unbelievers in Jesus’ audience weren’t ready to eat because they were full—“full of themselves,” as my mother would say. Full of self-assured pride and ignorant assumptions disguised as knowledge. They weren’t hungry because they were already full of self-justification. “Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert. [Our ancestors ate heavenly bread given to them by Moses himself!]”

Do you hear them? “Look who we are! We are special; we saved ourselves before, and we can do it again—if need be! Jesus, we don’t need anything you have to give.”

But they had it all wrong! They didn’t even know their own history, much less their level of real need. Jesus tries to tell them, but they don’t listen: “It wasn’t Moses who gave you bread from heaven back then. God did that. And now he’s offering you an even better meal.” (Look at the verb tense in verse 32: “It is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.” “Gives”—present tense)

But the unbelievers weren’t interested. (And, by the way, in the Gospel of John, the writer always calls the unbelievers “Jews,” even though most of the believers were also Jews—just a little footnote to ward off anti-Semitism.) Oh, these unbelievers swell the crowd when Jesus is doing miracles. They’re eager to drink the water Jesus turns into wine and to eat the fish and bread he multiplies for them. They’re more than willing to take all they could get of the blind being made to see, the crippled being made to walk, the dead being raised to life. But as for receiving God himself—no, thanks! Just like all too many of us, many unbelievers walked away from Jesus that day, spiritually starving to death because they were puffed up with hot air, instead of being filled by the Holy Spirit.

Proverbs 15:14 tell us this: “The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly.” Jesus says, “No one can come to me [can receive him] unless the Father who sent me draws that person in.” And God the Father draws us in by teaching us the truth—about himself and about ourselves. It is required that each of us has a teachable spirit, a spirit receptive to the word and wisdom of God, which will be radically different from our own. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life that came down from heaven. Whoever eats on this bread will live forever.”

Are you hungry? Psalm 34 says, “O taste and see that the Lord is good!” Amen.