A Loaf of Bread
A Loaf of Bread, by Rev. Dr. Jay Marshall Groat, on August 18, 2024, at Mount Vernon, Ohio, based on John 6:25-34
Today, last week, the week before, in the lectionary, lots of talk about bread. Lots of talk about bread. We hear Jesus saying things like this – I am the bread of life, this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die, the living bread that came down from heaven, whoever eats of this bread will live forever, the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh, the bread that comes down from heaven.
Lots of talk about bread. And today, lots of talk about the eating of Jesus’ flesh. OK, what do we do with that? Scholars who commit their entire careers to the study of the Gospel of John say that this is the most difficult passage to wrestle with. Many of them have got their educated guesses, and they’re not really sure. One of the easiest ways to understand it is to correlate this with the Sabbath and the Holy Communion. But really, what does that mean to eat Jesus’ flesh? It’s not like eating sweet Hawaiian bread for communion. What is this? And where is this bread? I touched on it a little bit in the Children’s Message. How do we order living bread?
There’s a Jet’s Pizza near our house. It’s about 10 minutes from our house, and they are so good at what they do. I’m not big on delivery, I like to save a little money, so I’m the vice president at our house in charge of ordering and picking up pizza, and this Jet’s Pizza, they’re so good at it. We order it online, and it says to the minute when your pizza’s going to be ready. It’s always about 30 minutes. And you go and pick it up and it’s always ready, the service is always friendly. These people are good. And let’s just call pizza for what it is, it’s bread with stuff on it. This place is really good at delivering bread. How do you and I order this bread from heaven? How does that work?
In order to wrestle with this question I think we need to acknowledge a couple things. One is that life is paradoxical and contradictory. Write that down. Life is paradoxical and contradictory, and you and I are called to navigate life. I looked up the etymology of “navigate” to be reminded. It was originally a nautical term. That’s what “navigate” means, it’s a shipping term originally. Hundreds of years ago how did these sailors when they were out in the middle of nowhere in the ocean navigate? How did they do it? Stars. Where are the stars in our lives with which we can navigate and discover and see and experience and feel this bread from heaven that gives us eternal life?
I’m going to give you my take on eating flesh. There was a study done years ago. I’m a graduate of what’s known as clinical pastoral education. In order to be ordained as a Presbyterian – and now the UCC requires it as well – you have to be a graduate of clinical pastoral education. You basically spend a year of your life as a chaplain. I spent just short of a year as a chaplain at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois. I was in the intensive care unit, and you spend half your time being with patients and doctors and nurses, and you spend half your time in group work with others studying to become pastors. It was a life-changing experience, it was fantastic, and really harrowing at times.
During that time as clinical pastoral education students we were required to read a study, a research document, which was this. It interviewed patients who had been in the hospital for extended periods of time, and they waited for 10 years after the patients had been released from the hospital. You’ve got patients in the hospital for extended stays and then they’re released, and years later this researcher asked 50 of them questions. One of the questions was, “While you were in an extended stay in the hospital, who came to visit you?” Incredibly, it was almost 100 percent, they remembered who came and visited them in the hospital. Everybody remembered that. And then the next question in the research document was, “What did those people say when they visited?” And again, an incredibly high percentage, nobody could remember what anybody said.
(Sirens heard outside). I’m just going to say, for whatever’s going on, we pray for the health and safety of those who are serving and those who need service.
So the people remembered who came, they remembered nothing about what they said. This is my take on the power of the flesh. It’s being present. For me there’s a negative side to that coin and it haunts me to this day. It was said during my mother’s calling hours. My mother had died, she was the first of my parents to die. I had been to hundreds and hundreds of calling hours, but this was my mom. It was my first time with one of my parents, and I was absolutely blown away by the people who came. I had no idea it would mean that much to me. It was so meaningful. And I also remembered a few who did not come who should’ve, and I’m not proud of that, but it’s there.
