Full of It

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

John 6:30-51; Exodus 16

March 1, 2015 • Portage First UMC

Ever have one of those late-night cravings that you just can’t satisfy? Not even with a Snickers? For me, “late night” is about 9:00 p.m. Many nights, I’ll wander up to the kitchen, wanting something to eat but not sure what. I’ll open the refrigerator, then close it. Open the cabinet, close it. Open the pantry, and then close it. I’m not even sure what I want…just something. Christopher does the same thing, though his late nights are much later, being a college student. “What are you looking for?” I’ll ask as he stands there with the refrigerator open. “I don’t know,” he’ll tell me. And so it goes. Satisfaction eludes us, and not only when it comes to food. We often will have these cravings for things or material goods or achievements or…well, something that will make life better. Maybe more money will make us satisfied, and yet when the richest man in American history, John D. Rockefeller (whose fortune in 2015 dollars would be worth $253 billion), was asked how much money he thought he would need to be satisfied, he said, “Just a little bit more” (Fuquay, The God We Can Know, pg. 26). I think we’ve all felt that way from time to time, no matter how much money we have or earn. (Bill Gates, by the way, though the wealthiest man alive, only comes in at number twelve on the list of all-time wealthiest Americans.)

So maybe not money. But we can look to other things to bring satisfaction. How about power? If I could just be powerful…and yet, history says otherwise. Alexander the Great conquered the known world in his day, and once he had done so, he wept in his tent because, he said, “There are no more worlds to conquer.” Napoleon died a lonely, horrible death on the island where he had been exiled. Power is never a form of satisfaction because, like money, there’s never enough. Well, perhaps pleasure is the thing we’re seeking. Our culture seems to thrive on that idea, that pleasure is what will ultimately satisfy us. But it has to be, in our culture’s mindset, pleasure without any boundaries. Last summer, USA Network aired show called Satisfaction. The story centered on a woman who was cheating on her husband, and when he discovered it, he decided he would do the same, to see what he had been missing. The show not only did well in the ratings, it’s been renewed for a second season. Is that satisfaction? Really? Or is it a “chasing of the wind” (cf. Ecclesiastes 1:14)? Lord Byron, a British poet who lived a life of excess, travel and sexual exploits, said near the end of his life, “Life is but a big tragedy.” Pleasure cannot be counted on to bring satisfaction.

Well, what about stuff? In our consumerist culture, we’re constantly told we need more stuff; stuff will make us happy. And yet, while the advertisers are telling us that, they’re also constantly working to make us discontent. I have an iPhone 5, and you know, that’s not good enough anymore. I get emails at least weekly telling me I should upgrade, get an iPhone 6. They’ll even give it to me for no money down. And then, when you read the fine print, of course, it tells you that you’ll pay for it, just over a period of time with interest. The message is clear: you need more stuff, up-to-date stuff, better stuff. As we’re preparing to pack our house and move, I realize again how much stuff we already have. Too much, and I don’t think we live a lavish lifestyle. It’s just so easy to accumulate stuff. The first time I really remember realizing that is when my Aunt Helen died, and since she had no children, it fell to my family to handle the auction of her possessions. The experience my brother and I had helping sort all of Aunt Helen’s stuff led us to tell my parents that when they are gone, we’re selling the house as is, stuff and all. They’ve lived there fifty years; they have a lot of stuff. We’ve only lived here ten years, and we have a lot of stuff, stuff that breaks and fails and does not bring satisfaction.

We could look at lots of other things that promise to bring meaning and hope and satisfaction, but if all of that stuff is so great, and if the answer is found in our culture, then why, last year, was the suicide rate its highest in 25 years? Why do nearly 40,000 Americans each year—one person every 13 minutes—decide that life is not worth living and end it all? That whole issue was brought again to the forefront last year when actor Robin Williams, famous and loved and enjoyed by millions, took his own life. Suicide is America’s 10th leading cause of death, and it’s number 2 for people ages 15-34 (http://goo.gl/TmjcMU). And beyond that are the millions of people who, for whatever reason, do not take that step but have still given up hope and live in the darkness of deep paralyzing depression. Something has gone wrong; we’ve looked for satisfaction in all the wrong places and we’ve come up, understandably, empty. Where, people are asking, can we look? Where can we find satisfaction?

