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We know that this agreement, initialed in Moscow, is not a done deal, but it is particularly satisfying to be signed in the shadow of the 64th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. Of course each country still has enough warheads to blow each other into eternity. Indeed, the “United States and Russia together have 95% of the world’s nuclear weapons.” (Ibid.) Further, this agreement is a modest step to help fight the proliferation of nuclear weapons in places like Iran and North Korea. Interestingly enough this agreement is the first successor treaty to the 1991 “START” agreement. (Ibid.) I am more hopeful about world peace today than I have been since the end of the Vietnam War. But I’m also a realist. Things could fall apart. A look at the human record with seriousness brings back the reality of the polarities of human life. Yes, on one hand, we can have a US-Russia nuclear agreement, but on the other hand this week we have been watching the local trial of a man now convicted of a double murder and kidnapping apparently motivated by his termination from work at a nursing home at the corner of Goodman and East Avenue. In the face of the polarities—the positives and negatives of life—we often find ourselves urging solutions such as education, scientific and social reconstruction for the correction of human ills. We should encourage such efforts, but such efforts do not erase the fact that we live between the poles of human choice. We live between limitations and possibilities; the irrational and the rational; between isolation and community; between impotence and responsibility. Living between the polarities of life reflects the fundamental human condition as being disordered, or imbalanced, (Macquarrie, John, Principles of Christian Theology.) and, given a slight shove, we could all fall into nothingness. I have been significantly influenced by Jean Paul Sartre, the French existentialist, who, looking at his own time and circumstances in post WW II France, suggested, “the life of the greatest statesman and a solitary drunkard are equally pointless.” Sartre was stuck on the negative pole of human life. Many of us can be stuck, overwhelmed by negativity and limitations, crisis in our personal lives, to say nothing of our social and political lives. In the face of the struggle with nothingness, how do we get un-stuck? What moves us to meaning? What moves us from limitations to possibilities? Is there any force attracting us to the positive side? Or, like Darth Vader, do we find ourselves attracted to the “Dark Side”? If you have been noticing the readings from the Gospel of John each week this summer, you will have noticed that they have been a series of nourishment stories. Jesus meets the woman at the well who is looking to quench her thirst. Jesus tells the story of the field that is ready for harvest. Jesus heals during a feast of the Passover. Jesus feeds the 5000. Today’s Gospel lesson is a continuation of these food stories. A few weeks ago I preached about another form of food, the metaphor of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus which was a blunt challenge to those in the circle of influence of the Gospel writer, John, who were trying to escape to a spiritual never, never land. John wanted to bring them back to the real world, hence his visceral, bloody metaphor. So today the function of a metaphor about the “bread of life” is also part of that same polemical attempt. It is addressed to Hellenistic Jews. That is, Jews who were heavily influenced by Greek ideas, but remained ethnically Jewish. Indeed says Oscar Cullmann of the Sorbonne in Paris, “the whole of the Gospel indicates that the author [John] comes from a Jewish circle… which regards the [Jerusalem] Temple cult [worship] as finished.” (Oscar Cullmann, The Johannine Circle, Philadelphia, Westminster, 1975 p. 66.) So the Gospel writer has a triple problem: With the affirmation that Jesus is the Bread of Life, the gospel writer is trying to bring Greek (1) Jews (2) into the Christian (3) circle. Today’s Gospel lesson continues the same purpose. In today’s story, people are searching for Jesus after they have been fed. The dialogue between Jesus and the food seekers is almost cruel. Indeed I would have a hard time imagining this conversation going on between volunteers and clients at our Monday/Thursday food cupboard. Jesus asks, “Are you coming back for more to eat?” The people seemed taken aback. Jesus goes on, “Work for eternal food, not perishable, the kind of son of man gives whom God the father has authorized to distribute. It’s almost as if Jesus is saying, “I have the exclusive franchise on the spiritual nourishment.” The people respond, “How do we become part of this?” Jesus replies, “Believe in the one whom God has sent.” By now the people are, besides a little annoyed, somewhat skeptical, and they respond, “OK, sure but let’s see some evidence so that we can believe you.” The demand for evidence by the people following Jesus seems to be a reasonable demand. Further, they remind Jesus of their mutual history, that in the good old days their ancestors got manna from Moses, a rich sugar-filled flake, sweetmeats in the morning, pennies from heaven. And they reminded Jesus that they literally scrimped and saved by scraping the stuff off of the rocks. Perhaps the following is too much information, (TMI) but here it is. “Manna” is a Hebrew word which literally means “what-cha-ma-call-it.” Many scholars believe that this “manna” was the sweet-tasting excretions of desert insects. (Christian Century, August 15, 2009, p. 44) See, I told you it was too much information. Jesus’ reply to this reminiscence is telling, “You may have scrimped and saved, but it was God my father who provided for you.” In other words, the bread which God gives brings life to the world, a gift of survival, bread for the journey, from nothing to something, from Egypt to the promised land, from limitations to new possibilities, from total isolation to covenant community, from impotence to responsibility. The bread which God gives not only feeds the body, it feeds the human spirit. It is enriched bread. The people are stunned. This IS a different kind of teacher. A greater than the Temple is in their midst. They are humbled and say, “Sir, give us this bread now and always.” And then comes that unexpected reply, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger; whoever believes in me shall not thirst.” What moves us from nothing to something, from limitations to possibilities? Jean Paul Sartre was right. We cannot move by ourselves. Recognizing this reality he gave up and fell into nihilism and self-pity. It is a fact. We need nourishment, strength, we need bread for life. Jesus makes a radical claim: “I am the bread of life.” Really? This is a little bit over the top, isn’t it? Jesus’ radical claim is, “I am not a snack in the afternoon at the Park Avenue Fest. I am the bread of life, I am essential food. Jesus says, “I am not a coffee break, whoever comes to me will never thirst.” Jesus says, “I am not a religious Whitman’s sampler. Whoever follows me must give up self.” Jesus says, “I am not a moment of secular silence in the public arena. I am the voice heard in the stillness after the storm, after the death, after the divorce, after the miscarriage, after the pink slip.” Jesus says, “I am not a new form of social uplift, as needy we are of uplift. I am the cement of society.” Jesus says, “I am not a new scientific method, as beautiful as that may be. I am the strength which holds the cosmos together.” Jesus says, “I am not a new philosophy, I am wisdom herself, the word behind the word.” Jesus says, “I’m not a political method, I liberate life and make it more human.” Jesus says, I am not a new non-proliferation agreement, I break swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.” “I am the bread of life.” “Whoever comes to me will never fall into nothingness but have a full and meaningful life. Whoever believes in me will not have the thirst of alienation, the starvation of a half-baked life, the malnutrition of irrationality, but will have bread for the journey, manna in the wilderness, nourishment to move toward the possible, sustenance to maintain community, strength to love.” “I am the bread of life; I am enriched bread for the world.”
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