Online Sermons
9th Sunday in Pentecost (proper 13): August 2, Martha Rogers
Welcome to our website. You are here: The Word --> Online SermonsWe often use a phrase that comes out of the gospel of Luke and also out of the gospel of Matthew when we say, even today, that "one does not live by bread alone." I'd like to add another end to that phrase today: 'One may not live by bread alone, but one also does not live long without it."
People did not live long without bread in Jesus' day. Without a daily portion of bread, there was deep hunger, for bread was the main, and sometimes only, food that was fresh and available Bread meant life; it meant another day of living.
Hours were spent harvesting and preparing the ingredients for bread. Many people were involved in the process of planting, gathering, husking, grinding, mixing, cooking, serving. A Jewish Midrash, or interpretation of scripture, tells us that "when the world was created God made everything a little bit incomplete. Rather than making bread grow right out of the earth, God made wheat grow so that we might bake it into bread. That way we could become partners with God." Partners with God! So daily bread was made. Made and consumed because it could not be kept, it would spoil quickly without the preservations of our day.
When we pray: give us this day our daily bread; the words come from an ancient tradition of having just enough for the day. Asking for daily bread meant sharing with others so that no one went without. It meant asking for only what we need for this day. And when we pray, give us this day our daily bread, we are asking for our portion….perhaps our portion of faith…for this day. So that we can share ourselves with others before we grow moldy or stale by having too much and holding on to it until it rots deep in our souls.
Bread was the centrality of life. In more ways than one.
People gather together to eat, people broke and shared their bread with one another and with strangers as a sign of hospitality: "Come in, break bread with us." It meant being social, needing one another, helping each other to survive and being alive for one more day.
Bread not broken is wasted. Have you ever brought a loaf of bread and just left it there? If it isn't cut or broken open to be eaten, it molds, it rots, it become unattractive, unhealthy, ugly and very stale.
Bread is a complicated thing. Before it is given to us as the beautiful, golden crusted nourishment, it has to be mixed, to rise, to be punched down, to rise again, to be baked, to be savored and used for what it was meant to be.
And I think Jesus knew just that when he said: I am the bread of life." Jesus knew that faith in him was a complicated thing.
That life, before it is crowned with a beautiful golden crust, has to be mixed up, to learn to rise, only to be punched down, to rise again before it can be savored. Jesus knew that life was hard and that, like baking bread, it can't be done alone. Jesus knew that faith in him was complicated and confusing, but Jesus also taught that faith in him is what God wants for us to have and that faith in him is the real nourishment for our deepest hungers. For those times when our dough is sticky, or we're punched down once too often, or we're not rising and life seems like a piece of stale, tasteless bread.
We hunger so deeply that even others don't know about it. Sometimes we can't even name it, we don't know what it is, but the hunger can go deep in each of us. And Jesus knows. He knows we can't do this journey called life without help. We need to be partners with God and each other.
One may not live by faith alone, but one also does not live long without it. Bread, like us and our faith journeys, comes in all shapes and sizes and colors. Some loaves are small, some are larger. Some are round and dark and other are long and white. Some are soft and some are very, very tough and crusty. The varieties of our journeys of faith are similar. No two are alike, but all bread needs to be broken open to receive and to give nourishment before it rots, molds and becomes stale. And so it is with our faith.
Faith, not broken open, becomes stale. That's where the challenge of scripture finds me this week. How do I feed on the bread of life? How am I nourished? Jesus keeps the invitation open, saying to us in scripture today, and in so many other ways: come. Come to me….you'll never be hungry…..
And then there are those days that I ask how I break myself open to be vulnerable for others? To help nourish others in the name of Jesus? Do I even try to be bread for others, or in my fear of being consumed, do I sit molding and stale? In my fear of being consumed, do I stay wrapped up in myself?
Hard questions.
But to live and to rise, we must be broken open for souls to take in all that God offers. We must be broken open for our hands to share nourishment with others.
Maybe being broken apart, broken open isn't so bad after all. That's when we let other in and ourselves out.
Many great things in life need breaking: Jesus was broken—on the cross, for us. Husks on corn need breaking, seals on letters from friends need breaking, orange peels and presents wrapped so prettily all need to be broken open to let the delight come out into the open to be shared. Bread is wasted if not broken open. (break a priests host here)
And so it is with our hearts and souls.
We need to be broken in cracked open wideness to be fresh and alive: nourished and nourishing.
Jesus is the bread with us always; yesterday, today, tomorrow and eternally.
In Christ, and with Christ and through Christ, no one goes hungry…and us? Well, you and I receive life for one more day: living as partners with God, living for what, and who, we were meant to be.
Amen.