It speaks to the power of the flesh. This is my take on what Jesus is saying when you air-quote “eat my flesh.” It means, “I’m present, I’m with you.” The power of presence.
What is it, this eternal bread that comes down from heaven? Life is paradoxical and contradictory. Here’s what I think it means. Many years ago I was leading a youth mission trip from our church, about 25 high school kids, five adults and me. I was in charge. We went to a Native American reservation in southern Arizona, and on this reservation they had a small Presbyterian chapel. We did good works, and after a week we were going to be tourists. We had three church vans, and we drove from almost the border of Mexico all the way up to the Grand Canyon, and of course all of that is in the state of Arizona. We were in the desert, it was August, it was over 100 degrees, and when we went to bed that night at the Grand Canyon in our tents it snowed. How many states can that happen in? I’ll never forget that.
The next day we decided we were going to take a hike, we were organized. I used to say to the group, which at the time was Riverside Presbyterian Church, I used to tell them to remember that we are the Riverside Presbyterian Church on wheels. We are a community, that’s what churches are, a faith community, so we got organized. We decided we were going to hike, and if you’ve ever done this, you can hike down the Grand Canyon, and at about the halfway point there’s a little oasis down there, I forget the name of it. I do remember the name of the path, it’s called Bright Angel Path. I was the leader, I was in charge, and I was in control. That’s foreshadowing.
I knew what I was doing. I made sure all the kids and all the parents had their backpacks with food and water. We were in control. Life is contradictory and paradoxical. Walking down was good, walking down is easy. We got down there and took our little break. It was about two hours or so, as I recall, walking down. And then we started walking up. And I’m just this guy from the Midwest. I had never walked up like that before. And life is paradoxical and contradictory. The more we walked up, the less I felt in control, and the more life was a challenge. Anyone here ever been challenged by life? Whenever we’re challenged, that’s when we really need to be aware of the possibility of this bread from heaven, this eternal life that lives within us.
And as things will often do, things really weren’t that bad when we got done. One of the adults who was on the trip, she pulled me aside, and I don’t think I had ever heard the word before. She said, “Jay, I’m really struggling, I have lupus.” I still don’t know much about lupus, but I know this, it’s bad, a bad deal. She said, “I’ve got to stop.” So myself and one other adult, we quickly made alternate plans. Her name was Beth, we said, “Beth, we’ll walk with you.” It’s not because we were wonderful people, it’s because we were part of a community, a faith community. You don’t abandon people. So we waited with Beth, and she had to stop every few yards or so, and the rest of the group went on. Pretty soon we were out of water and out of food. Obviously, it was never life-threatening, but we were hungry. Slowly we got closer to the top, and I looked up and I saw three of our high school kids walking towards us carrying food and water. I didn’t realize we were that close to the top, we just a thousand yards or so from the top. One of them was carrying three pieces of bread. This was bread in the form of hot dog buns, and inside the hot dog buns were hot dogs, and we ate.
We ate, and I get teared up thinking about it, and it’s not just because of eating those hot dogs, it was because of the people and the memories and being part of a faith community. Life is paradoxical and contradictory, and the eternal bread of life that gives us eternity is available to us in people, in places, in things. In music. In a good novel. Anywhere and everywhere.
I will leave you with this – “A loaf of bread, a jug of wine – and thou.” That was written – and this kind of blows my mind – in the 12th century, by Omar Khayyam, who was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher and poet. Let me read this – “‘A loaf of bread, a jug of wine – and thou’ is a phrase from stanza 12 from Omar Khayyam’s ‘A Book of Verses underneath the Bough.’ The phrase has come to represent a powerful image of the good life, reminding us to appreciate the simple pleasures, find joy in everyday moments and cherish the connections that we have with others.” And I will change that just a bit. I will say it’s reminding us to appreciate the simple pleasures and to find an eternal living bread of Christ in everyday moments. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine – and thou. Amen?