SCRIPTURE: John 6:24-35
TEXT: 26Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. THEME: Jesus provides all of himself to us draw us closer to God. INTRODUCTION This is the second in a sermon series from the Gospel of John called the “Bread of Heaven”. A long discourse on Bread is set up with Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish in the previous verse. SCRIPTURE Jesus retreats to the mountain alone, while the disciples board a boat and head to the other side of the lake. In the morning, the crowd see that Jesus has gone and get in their own boats to Capernaum. They want to make Jesus king, so when they catch up with Jesus they ask, “Why did you go away?” Their expectation of Jesus is different from the reason Jesus is here. He is not here to provide food for us for the rest of our lives. There is more to Jesus than that. The answer to why Jesus is here is found beyond all of the food we could eat, for the rest of our lives. Imagine if we didn’t need to worry about what to eat, what would we be freed to do with our lives? That is the life Jesus has come to enable us to live, a life beyond food, to what is really important? In 1998 we participated in a strategic planning to discern the will of God that moved us from a chaplaincy model of the church to become missional in nature. We looked around to see what God was doing around us, we listened to each other as we asked, “What has God been saying to you, through scripture, impulses, impressions, insights, readings and prayer?” Then we met together to discuss what we heard, seen, prayed and read. We asked, “What do you think God is calling us to do? How do we participate in what God is doing? And finally, we began to imagine what the church might look like if we participated in what God was doing. Images of the church emerged. We met in groups to discuss these images, flush them out and prayed. Eventually the passage from Luke 10 and what it means to live in relationship with God in our world became our missional call. Life, more than an ‘all you can eat bread buffet’. We took the time to look at the signs of God among us, to listen to what God was saying and discerned a call to join God in what God was doing. We had to affirm, with appreciation, what the church had done before as we built upon this good foundation, of spiritual heritage, launching us into mission today, for the future. The Israelites, leaving their slave lives behind in Egypt, run into the wilderness where God provides food from heaven. Manna is unlike anything they have ever seen before; it is a sign of God’s watching out for them every day. After a while it must have been like eating hard tack or c-rations, but a daily reminder of God being with them. Manna kept the Israelites alive to inhabit the promised land, and live into being the people of God. Jesus ministers to these descendants of faith and is the manna for today that God is offering to them for a new chapter of this journey. APPLICATION The feeding of the 5,000 was the Passover meal that launch those who believe in Jesus into a new chapter on their journey with God. What are the important things God is calling us to do? Last week the Maui News had an article about the redevelopment plan for Wailuku. When considering the building a 6-story hotel, there was push back from an outspoken critic who wants to give authority, for tighter rules for approvals given to a Board of Variances and Appeals. This will over throw existing approvals, slow down or halt the project. It may seem like it would keep things as they are but it has been observed that, the town has been unbelievably changed over the years. Change has happened even without a plan in place. Now that someone has a plan for something different, our first reaction is to stop it. When I first came to Wailuku there was one homeless person; a big guy with red hair who would sit in the entrance way of the Maui Academy of Performing Arts building on Main Street. Today there are more homeless people wandering around than I can recognize. I had an occasion to stayed at the Opus Hotel in Vancouver. Set in Yaletown, a formerly, heavy industrial area dominated by warehouses and rail yards. Now this part of town is filled with the city’s most stylish restaurants, boutiques, art galleries, spas and cafés. Yaletown has been transformed into a chic, walkable neighborhood. If a hotel were built on Market Street, what other types of businesses might be attracted to services its’ guest; restaurants, boutiques, art galleries, spas, or cafes? Then, how might Wailuku town change? We could stop a plan and have uncontrolled change happen, or we could make decisions for a changed future that we could live with. We are wrong to think that if we do nothing that things will go back to the cherished memories of the past. Memories are foundational not futuristic. It has been a long time since anyone could recall the taste manna and yet that is the bread that they want to go back to. Unleavened bread set them on their journey to freedom. Manna is the c-ration that fed them on the way, but in the promised land, God has provided the opportunity for them to eat whatever bread they want, even birthday cake. Manna is a bread the celebrates the presence of God in a real and tangible way, that sees its results in the survival of the Israelites. Jesus is the new bread that feeds us today from survival to being formed into a community as the people of God and now by discerning God’s call of us through Jesus in mission. CONCLUSION When we eat stuff, it brings memories of the past, unleavened bread draws us to the Passover meal where slave began their journey to freedom. Eating the food of survival in the wilderness reminds us of God’s daily care that does not stop just because we don’t need manna any more. Jesus feeds 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish, which become the food of new chapters as we build upon our spiritual heritage into the something new God has for us. It is like eating birthday cake on the anniversary of our lives. It recalls a time of our coming forth, but we don’t stay as infants, children, teenagers, Nexters, Gen Xer’s, Boomers or Traditionalist. Birthday cake is also a celebration of a new year that is unwritten. We discern what God is doing among us and our call to be God’s partners, as the people of God, diverse, believing, multi-talented, Spirit driven, actively participating now, in God’s future, by building with appreciation on the valiant spirituality of those who create our foundation. Don’t get stuck trying to preserve the past. With appreciation of what has come before us, build upon it as we plan for a future, so change will be a blessing to our future selves, as we partner with God.
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