Sermon begins at 56:41
Good Morning St. Andrew’s.
This morning we are delighted to be able to welcome our brand new bishop, Bishop White to worship with us.
I have been told this is not an official visitation,
Which is great, because it means that she’ll be back sooner rather than later.
The bishop will be our celebrant for our Eucharistic feast this morning, which means among other things that she will help us to make and bless our daily bread, and that we will give thanks.
And so, in honor of this momentous occasion, I’m moved to preach to you this morning, “you’re a real crumb.”
Can you do me a favor? I need you to help me preach.
Can you turn to your neighbor and just tell them, “you’re a real crumb.”
At the risk of starting this whole thing off with a really bad pun and ruining everything,
I just have one question before we begin, which was famously asked by Belgian pop duo 2 Unlimited, “y’all ready for this?”
Okay listen, I had so many of these in the hopper,
I could have started with Lizzo, ‘cause you know how much I love Lizzo,
So just be glad I didn’t ask if you are “bready to be loved.”
In all seriousness, though, I want to begin today by noticing how very significant our Gospel is this morning.
And by that, I mean, there is a layer of symbolism, of signifying, that is happening that we have to attune ourselves to hear.
We know this because the gospel begins by telling us that a great crowd was following Jesus because of the signs that he was doing, and at the end of the feeding of the 5000 it says,
“When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world,’”
And then the people try to make Jesus their king.
“wait, what? I thought they said he was a prophet, now they want him to be king? What in the world is going on? What does a bread miracle have to do with either of these things?”
We can tell that something significant has happened for these people beyond being fed their daily bread, and we can sense that if we’re not attuned to the signs as they see them, then their attempt to make Jesus king seems perplexing.
So let’s unpack what is going on here and see if it makes us crumby.
It is significant, that the gospel writer, John, tells us that it was the time of the Passover.
This is the third Passover festival in Jesus’ ministry according to John.
The first one happened in John 2, just after Jesus announces the beginning of his ministry with the wine miracle at Cana.
The second Passover in John, well there’s no delicate way to say this, is passed over.
Jesus went to Samaria during his second year of ministry, which is the remnant of the old northern kingdom of Israel in the days when the eponymous 12 tribes of Israel divided in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah after the deaths of David and Solomon.
In John 4, During this second non-Passover, Jesus talks about the food that he eats as doing the will of God, he talks about the harvest, which is still some months off, and he performs his second miracle.
John 5 begins with a Fall festival of Sukkot before we get to our next Spring and another names Passover in John 6.
And this time, Jesus does another miracle, he does a miracle with bread.
So, one of the significant things that we see in the broad narrative is that Passover is already linked with bread and wine before we even get to the Last Supper on Jesus’ final Passover;
Which, I think, is pretty neat.
But what does this have to do with all of us being crumbs?
Not yet.
Another thing that is significant about our gospel lesson is that it paints Jesus as a new Moses.
Many of you know that as part of my PhD, I am at the point of writing my dissertation.
In the briefest possible way, let me say that my research is looking at a phenomenon called motival clustering.
Motival clustering is when highly symbolic objects are brought together by authors in order to create new meaning.
Objects that once they are brought together are very difficult to separate.
So, for instance, there is a new book that came out recently about the threat of White Christian Nationalism to our democracy called the Flag and the Cross.
Apart from one another, both an American flag and the cross of Jesus are highly symbolic objects.
In each of these symbols there are deep meanings.
They are highly significant for anyone who looks at them.
The flag is associated with freedom, sacrifice, military, the Olympics, patriotism, bravery, and if you’re a diehard 2nd amendment fan, then the American flag also means firearms.
America is not America unless there are guns. That’s why it’s okay to put an AR-15 on a flag. They’re the same thing.
The cross is also associated with sacrifice. It is also associated with Jesus, salvation, empire, oppression, shame, glory, the throne of a king, and the list can go on and on.
What many have noticed for many decades in the United States, and what has become laid bare in the radical popularity of White Christian Nationalism – something that is not new as we all know - is that flag and cross have become so intertwined as symbols in our country that they cease to operate independently of one another.
To be American is to be Christian for the White Christian Nationalist.
Cross without Flag is meaningless, the Kingdom of God is an American Kingdom.
Motival Clusters create new theologies.
So, what is our motival cluster in John 6?
Passover, which we’ve already talked about,
Bread in the feeding of the 5000.
Walking on Water, and Mountain Top, and the remnant of the 12 tribes of Israel.
This motival cluster that we see explains why the people called Jesus a prophet and wanted to make him king.
The Passover story in the Book of Exodus is the story of the Prophet Moses leading his people, the 12 tribes of Israel out of slavery into freedom and promise.
Of course we know this, but if we look a little more closely at what makes up the initial part of this narrative, we’ll see the symbolic parallels that John is making; his motival cluster.
Right of the bat we have the Passover and what remains of the 12 tribes of Israel after 400 years in Egypt.
Once the people escape Pharaoh - now I need you to help me out here - what happens next? and here’s a hint, it has to do with water and walking.
After they make it through on dry land, they wander through the wilderness and Moses does miracles for the people culminating in a bread miracle in Exodus 16, a Water miracle amd Moses as a military leader in Exodus 17, Moses as a judge in Exodus 18,
And finally, the mountain top of Sinai in Exodus 19 and 20 after which the people gather together and make an idol.
What I think we see is that the Apostle John, just gave us a greatest hits of Moses in the person of Jesus.
A motival cluster that shows us why the people think that Jesus is significant.
So why did I say that we’re all crumbs? And why did I make you say it to your neighbor?
I’m glad you asked.
After Jesus feeds the people, John tells us that Jesus gathered up the remnant into 12 baskets; the crumbs.
The people see that Jesus, like Moses, is coming to give hope and cohesion to people who feel disenfranchised within the Roman Empire and within the elite religious life of the Temple cult.
They are a dis-integrated people.
Broken up historically into northern and southern, scattered by centuries of neglect.
They are people who can deeply understand the psalmist when they lament, “Have they no knowledge, all those evildoers *who eat up my people like breadand do not call upon the Lord?”
Jesus offers them, what Moses offered, a new community, a new exodus, a new victory, and a promised land.
He feeds them a new kind of bread that is eaten but not destroyed by the eating. Rather than being eaten up, they themselves will eat, and sing Hosanna in the Highest.
On this penultimate Passover of his ministry, Jesus lets the people know that just like the crumbs that were left over after the bread miracle,
He will do a new miracle by gathering them up and feeding them this new bread, which he will institute on his final Passover,
and he foreshadows that just like the first Passover, the blood of the lamb will keep them safe.
When we break bread together at the Eucharistic table, when we give our thanks and praise, we receive the miracle of becoming the crumbs.
We become what we receive; a small piece of Christ’s body.
When we go out into the world, and we know that there are thousands and millions of crumbs just like us walking the streets, we are given the opportunity to work together and bring all of those pieces back together;
To look for those other crumbs; to gather the remnant.
Jesus doesn’t need us to make him a king, he’s already a king.
He needs us to come to this place,
Because as Ursula K. LeGuin once put it, “Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.”
He needs us to receive our daily bread, so that he can gather us up and change the world.
He needs us to take our small portion and use it to feed the multitudes outside our doors who are hungry for healing, and wisdom, and purpose, and love.
He needs us, St. Andrew’s, to be good crumbs.
So bring it home for me,
Can you turn to your neighbor one more time, and tell them, “you’re a crumb… a beloved crumb… a blessed crumb… and so am I.”
Now, St. Andrew’s, we really are bready.
Thanks be to God.
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