By Revd Hannah Akibo Betts

John 6: 47–58 and Ephesians 5: 15–20

As your guest speaker this morning, my name is Hannah. I live locally here in Milton Keynes and it is an honour, privilege and pleasure to speak to you this morning. I am familiar and acquainted with a few in this congregation, who have been very supportive of my mission trips and were also instrumental to my training as a priest. Today is therefore a good opportunity to publicly acknowledge and thank them. They know who they are.

As I turn to my task, I wonder how many of you had bread as part of your breakfast this morning. If you did, how full are you; and how long will you remain so?

As a child, one of my chores was to take my turn in purchasing bread each morning for our breakfast. It was a staple for most families and therefore fundamental to mine and most cultures.

This morning, in an interactive Sermon by Jesus, our Gospel message is rooted on bread as a gateway to the Kingdom of God and our Ephesians reading gives us a few suggestions on how to conduct our lives as members of the Kingdom of God.

Before we look at both passages; I would like to pose two questions as points for our reflections:

1          What is more sustaining – the physical bread which may be part of our physical diet or the Word of God?

2          Jesus gave us his life. How much are you willing to give-up to help someone?

Listening to our Gospel reading that was so beautifully rendered; some may have made connections with or been reminded of the Last Supper. Although this is the interpretation of some theologians; I do not think that this was what Jesus had in mind in the context of His John 6 Sermon. Instead, I feel that Jesus was trying to convey at least five things to His listeners namely:

• Communicating and confirming His and the Eternal Father’s love for their people then and for us now.
• Revealing and confirming His identity as the Son of God.
• Offering God’s people a way out of a redemptive process and system that had become too burdensome for them.
• Promising them the gift of Eternal life.
• His willingness to progress God’s inclusive plans to all peoples: by offering His life as a complete sacrifice for man’s sinful nature and salvation.

To help us understand my interpretation of our passage in its context, I want to take us backwards a little to look at three supporting Scriptures.

Our first stop is in Exodus 16: 31 where the word ‘Manna’ was first encountered. In Psalm 73: 23–25; the Psalmist puts meaning to the word Manna for us by explaining that it was ‘Bread rained down from heaven for the people to eat’. God’s delivered people – Israel – had complained about the lack of food, with little gratitude to God as they journeyed to the Promised Land. Forgetting the hardships endured as slaves; their shortsightedness and perhaps inability to endure physical hunger drove them to a longing for Egypt, where they had had plenty of food.

Quail and Manna were God’s provision and response to satisfy their hunger. So many times in our lives we grumble and complain more about the things we want rather than thanking God for what He has blessed us with. For some of us even when those wants are met, because they are sometimes not in our perceived forms, we look for and find faults with the blessings, instead of being thankful. Knowing his people and our human weaknesses and attitudes, it is perhaps into these tendencies that Paul speaks from our Ephesians reading: We are to live wisely.

Our third and final stop is to the book of John chapter 1, where John introduced Jesus as the ‘Word’ which became ‘Flesh’. John also tells us that the ‘Word’, who was both Life and Light to the human race, was misunderstood.

In my view these three Scriptures have provided us with a background and a window towards Jesus’ metaphor and imagery of Himself as the Living Bread which came from Heaven, and His flesh as bread for to be eaten during His Sermon of John 6. Verses 26 and 27 of John 6 indicates to us that Jesus focused His Sermon on bread because He felt His listeners were only interested in physical food and not the spiritual food on offer.

Israel, and particularly the religious leaders, lacked understanding of Jesus’ identity and mission. It was not because they did not want to believe in Him as their Messiah, but perhaps because they were blinded and conflicted.  Isaiah tells us that God’s people have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear and in John 3 Jesus spoke about spiritual blindness as He enlightened Nicodemus. It is therefore not surprising that their focus was narrow and limited to their own interpretations of God’s Word. and saw Jesus as a blasphemer without due regard to the spiritual implications of their conditions. In their thinking, Jesus was equating Himself to God, which for them was unthinkable and unacceptable, as they perceived the Christ to be a son of David when he does come!

