Our lectionary, that cycle of readings that flows from one year to another, focuses in any given year on one of the three synoptic gospels, that is, Mark, Matthew, or Luke. This year since Advent, we have been following Mark. So it may come as a surprise when I say this morning that we are about to begin a five-week journey with the sixth chapter from the gospel of John. (I will always associate this sequence with General Convention because for the past five cycles, I have either been returning from or heading off to GC!) A priest friend summed this chapter as: ‘Bread, bread, eat, eat, bread.’ In a way that is right. Actually, today we will hear about eating before getting into a discussion about the nature of the bread.
Why do we wander away from Mark? Gail Ramshaw writes the following in the 2003 Proclamation series, a lectionary guide that I suspect every preacher has. I am going to quote her unabashedly because she explains so well why we digress… or don’t. Her analysis looks at the cycle of readings from a larger vantage point that will place this smaller cycle into perspective.
Concerning the Five Weeks of John 6
If one thinks of the three year lectionary as one year of Matthew, one of Mark, and one of Luke, one is then surprised when encountering John. Actually, this explanation of the lectionary is more or less backwards. Like Christian theology itself, the lectionary is centered in John. John is appointed for Christmas Day, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Day, most of the Sundays of Easter, Pentecost, the baptismal catechesis of Lent, and the five weeks that it takes to proclaim John 6. What we see is that around the more developed (and I add more divine) Christology of John’s gospel, the lectionary circles the earlier Christologies from Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
To understand what is happening in [the readings for today and the next four weeks] we look first at the annual festivals that juxtapose John with one of the synoptic gospels. On Christmas Eve, Luke 2 proclaims the engaging tale of the birth, the manger, and the shepherds. What does this birth mean? Listen to the Gospel of Christmas Day: ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ Christ came not from Joseph and Mary but from God, and not nine months previously, but from before the beginning of time. On Passion Sunday, the lectionary appoints a synoptic account of the death of Christ. What does this death mean? Listen to the passion on Good Friday: ‘Here I AM,’ calls out Jesus, and the soldiers fall down before God. Jesus’ confrontation with Pilate, ‘It is finished,’ Jesus’ release of his spirit at death, the hundred pounds of spices — these and other details indicate the [community of John’s] understanding of the divinity of Christ.
The same pattern governs the summertime proclamation of John 6. In Mark’s gospel, the Messiah is hidden, and the disciples never seem to get the point. Yet the Christian assembly gathers each Sunday to encounter Christ. Thus John’s gospel is helpful in proclaiming Christ’s identity. In case we would miss the point of the multiplication of the loaves — after all, even Elisha could multiply loaves — John’s gospel proclaims, ‘I AM’ [this week], ‘I am the bread of life’ [next week], ‘I am the living bread’ [in two weeks], ‘whoever eats me will live because of me’ [in three weeks], and [lastly,] ‘the Holy one of God’ [in four weeks]. Thus, [we have] a eucharistic lectionary… since it would be odd, week after week, to proclaim that Christ is the bread were no bread to be offered. (1)
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So, in a way, we are back to ‘eat, bread, bread, eat, bread.’
Hunger, eating and bread are so fundamental to our lives as human beings. Every culture has its own form of bread. And every culture has its forms of hunger. As I speak these words, someone in the world is dying from hunger. As I speak these words, the soul of someone in the world is suffering or even dying from spiritual hunger.
Perhaps you know that physical hunger that goes beyond the customary pangs that remind you that it has been a while since you’ve eaten. It’s a hunger that disorients, unbalances you so you can’t even think straight. It’s a hunger that makes you panic that you’ll not find anything to eat and, even if you do, you’re too hungry to be able to decide what it is your body so craves.
So it is with spiritual hunger. We try and try to fill the holes in our lives, our existence, our spirits with food or stuff or drink or drugs. We eat, not because our bodies need food at that moment but because it is something to do, a primordial action that temporarily fills the space. I remember so well my sophomore year in college studying for finals with a bunch of friends, pulling one of those infamous ‘all nighters’ during which we did little work and a lot of gabbing. At one point I looked up to see that all eight of us had something in our mouths — a pencil, cigarette, soda, chocolate bar, pen, you name it. It was almost as though we were collectively sucking our thumbs, trying to find security by putting something in our mouths as though by doing so we could fill our heads with knowledge and more important, our souls with faith.
In the recesses of our soul, we hunger for love, affirmation and a sense that God loves us. We may not even know that is what we are looking for. Some of us have been beaten up by the institutional church and have left because of that, having lost the sense of God’s love dwelling there despite the human weakness. Others of us have hung in there, hoping that God is still present. And some of us come eagerly, joyfully because we know that our spiritual hunger will be satiated for another week. Some of us come to the communion rail empty of soul but intellectually knowing we need to keep showing up. Others of us are starving for that bread of life and cup of salvation and want to drain that cup to the last drop.
We hunger and hunger… and forget that God has provided food enough for us, manna from heaven, in the form of the eucharist. We are like the disciples, not understanding when we see the miracle of the feeding of the multitude that God’s love will fill our souls and hearts even more than twelve baskets of loaves and fishes. God’s love will reach to those places deep in our souls that crave understanding, and tenderness. God’s love will fill us to the brim.
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So come, however hungry you are, and bring with you whatever hungers there are in your life that are gnawing away — come to God’s table, let God’s love nourish you and know that there plenty more enough to go around.
As Sylvia Dunstan’s words to hymn 761 say:
All who hunger, gather gladly; holy manna is our bread.
Come from wilderness and wandering.
Here in truth we will be fed.
You that yearn for days of fullness, all around us is our food,
Taste and see the grace eternal. Taste and see that God is good.
All who hunger, never strangers, seeker, be a welcome guest.
Come from restlessness and roaming.
Here in joy we keep the feast.
We that once were lost and scattered in communion’s love have stood.
Taste and see the grace eternal. Taste and see that God is good.
All who hunger, sing together, Jesus Christ is living bread.
Come from loneliness and longing.
Here, in peace, we have been fed.
Blest are those who from this table live their days in gratitude.
Taste and see the grace eternal. Taste and see that God is good.
(1) Gail Ramshaw, Proclamation Series, Year B, 2003 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), 125-26.