During this Lenten season, we are taking a look at the “I am” statements of Jesus as a way of drawing close to “The God We Can Know.” Last week, we began by remembering why God chose to reveal himself as “I Am,” and the ways he is constantly with us. And, you remember, we talked about how Jesus claimed that name for himself, telling the religious leaders, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). But even before that, as John tells Jesus’ story, Jesus was making radical claims about who he is. And not only through his words. Jesus was also making claims through his actions. At the beginning of the chapter we read this morning, Jesus had crossed the Sea of Galilee, trying to escape the crowds that were gathering around. People wanted to hear him teach so they follow him. He’s on a boat, crossing the sea, and you can just imagine them running along the shore, watching for where the boat is going to land. Yet, when he does land, rather than sending them away, he teaches them and feeds them. We know it as the feeding of the 5,000, but there were probably a lot more people than 5,000. The Gospels all tell us there were 5,000 men (6:10), which means if you add in women and children, we may be talking more like 15,000 or even 20,000 people some estimate. And Jesus feeds them. He takes a little boy’s lunch—two small fish and five small barley loaves, food of the poor—and he multiples it so that everyone has enough. There’s even enough for the disciples to each take home a lunch pail full of leftovers (Card, John: The Gospel of Wisdom, pg. 86).

So, night comes, the people fall asleep there, and Jesus ditches them under cover of dark. This is when he walks on the water, and the next morning, the crowd notices he’s gone back to the other side of the lake, so back around the lake they go. And when they arrive, Jesus calls them out. “You’re just following me because you want more food. You like the show, the miracles. That’s the only reason you’re chasing me around the lake.” It’s not Jesus they want; it’s the signs. In fact, in verse 30, they even ask him for some sort of sign to help them believe in him. Have they already forgotten what happened just the day before? He filled their stomachs with fish and bread, as much as they needed until they were satisfied. Less then twenty-four hours ago, they were full of bread that came from nowhere, and now they’re asking for some sort of sign to help them believe (cf. Tenney, “The Gospel of John,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 9, pg. 74). And yet, we do that sometimes. God works in a mighty way or an unusual way in our lives, and we celebrate that, and then not too long after, we’re asking God to do something else, prove himself in another way. It’s especially easy, at least for me, to do that when something bad or distressing happens. This didn’t go the way I wanted it to, so God, you must have stumbled. You must have failed. Give me more bread, God. Prove yourself to me again. That’s what the crowds are saying to Jesus. Give us another sign. Give us more bread.

So Jesus tells them they ought to work for bread that does not spoil. So they ask him to give them this bread always. Isn’t it interesting—Jesus encourages them to “work” for the bread—and by “work” he means believing in God—and they ask him to give it to them? So he does give it to them, in a manner of speaking. He tells them, “I am the bread of life” (6:35). In fact, he says that three different times in this chapter. First in verse 35, then in verse 48, he says it again. And then, finally, in verse 51, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” So, as we want to ask with each of these “I am” statements, what would those standing there have heard? What does Jesus mean by this statement? And what does it mean for us today?

So, first, if you were in the crowd, what sorts of things would Jesus’ statement here have made you think of? Well, he talks about Moses and manna, and so for many if not all of them, their minds would have gone back to the famous story in the book of Exodus, where the people are out in the wilderness, having escaped from slavery in Egypt, and they get hungry. Now, I can tell you from personal experience in the Sinai desert, there’s not much there. Even in modern times, we had long drives between places where we could get food or stop and stretch. In Moses’ day, there would have been less than nothing. Just sand, for as far as you could see. So we might understand why the people get a little cranky, and begin to remember Egypt. You know, slavery wasn’t so bad; at least there was food. “There,” they say, “we had pots of meat and all the food we wanted. Sure we were slaves, but at least our bellies were full!” (cf 16:3). Pretty soon, a “Back to Egypt” committee was formed, and Moses found himself facing a crisis. So he went to God, and God said, “All right, I’ll send down bread from heaven” (16:4). And every day after that, there was bread on the ground for the people to gather and to eat. And it continued until the day they entered the promised land and first ate some of the food from that land. On that day, the manna stopped (cf. Joshua 5:12). Manna was God’s provision, God’s banquet table. God gave them what they needed to survive the desert.

The word “manna,” though is very interesting. Some commentators say it can be translated as “What is it?” But, really, the little “ma” is a question mark, and the “na” is an exclamation point. So the literal translation is question mark, exclamation point. It’s not even a word. And it’s not something that could ultimately sustain the people. Jesus says, “Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died” (6:49). And then he pushes the image even further, because he begins to talk about eating the bread. Except he’s not talking about bread. He says it this way: “This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (6:51). He goes on to say that “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (6:53). That sounds pretty gross. It sounds like cannibalism, and in fact, there were those around the early church who accused them of such. Caecilius the Pagan put it this way in the late second century: “You Christians are the worst breed ever to affect the world. You deserve every punishment you can get! Nobody likes you. It would be better if you and your Jesus had never been born. We hear that you are all cannibals—you eat the flesh of your children in your sacred meetings” (http://goo.gl/8F7qPe). And not just the pagans would have been repulsed by this language. For the Jews, drinking blood was absolutely forbidden (Wright, John for Everyone, Part One, pg. 85). The whole point of the kosher system of dietary requirements is so that no blood remains in the animal. This language was repulsive to most everyone listening that day. Jesus has gone from talking about bread to talking about what sounds like cannibalism and drinking blood—and he has done it while he’s in the synagogue. Just about everyone there would be scratching their heads and hoping he means something else. In fact, in verse 60, his own disciples say, “This is a hard teaching.” An understatement! “Who can accept it?” they ask (6:60).

