“Real Hunger”

John 6:24-35

August 6, 2006

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Fleming

I would like to invite you to my mother’s kitchen this morning. You will have to use a bit of your imagination because the kitchen that I would like for us to visit is the one at 177 Laurie Circle, the house that I grew up in, the kitchen of my early years. It was in this kitchen, like a lot of family’s kitchens, where many things happened. Meals were prepared and served in that kitchen. The table that usually rested against the wall was pulled out, place mats were placed upon it, water and tea glasses, and silverware were put in their proper places. If you came into the house, unless you came in through the front door which was rare, you had to come through the kitchen.

Lessons were learned in this kitchen. As a child I learned that stove tops are hot and if you touch them, it will leave a mark. I also learned the lesson of seeds growing in a styrofoam cup in that kitchen. Because I was a mama’s boy since the early years, I learned that my mother didn’t mind me hanging out with her while she fixed dinner and that I could help her. I also learned when I needed to leave her alone. When I was a little older, I learned that when the phone rang during the evening meal, my dad would usually pick it up, make sure it wasn’t an emergency, and then promptly tell whoever was on the other end of the line that we were eating dinner. I also learned that he did not care if the girl of my dreams was calling. We were still eating dinner.

It was in this kitchen during my growing up years that I first learned about sourdough bread, my mother’s sourdough bread, a loaf of which I hold in my hand this morning. Friends, this is good stuff! I’m not altogether sure how sourdough bread works. It seems magical. It gets its beginning from a starter, one that my mother has had for more than twenty-five years. She’s not sure where the starter came from. There are some things that I know about the starter. First, it can be divided and given to other people. Second, the other people (and this would be me) can kill the starter. Third, the starter must be fed (now you know how I killed it!) Fourth, if you are going to make a loaf of bread, you put the starter in a bowl, add the necessary things, put the beginnings of the bread in bread pans, and let it rise over night. And remarkably it does rise. In the morning, you pre-heat the oven to three hundred and fifty degrees, put the bread in the oven, and thirty minutes later it is ready. Fifth, the bread should have time to cool. You should not eat it right out of the oven. But here is the best thing I know about my mother’s sourdough bread. It is best when it is steaming hot! I also know that it is not difficult to eat half a loaf of hot sourdough bread in one sitting.

There are also some things that I know about other kinds of breads, not just my mother’s homemade bread. Bread has always been considered a staple and essential for all of us. It’s been this way forever, even back in the days of Jesus. So it is natural that Jesus would call himself the bread of life. Just as our bodies need physical bread to survive, our souls cannot survive without Jesus. It may be one of the reasons that a lot of folks that I talk to talk about being hungry spiritually. When they do, I want to know how big Jesus is a part of their lives. I love the old gospel song whose words sing, “You can have all the world, just give me Jesus.”

Well, let’s look at our gospel lesson for this morning taken from the middle part of John’s sixth chapter. I would like to remind you where we are in this gospel Jesus had just fed the crowd of five thousand folks. That was last week’s lesson. Jesus pulled off one of the greatest miracles. The crowd knew that. They were sure He was the Messiah. They were also sure what a Messiah looked like and what a Messiah did. So they tried to take Him by force to make Him a king. Jesus wanted none of that. That was not God’s plan for Jesus and so Jesus somehow managed to escape. But it didn’t stop the crowd from looking for him.

The opening verses of our lesson tell us the crowd found Jesus on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. They engaged Jesus in a conversation, a kind of back and forth question and answer session with Jesus that is famous in this gospel. Jesus had such a conversation with Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, with a woman who came to draw water at the well, and now he is having such a conversation with the crowd. Jesus, of course, is honest with them. He tells them that the reason they are following him and searching for him is because of the food he had provided. We often say that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Well, in their case, they had just received one. Maybe they were hoping for more free things. I am sure they believed that Jesus could do so much more for them.

