11th Sunday after Pentecost

Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

In my sermon study this week, I came upon this commentary on today’s gospel: The people were following Jesus, which is good, but they were following him for the wrong reasons. This line piqued my interest. What made the commentator say this?

Last week, we heard what happened immediately prior to today’s section: Jesus had fed 5,000 people. In a miracle of compassion, Jesus had multiplied five loaves of bread and two fish so that everyone could eat their fill and there were even leftovers. It was an amazing sign of Jesus’ love and power.

After this mega picnic, the disciples and Jesus crossed the lake to the other side.

Now the crowds are coming after them. They are looking for Jesus. That in itself is a good thing. But when they find Jesus, he says this to the people: “You are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” They come to Jesus not to learn from him about God’s love or about the way God wants us to live or about salvation; no, they come because Jesus can feed them.

The Gospel of John never uses the word “miracle”, but instead talks about “signs”. When Jesus does something miraculous, it is meant to be a sign that points to Jesus’ divinity. The miracle itself doesn’t matter nearly as much as what it says about Jesus.

Thus, when Jesus feeds the multitude, this deed is supposed to let the recipients in on a truth about Jesus: Jesus has power and compassion to feed God’s children in the wilderness. Who in Israel’s history had that kind of power and compassion before? God! As we hear in our first reading today, when the people of Israel were crossing the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land, God fed them with manna. God sent bread from heaven. God has power to provide. And now Jesus shows such power. So what does this sign say about Jesus? That Jesus is divine, the Son of God.

That’s not what the crowd is focusing on, however. They are eager for the actual bread. Many people were poor at that time; we can’t really fault them for being excited about this man who can give them enough to eat. However, in focusing on the bread in their bellies, they miss that gifts Jesus actually came to give them, gifts that last much longer than one meal.

Jesus offers “food that endures for eternal life”. The Greek word behind “endures” is one that comes up a whole lot in John’s gospel account; most other places, it is translated as “abide”. Jesus constantly talks about abiding: Jesus abides in the Father and the Father in him; we are invited to abide in Jesus’ love; Jesus abides with us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the comforter.

Abiding is about relationships. It takes time to build a relationship with other people and with God. You must abide with the other person for a while, spend time with them, eat with them, talk to them, listen to them, observe them, get to know them. When Jesus fed the multitude, he first had them sit down. It was important to him that they stay a while, spend time in the company of other followers, and experience the gift of community made possible by the love of Jesus and the bread he offers. There is no drive-by feeding with Jesus. You can’t just go to the drive-through and pick up a happy-Jesus-meal and eat it on the way to somewhere else. Instead, Jesus invites you to linger a while, eat in community, enjoy his gifts with others, build relationships that last.

When Jesus says he is offering food that endures, I believe that’s what he is talking about. The bread the people ate that day is fleeting. But the relationship Jesus invites them into is enduring, everlasting, life-giving.

As that commentator pointed out, many people followed Jesus for the wrong reason: for bread, for satisfaction of their own desires, for access to an easier life. They came to Jesus because they wanted something, with the emphasis being on “thing”. They expected Jesus to do something tangible in their lives.

This desire is still very much alive among followers of Jesus. A clear example of this is the so-called “Prosperity Gospel”. Preachers of this theology teach that Jesus wants you to be happy and rich. All you need to do is imagine yourself being rich (the word they use is “manifest” – manifest your wealth), and show how much you trust Jesus to send you such wealth by giving generously to their church, and then Jesus will grant you what you seek.

Other preachers do the same in regard to health and healing. Some even use this teaching in regard to finding a life partner. The pattern is the same: Manifest your desire, pray for it, donate to the church, and then Jesus will grant your wish.

This is terrible theology. Jesus never promised anything like this. Jesus is not a genie that grants you three wishes. When Jesus did heal or provide for people, never once did he charge for it.

The real harm comes when people have manifested and prayed and donated fervently, but the desired outcome doesn’t happen. Then what? A crisis of faith. Preachers often blame the lack of success on the individual believer, as in your faith wasn’t strong enough. Which is a cop-out. And the believer is left bereft and hurt and confused and maybe angry at Jesus.

That’s what happens with many of the followers in the crowds who come to Jesus in order to get their bellies filled. At the end of the chapter, most of them will abandon Jesus. He doesn’t give them what they want, so they leave.

This is heart-breaking, both for Jesus and for them.

Jesus loves them so. Jesus has wonderful gifts he offers them: his love, his compassion, his community of believers, his abiding presence. The people’s focus on tangible bread, on having their desires met, made them blind to all these gifts.

We are setting ourselves up for disappointment if we expect Jesus to cater to our wants and make our lives easier. That’s not what Jesus promises. What he does promise is that he will be our savior, our good shepherd, our counselor, our friend. Jesus promises to be by our side throughout life and to help us deal with the challenges life will inevitably entail. Jesus promises us that he will abide with us.

This week, I ministered to a family that was accompanying the father on his journey from life on this earth to life everlasting. Gunther had always been a strong, active man, but a stroke had weakened him, and now his heart was failing. He lay in his hospice bed at home and was waiting for death.

All the things that had given him joy in his life were falling away, out of reach. The cars he liked to work on, the piano he loved to play, all tangible things he had desired and accumulated over his lifetime lost their meaning.

What remained was the relationships he had invested in. His three daughters put their lives on old and surrounded him day and night and made it possible for him to be at home. His granddaughter with her two kids came, his sons-in-law, other relatives. When I walked through the house, I could see sleeping bags and pillows where folks had camped out over night. Many, many friends came to sit with him.

Sit with him – that’s all that was left. Be there. Abide with this man they loved.

Also abiding with them was Jesus. They were all people of faith. They had followed Jesus and spent time in the presence of their Savior. They had received the bread that endures from his loving hands. Now that abiding relationship was sustaining them in their time of sorrow. The resurrection promised them gave them comfort.

Jesus says today, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.” Walking with Gunther and his family showed me yet again what this can look like; how Jesus’ abiding and enduring food sustains us.

When we are baptized, Jesus invites us into this wonderful relationship with himself and the people of God. Jesus invites us to abide with him forever. And Jesus promises to abide with us forever.

Today we are rejoicing in the baptism of Ivy Grace. God is adopting her into God’s family, the Holy Spirit will bless her with faith, and Jesus will promise to be her best friend forever.

She will need it. We who have been around for a while know what life can be like. There will be teething, and skinned knees, and mean girls at school, and the first crush and heartbreak, and countless other challenges. The good news of baptism is that she won’t have to face them alone. Jesus will abide with her. And Jesus’ people will abide with her: her parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends and the members of the church she will grow up in. She will be surrounded by people who help her understand and receive and rejoice in the bread of life Jesus offers us all.

Jesus offers us that bread today, in his word and at his table. May that living bread sustain us, today and always. Amen.