So what did Jesus mean when he said these things? What does it mean when he says he is the bread of life? First of all, think of what bread means. Bread is universal; it’s called “the staff of life” because it’s so central to most of our eating experiences. I’ve been in several countries around the world, and in every place, there is bread. It may look different—sometimes it’s flat like a tortilla or a pita and sometimes it’s round or oblong or braided. It may taste different—like pumpernickel or rye or french or matzoh. But it’s bread, and it’s a very basic part of life. French poet Paul Claudel put it this way: “Stale bread is not hard; what is hard is to live without bread.” That was true in Jesus’ day, and I believe that’s one reason he chose that imagery for himself. He is basic to life, and more than that, his presence sustains us, sustains life. When he calls himself “the bread of life,” he’s calling us to fill up on him, to be full of him. When the people are wanting more handouts, more bread, he offers them something that will last much longer, into eternity. When the people want signs or stuff, Jesus offers them his presence. Jesus offers them and us himself.

Then there’s all that talk about eating his body and drinking his blood. Most of us, if we’ve been in the church for any length of time, are somewhat used to that sort of language, much moreso than those who first heard it. We almost immediately hear in those words a reference to the eucharist, or communion. You might remember that John doesn’t tell us about Jesus beginning that practice at the last supper; the only thing he tells us about at that final meal is Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. As I’ve reminded the Disciple class several times this year, John is writing near the end of his life, perhaps thirty years or so after the other Gospels were written. He’s had his whole life to reflect on what Jesus’ life meant and means. In many ways, John is filling in the gaps, telling us things we don’t already know about Jesus and his life. He knows we know about the supper, so he tells us about the foot washing. But that doesn’t mean he believes the eucharist or communion to be unimportant. Quite the contrary! There is communion imagery all throughout the book, and this is one place it is very prominent. Jesus says, literally, unless you “munch” on his flesh and drink his blood, you have no life in you (cf. Wright 86). Real life only comes as we fill up with Jesus, for he is the only one who can satisfy us, who can meet our deepest needs. We know that, on an instinctual level. Part of our dissatisfaction comes from the sense inside that there is more to this life than what we see. The great defender of the faith, C. S. Lewis, talked about how, even as an atheist, he knew there had to be something more. There was a longing within him that nothing on earth could satisfy. He came to this conclusion: “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

And so in communion, we take the bread and we take the cup and we ingest them. That’s not meant to be just an empty ritual; it’s a symbol of our receiving Jesus into our lives, of becoming one with him. There’s nothing magical about it, but it is a remind that when we receive him as the bread of life we are embracing what Paul called “the life that is truly life” (cf. 1 Timothy 6:19). Any other “life,” according to Paul and to Jesus in this passage, is not life at all. It’s only a sham. Jesus came that we might have life abundant (cf. John 10:10). Being full of Jesus is the only way we will find true satisfaction.

So how do we get there? How do we allow Jesus to be our source of satisfaction? Well, in a faith in which the least are the greatest and death leads to life, it shouldn’t surprise us that the path to fullness and satisfaction is to become empty. This season of the year, this Lenten season, has traditionally been a time when Christians practiced the discipline of fasting as way of self-denial. Fasting has fallen on hard times in a culture where we believe we’re entitled to anything, any pleasure at any time. Why should I deny myself anything? I deserve everything! Could that attitude be why we have a culture with severe physical, emotional and spiritual health problems? I’m not a doctor; I’m just guessing. But what if we one thing we restored was the practice of regular fasting? What might that do to our health and our spirits? Besides the health benefits, Jesus assumed we would be people who fast. In his Sermon on the Mount, he talks about fasting as “when you fast,” not “if you fast” (cf. Matthew 6:16-18). Now, typically, fasting has been understood as going without food. The early Methodists lived this form of the practice. It was John Wesley’s habit to fast after dinner on Thursday until high tea on Friday, skipping breakfast and lunch. This was in line with an earlier tradition of fasting on the day Jesus died as a way, of sorts, of identifying with his suffering. But I don’t believe fasting has to be only food. Today, there are so many things that distract us, so many things that can have “unhealthy control” over our lives (cf. Fuquay 32). I’ll give you an example from my own life. Early morning is my time to read my Bible and do my devotions. I typically do that while Rachel is getting ready for school. But I’ve taken to reading the Bible on my iPad. It’s quick and easy to navigate between books, and this year’s Disciple readings take us all over the Bible. But I’ve found that, by reading it on my iPad, it’s easy to get distracted. That little ping means I just got an email, so I’ll exit from the Bible app to read the email. That email has a link in it I need to click, and that makes me think of something else I need to check on, and before I know it, I’m playing Angry Birds when I should be reading my Bible. So I repent, open the Bible app again and start the process once more. Distractions are everywhere. For some, like me, it might be technology. For others, it might be the television. It’s so easy to turn it on and zone out rather than read your Bible or spend time in prayer. Nathan Foster tells about a retreat he led for youth, during which the only rule was that they had to turn off their cell phones. But he kept his on, and he found himself sneaking away to check his messages or to call home. And God asked him why the rules didn’t apply to him, which made him realize his addiction to his cell phone. Hundreds of other things that can be distractions, that fill up our time, that take over our lives. Fasting is saying “no” to those things, as good and as useful as they may be, so that we begin to break their unhealthy control over us. I like the way Rob Fuquay puts it in our study book: “If you wonder what would be your most beneficial fast, just ask yourself what is hardest to go without” (32). When we fast from that which controls us, we make room for Jesus to fill us up.