Jesus says to them that there is a difference in bread that spoils and bread that lasts. The bread that spoils is the kind you get at Kroger. And, of course, it is necessary, but it doesn’t meet our deepest needs. Some have said that this bread can be compared to things we purchase with paychecks, things like houses and clothes and cars and entertainment. Look at one of the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” What we are asking for is more than food. We are saying, “Lord, please, help provide for my daily needs.” So Jesus says, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.” Jesus is sure that life is more than the things we can buy. Jesus doesn’t want us to give our hearts to anything that can be stolen or used up. We all know that.

I hope that you will remember that one of the temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness was the temptation to turn stones into bread. It was a great temptation. In a moment, Jesus could have fed the whole world. He countered the devil with the words. One does not live on bread alone.” The world doesn’t agree with that. We believe we can live on bread alone. Give us a few credit cards with generous spending limits and we will try. But Jesus knew another kind of bread was necessary. He knew that all along.

By now you have probably read Mitch Albom’s popular book Tuesdays with Morrie. It is the story of the last months of Mitch’s favorite college professor’s life. It includes a series of lessons that the professor taught a young sports writers. One Tuesday Morrie said, “Wherever I went in my life, I met people wanting to gobble up something new. Gobble up a new car. Gobble up a piece of property. Gobble up the latest toy. And they wanted to tell you about it. ‘Guess what I got? Guess what I got?’ You know how I always interpreted that? These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works....I can tell you as I’m sitting here dying, when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you’re looking

for, no matter how much of them you have.” Morrie is right!

The crowd asks Jesus, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus’ answer may have surprised them. He says believing comes first. Ultimately believing is more important than doing. I think that we live in a world where what we want is a list of things to do if we want to be successful. We want to follow a plan. Plans are usually contained in books like Steven Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People or Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life. Do these things, follow this plan, and there will be a new you. Do this and you will lose the weight. Do this and be a millionaire.

Jesus says that the beginning of things is not about checking things off of a list. It is also not about doing. It is first about believing, believing that Jesus is the Son of God, sent by God into the world. We are a doing world. The world wants action. It is true of Christians, too. If I were to send you to Park Plaza this afternoon to interview people, asking them what it means to be a Christian, most likely you will get a list of things Christians do. Things like keeping commandments, loving people, tithing. Jesus says that believing has to come first.

When someone joins the church, we are supposed to ask them a series of questions. The first one is a believing question. We ask, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your savior?” If the answer is not a resounding “Yes!” then there is no point asking if the new member will support the church by doing things, things like praying and coming to church and giving and working. Believing in Jesus must come first.

The crowd takes all of this in. It doesn’t seem to phase them. They ask Jesus for a sign. They have just received a remarkable one in the feeding of the five thousand. They want another one. They remember the stories of their faith and how it was that Moses fed the people with manna everyday for forty years. It is as if they are saying, “If you want us to believe, you are going to have to do something like that! Can you top that, Jesus?” Jesus sets them straight. He says that it wasn’t Moses who fed them. It was God. All along it has been God. Moses was just in distribution. Sometimes we give other people the credit for the gifts of God. Our parents gave us a beginning. Our boss gave us a raise. Our spouse gave us another chance. All of these are gifts from God. All of these have God’s fingerprints on them. Jesus says the manna wasn’t bread from heaven. Bread from heaven doesn’t spoil. The real bread from heaven is the person who comes and gives life to the world. And then Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” The bottom line is that it is Jesus and Jesus alone who can satisfy our deepest hungers.

So the real questions are these. What are you really hungry for? Hunger is a universal experience. We learn it from our earliest moments of life. It is a part of who we are always. But what are we really hungry for? Let me answer the question for me and encourage you to try to answer it for yourself. I am hungry for Jesus. I long for a better relationship with Him. I want to know Him more. I want to feel His presence in every breath I take and every step I make. I want to experience his grace often. I’m like the song I quoted earlier, “Just give me Jesus.” What about you? Let us pray.

(The quote from Tuesdays with Morrie can be found on page 125. If you haven’t read this book, I recommend it to you. You may borrow my copy. I am also indebted to a preacher friend of mine who helped me with a few ideas and lines in this sermon. I also thank my mother for both the sourdough bread and the spiritual bread that she provided. My dad, of course, helped with the spiritual bread).