Christ Church Riverdale

9 Pentecost                                                                                          August 10, 2003

Deuteronomy 8:1-10; Psalm 34; Ephesians 4:25-5:2 John 6:37-51

“Man does not live by bread alone”

When I was a little boy, I would invite friends to come to supper.  Before agreeing, they would often say, “What’s for dinner?”   If they were having something better at their house would they still have come?   Was it for friendship or food?  We were children, and it didn’t bother me.  I think I did the same.  I was once blindsided by boiled okra.  But now I understand that sharing a meal is more than the food.

When the crowds followed Jesus after the feeding of the five thousand, he confronted them.  He told them that they were only following him to get more bread to eat.  I don’t think he was very pleased.  They were missing the point, and he was a little exasperated.  Did they want to learn about more abundant life?  “You only come here to fill your stomach,” he said.

“Man does not live by bread alone,” we hear in today’s lesson from Deuteronomy.   In John’s gospel, Jesus says, “I am the Bread of Life.”  He speaks of something far different from the bread that fills our bellies.  He speaks of himself as the fulfillment of the Law, as the source of comfort, peace, joy, true happiness.  How can this be?  What was he getting at?

Roseanne Barr has a new reality show.  It’s a TV reality show about a new TV show on cooking that she is planning to do.  Watching the reality show, she acts like she lives to eat, for the sensual satisfaction – the donuts, the pastries, the sugar, the fat.  But behind the humor, she, and everyone else on the planet, is looking for much more.

“All beings everywhere want to be happy,” I heard an American Buddhist say.  What is true happiness?  Is there a Christian answer in these days when the church is so focused on sexual morality and malfeasance and the many problems of a troubled world?

Jesus leads us away from materialism in his teachings and toward a spiritual understanding of all of life.  It is not easy to find his in Western Christianity, because Jesus’ teachings are so often ignored.  The most stunning example to me is that countless Christians support the death penalty by quoting “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” forgetting that Jesus rejected this teaching.  Jesus said, “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Gandhi, who knew well many baptized Christians, for instance the British who occupied India, was once asked if he’d ever read the gospels, and he said, yes, he had read them with great interest, and he was looking forward to meeting his first Christian!”

I mention this not as an indictment of the Christian Church, or of well meaning but ill informed Christians, but as an encouragement to read carefully the teachings of Jesus, and to notice the radical, sometimes oriental truth inherent in the then, and to give them a try!

You learn from him that you don’t need to have anything to be happy.  You already have everything.  You may not legally possess it, but it’s yours.  Believing this takes practice and it takes faith.  The rich man came to Jesus and asked him what he must do to have eternal life.  The man had followed the law, but was not happy.  Jesus said, “Go, sell all you have, and give away the money to the poor, and come, follow me.”   The rich man went away sorrowful.  He couldn’t detach himself from his possessions.  He couldn’t be radically free.

What a stark contrast to our cultural Christianity, and how inspiring.  No possession, no food, no wine, will make us happy.  Not in and of itself it won’t.  There’s a story about an elderly parishioner of St. John Vianney who used to spend a lot of time in church.  St. Jean became curious about him and asked him one day,  “Why do you spend so much time sitting in church, and what do you think about?”  The old man answered, “Oh, I just look at him, and he looks at me, and we are happy together.”  As we get older, we can better understand that man’s joy.

You and I are rational creatures.  We think.  And sometimes our insistence on trying to figure things out creates unnecessary anxiety.  Jesus suggested meditating on the lovely lilies growing wildly in the fields, which just are, they don’t try to be anything.  Maybe it’s not necessary to figure out why we’re happy.  We can be like the lilies.  When I reflect too much, I can easily find a reason not to be happy, lots of reasons.  After all, I’m told all the time by advertising that I need this and I need that, and that if I have those things I’ll be smiling wildly, and be young and thin as well.

Why not be happy for no reason at all?

We do not live by bread, by the material world, alone.  Despite all the troubles of the world, and the stresses in our lives, there is no reason not to be happy.  It is an extreme reductionism just to say, “Don’t worry, be happy.”  But believers over the ages have discovered stress melts away when we trust, really take time to consider the lilies, only accept responsibility for those things over which we have control.

“I look at him, and he looks at me, and we are happy together.”

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