The other practice, if you can call it that, we need to learn is contentment. A couple of generations ago, it was predicted that all of the so-called timesaving and labor-saving devices that were being created would lead to less work, less stress and more contentment. Instead, we have a culture more driven, more stressed and less content than ever before. We have an unhealthy focus on the “right now” with no sense of the long view. I thought of that when I was in Italy several years ago, because every cathedral we went into had been built over a hundred and sometimes several hundred years. No person who started the construction of Europe’s great churches ever lived to see them completed. And those buildings have stood for centuries. We build things in order to tear them down in just a few years. We build so very little to last. We have what one historian has called “inextinguishable discontent.” It is “the age of envy,” and, as I said earlier, we are never full. We’re always craving something else. Why are we not content?

Especially those of us who are people of faith. We are not only told that contentment is a good idea; it’s actually commanded in the Bible we hold sacred. Hebrews 13:5 says, “Be content with what you have.” And Paul reminds us, “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that” (1 Timothy 6:6-8). Elsewhere, Paul wrote, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” And then, in that context, he says what is often taken for other meanings: “I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:12-13). The “secret” Paul is talking about is being full of Jesus. He is satisfied that if he has Jesus, he has everything he needs and he’ll have the strength to get through whatever comes. That’s how Paul got to the place where he was content. So how can we get there?

Dr. Richard Swenson, in his book Margin, suggests several things, starting with realizing what contentment is not. It isn’t denying our feelings of unhappiness, but rather refusing to be controlled by those feelings. It isn’t pretending things are right when they aren’t, but recognizing that God is bigger than any problem we face. It isn’t a feeling that comes when we get everything we think we want, but knowing that whatever we have is dust and our only treasure, the only one we need forever, is Jesus himself.

There is no one formula or set of steps we can go through to find contentment. The path to contentment comes through obedience to Jesus. That calls us to separate, in a sense, our expectations from our culture’s. God didn’t say, “Be content if you have this or that.” He said, “Be content.” We may need to turn off the advertising that is pumped into our homes day in and day out. One of the things I love most about watching television shows delayed is that I can zip through the commercials. I may be out of touch with what’s cool, but I don’t have to sit there while someone tells me what I need to be content or cool or just a better person. Another step toward contentment is to get rid of the “if only” mindset. How many marriages are ended because a spouse says, “If only he or she were this or that”? “If only we made more money.” “If only…” Dr. Swenson says the grass is only greener elsewhere because the Devil has spray painted it that way. And then we can begin to develop counter-habits. “Instead of getting, try giving. Instead of replacing, try preserving. Instead of feeling covetous, try feeling grateful.” “There are two ways to get enough,” wrote G. K. Chesterton. “One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.” God has told us he will supply all our needs—not all our wants, but all our needs (cf. Philippians 4:19). Can we trust that he will be faithful to his word (Swenson, Margin, chapter 11, “Health Through Contentment”)?

Our world seems to work hard at trying to make us discontent, to cause us to believe we’re not good enough. But Jesus comes along to remind us of his love, and of his offer to be the bread of life, to be the one who will sustain us. Sometimes, Jesus even speaks through the most unlikely folks…like this.

VIDEO: Moms’ Night Out, “Just Be You”

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” He is the only one who can, ultimately, satisfy us. Our hopes, our fears, our longings, our joys, our sorrows—all of them find their satisfaction in him. What do you need to do to find your satisfaction in Jesus rather than in stuff or things or money or pleasure? What practice do you need to begin in order to fill yourself up with Jesus? Let’s take a few moments in silence this morning as we go to prayer and ask Jesus to make us discontent with the lure of the world and more content with what he longs to give us. Let’s pray.