Being misunderstood and rejected as the Messiah, particularly by the religious leaders who were the custodians of the principles and systems that underpinned Israel’s faith and worshipping framework, Jesus ran into much difficulty with some of His listeners.

Throughout His Sermon, Jesus tried to reveal His identity to His listeners, offering them the Good News He had brought them. Sadly, many did not believe. Perhaps this is why Ephesians 5 and James caution us to live wisely. The wisdom both Paul and James speak about is not earthly wisdom but God’s. The religious leaders lacked God’s wisdom even though they lived in difficult times. Today we are not dissimilar to God’s people of ancient Israel. We live in a world that is fractured, increasing in selfishness and individualism; a world of religious controversies and misunderstandings of ideologies. We live in a world of discrimination and inequalities; a world in which our Christian values and morals are challenged across societies with decreasing respect and consideration of the environment and ‘others’ lives’. For those of catholic background in our midst, yesterday was the Feast of St Maximillian Kolbe. While on Starvation death row; he offered his life for another who had a family to live for. I wonder how many of us would make a similar offer today for the ‘other’. Hopefully, the man that lived made the most of the opportunity St Kolbe offered him, as Paul urges us to do in Ephesians 5.

I also wonder how each of us lives our lives today in such difficult times in which we are conflicted daily with both news and choices? What would making the most of things mean for you and I? For answers we can look to Paul and his household letters and the rest of the Epistle writers. They each have so much to say to us about right living that will be pleasing to God. For example, in Colossians 3, Paul gives guidance on Holy living and household matters. Peter also advices us on similar matters. James suggests we ask for wisdom if we lack it; and the books of Romans and Corinthians are good sources of spiritual food as we walk our faith journeys.

The religious people that challenged Jesus in our Gospel reading were not open to making the most of the opportunity that Jesus was offering them.

Jesus was offering them the laying down of His life as a one-off atonement for all the many sins they and their descendants would be committing: The doing away with the corrupt, sacrificial system that was re-enslaving them. His only condition was that they believed in Him as the Messiah they were waiting for. By using the imagery of ‘the Living Manna from heaven’; He wanted them to believe in Him as the one in whom they would find permanent and satisfying food. However, because of their blindness and deafness, and also because Jesus spoke with images, they could not understand or accept him as the Son of God.

Sometimes in life our identities as part of the human race, parents, Christians, competent workers and colleagues, can come into question. In these situations we are to take our stand, believe in the Christ within ourselves and progress with what we are called to do. Jesus was sent as the ‘Living Bread’ and called to lay His life down for the sinful nature of man so that we can access forgiveness and eternal life in His Kingdom; not only in our current world but after death. Jesus was not deterred by rejection and unbelievers. He fulfilled His mission and today all who accept Him as God’s Son have entrance into God’s Kingdom with the promise of eternal life. If you are here this morning and not accepted Christ; I urge you to consider doing so. The bread Jesus offers is not physical and temporal, but one that is permanently filling and fulfilling, leading to eternal life as we submit to Him and the ‘other’ in our life journeys.

In concluding, as Christians how far can you and I go to help the ‘other’?

St Kolbe gave up his life for one who had a dependent family.

Mother Theresa once said:

‘I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people and in fact to do good to them. I must be willing TO GIVE UNTIL IT HURTS’!

Christ was HURT for us. He was rejected, scorned, humiliated and finally gave His life for you and me.

Do we give a little and feel good about ourselves and then retreat in to our own world, or do we give until it hurts?

How far will you and I go in our faith journeys and in what we are called to do?

Amen

Let us pray

Lord, we thank you for the work you did for us on the Cross. Forgive us when we do not trust you and believe enough for what you can do for us and through us. For those who have not made a commitment to you, draw them close as you reveal yourself to them. Help us to be mindful to reach out to the other in Jesus’ name we pray.

Amen