We do not seem to get away these days from Jesus and bread, and what it might mean. Last week Jesus told us: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Today Jesus tells us: “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Big stuff. Fearful stuff to ponder.
Fear is echoed in verse 3 of Psalm 130, one of the Psalms appointed for today. We read in verse 3: “For there is forgiveness with you; therefore, you shall be feared.” Humility is a large part of our Benedictine vow of conversion to the monastic way of life. Chapter 7 of the Rule of St Benedict deals with humility and in verse 10 we read: “The first step of humility is to keep the fear of God always before our eyes.”
What does fear in this context mean, especially when the Psalmist juxtaposes forgiveness with fear?
From my own experience, I would say that amongst other things, it is the fear of possibility. What might we become when we partake of this Bread? What will be required from us when we partake of this Bread? What will it look like to become part of Jesus in this way?
I think it also means the fear of not being worthy of God’s forgiveness. It may also mean that, as we fear to offend beloved people in our own lives, we fear that we will betray God’s love and forgiveness.
However, I think most importantly, it means an awareness of God’s grace and love and forgiveness. And an invitation to us to live into that love and grace. It is a calling into consciousness about what it means to access, or eat, if you will, this living bread of life that will bring us into eternal life.
Despite me trying to reassure myself in this way of what fear might mean in this context, I will reiterate what Jesus and the Angels constantly tell us: Do not be afraid! God always provides a way, and sustenance.
We read in 1 Kings today that, after fleeing from Jezebel’s threat of death, Elijah sits down under a broom tree and asks that he might die. “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” Tired and at the end of his wits, God lets him rest and then, by the hand of an Angel, gives him a cake baked on coals, and water that lasts him 40 days and 40 nights to get to Horeb, the Mount of God. Here he meets God and God sends him out to do his work. And today we are reminded that the bread we consume from Jesus will sustain us for an eternity and will give us strength to do what we are called to do.
And what is it that we are called to do?
We are called to let the ordinary be extraordinary.
I think when the matter of calling comes up, we so often can become quite overwhelmed by the fragility of our faith, or our abilities. For example, do the words we speak in our sermons make much of a difference? Shouldn’t someone more eloquent or erudite preach? But then we look at so many things we use in the service of God: The water we use for Baptism comes from the same tap and source that we use to shower and wash our dishes. The same is true for the bread and wine for communion; ordinary, common, mundane, yet we are bold enough, or perhaps foolish enough, to believe that God does use such ordinary things to achieve his will and to bring his salvation to the world.
And we may well ask how or why God does this?
Because of this very one, Jesus, who was common, ordinary, mortal like you and me, and yet who was also uncommon, divine, the very Son of God. This is the claim Jesus makes in today’s Gospel reading, the claim which offended the crowd who followed him then, the claim which still offends many today. For where we expect God to come in might, God comes in weakness; where we look for God to come in power, God comes in vulnerability; and when we seek God in justice and righteousness, which is, after all, what we all expect from a God, we find God, or perhaps, are found by God, in forgiveness and mercy. We find him in the small things of life that have huge consequences.
This loving and gracious God of ours who does not despise the ordinary, yet constantly uses it in his scheme of things to bring about his Kingdom. In the same way that God does not despise water, bread, or wine, such ordinary, common things, so we also know that God does not despise or abandon us. We who are similarly such ordinary and common people.
And in our acceptance of Jesus, the Bread of life, we are assured of another promise of God. Not only will we be redeemed, but God will also use us, our skills and talents, no matter how inadequate or ordinary they may seem, to continue God’s work of creating, redeeming, and sustaining all that is.
And there is yet one more promise from the Gospel reading of today, if we still think we might fall short in some way: “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’”
So, do not be afraid.