Good Morning Everyone,
I want to say welcome to anyone who is visiting us for the first time today and for those who are joining us online.
We are so glad that you are here today.
Last week we talked about how crumby we all are.
How if we’re living a life of faith and we receive our daily bread, then by a miracle we become those small crumbs; blessed, broken, and given out to the world to feed those who are hungry for truth and work with the other crumbs around us to bring the body of Christ into the street.
This week, I want to continue the theme and I’m moved to preach to you about Living Bread.
You know today is a little bit of an experiment in worship for us.
We’re trying out a new worship service here at St. Andrew’s;
Something we’ve been thinking about, praying over, and working on for the last couple of years since we came out of pandemic.
The question that we’re really asking today is: what is the essence of Jesus’ bread? What makes some bread Jesus’ living bread, and what makes some bread just normal bread?
I love traditional Episcopal worship.
It’s got the pageantry, it’s got words that have sustained people for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years.
Prayers that are tried and true, music that is powerful and theological, customs that deeply root my sense of God’s presence in my life.
I also know that a form of worship that was developed and perfected in a white European cultural context over the past 500 years is not always going to be the best way to bring people to Jesus in a multicultural, digital world.
Because it’s not just that we want to bring Jesus into the life of our community,
It’s that we need to bring Jesus into our communities, and we need to bring him in a way that gives sustenance.
Our gospel lesson that we just heard is all about people following after Jesus, because he gave them a sign;
A sign that he was powerful.
That’s how they understood it.
As I said last week, many thought he was a new Moses, come to break them free from poverty and oppression.
But as we see this week, some people just wanted some bread to eat.
They were so desparate for a feeling of power and nourishment that they drove their boats in from far and wide to go where he was.
They passed towns and worship places, it probably took them quite a while and the went to where they heard he was, sound familiar to anyone who commuted this morning?
We go to where Jesus can be found.
The question for us this morning is; what kind of bread did we come for?
We all need both kinds of bread that Jesus gives, Amen.
We need the kind that feeds our bodies; we need food, shelter, safety.
If we’re honest, it would be nice to have money, prosperity, security. In church terms, we want comfort, tradition, and connection.
But we also need the living bread; we need our spirits to be lifted, we need connection with the divine, we need to feel whole; what the church calls groundedness.
Too often, churches focus too much on the first kind of bread; the ordinary bread, let’s call it. The kind that feeds your body, but not necessarily your soul.
Places like this will tell you about prosperity, the planting of seeds, the harvest that will show that you have been blessed.
That’s a great kind of bread to receive from Jesus, and if that is the kind of bread you need, Jesus feeds people with that kind of bread.
Besides the bread of prosperity, some places of worship feed a different kind of ordinary bread.
Some places of worship have simply become repositories for laying out culture war grievances and assuring their followers that Jesus is really on their side.
They’ll tell you that everyone else is wrong, that the world is under siege, and that the only cure is for you to become a warrior along with them.
We’ve seen a lot of this in the pandemonium that broke out last week with the Olympics opening ceremony.
Were they mocking the Last Supper?
TikTok was full of culture warrior Christians blowing up the internet, feeling grieved, and hoping to manufacture outrage.
People can do that, if they want.
From my perspective, we’ve lost the point.
Jesus was mocked and ridiculed on the cross.
He’s a big boy, he can handle it.
Jesus put all of the mockery to shame, because he rose from the dead and showed his power.
He does not need us to protect him from the world.
He came into the world, to save us.
What hurts Christianity more than Christ being mocked by (quote, unquote) “non-believers,”
Is believers having so little faith in his power that they make themselves a mockery of Christian faith by becoming a meme for insecurity and intolerance.
Jesus loved people, even the people who mocked him.
He came to save people, especially those who didn’t believe in him.
He gave bread to people who betrayed him.
Can this kind fear and anger really be the living bread? Or is it another kind of ordinary bread?
And Jesus says, “If you want that kind of bread, you can have it I guess.”
But what about a Jesus and a church that feeds you living bread?
What about a place that makes room for Joy, for rootedness.
What about a place that focuses on prosperity for your soul and not just your wallet.
What about a place that preaches Good News rather than always focusing on the bad news;
A place where you can come and we can talk about the moral and ethical principles of things and not just get stuck pontificating on perceived grievances.
What if we belonged to a church that was willing to experiment with our worship, to invite the creativity and brilliance of African American culture and black joy to guide us on a new journey?
What if we were able to belong to a place that had room for tradition and contemporary;
A place where the ordinary bread; that is, the way that we worship, came in second to the living bread; the idea that connection with Jesus and not style of worship is the main thing.
For those of you who are new to the church, in a little while, we do a thing called Eucharist/Communion.
We will break real bread together, we will see it, and eat it.
This is a thing that not a lot of Christian churches still do, but it is an ancient practice that goes back to the very beginning, to the Last Supper itself.
This part of our service, just like our choices of how we follow Jesus gives us an option.
Are we eating ordinary bread, or are we eating living bread?
Is it just a small piece of bread and we’ll still be hungry later, or is it the body of Jesus, a piece of Jesus’ life that will stay with us.
I can’t answer that question for you, but what I can say is that this is the essential question put before us today.
Whether it is what kind of church we want to go to, what kind of worship we want to have, what side of the culture war is right.
Is this simply something that nourishes my body for a little while and leaves me empty afterward,
Or do I want something more?
With that question, I want you to gather with a small group nearby you, because we’re going to try something else that’s new.
I want you to talk to your small group for just a few minutes about what sparked for you in this message, what would catch fire and ignite your soul if you gave it a little fuel.
Make sure everyone gets to share if they want to.
We’ll come back and close with a prayer in a few minutes.
(God of the Table Prayer, Black Liturgies, Cole Arthur Riley, p. 166-7)
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