Corrie and I have been overwhelmed by the welcome members of Grace have extended to us since our arrival in Madison last week. There was a huge basket on the kitchen counter when we opened the door of our new home. It was filled with lots of information about Grace Church and Madison. More importantly, it was filled with lots of goodies—coffee and chocolate, crackers and cheese, wine. Some of those goodies we ate for our evening meal that Wednesday night; some of them we are still nibbling on. Even the cats were included in Grace’s hospitality. They are still enjoying the catnip treats they received.

In the days since our arrival, there has been a common theme. Almost everyone I meet from Grace says something about being excited at my arrival. But it’s not just Grace. I was at a meeting with the bishop, clergy, and parishioners from the Madison area on Tuesday night, and members of other Episcopal churches came up to me and said the same thing, that they were excited.

Frankly, it’s a bit scary, and just a little bit weird, too. But at the same time, I’ll confess, I’m excited, too. I’m excited about the call to be your rector; I’m excited about the future, about the great things that God has in store for us in our shared ministry, and I’m also excited about living in Madison.

That having been said, today’s gospel brings us back to the reality of what we are about here in this place. We heard again from the sixth chapter of John’s gospel; it’s the third week in a row for a reading from that chapter, and after today, there will be two more weeks. We have entered what I call the “bread zone” and preachers dread it because it always falls in the summer when attentions are low and attendances tend to be to. We dread it because the effort to say something different five weeks in a row about essentially the same biblical text forces us into all sorts of contortions. Thankfully, I’m appearing mid-way through the series, so I have to worry only about three weeks, not five.

This five-week long digression into the gospel of John interrupts our reading of the gospel of Mark in this year of the three-year lectionary cycle. Mark is the shortest of the four gospels, so in order to make it last for the whole year, the editors of the lectionary intersperse readings of the Gospel of John at various points. We are in John now because we are at that point of the story in the Gospel of Mark where we heard the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. That miracle is unique, because it is the only one of Jesus’ miracles to be clearly mentioned in all four gospels.

John as you may know tells a very different story about Jesus than Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptic gospels. Among the most striking differences among them is John’s recounting of Jesus’ miracles. There is almost no overlap between John and the synoptics’ miracles, none except this story, the feeding of the five thousand. The presence of that story in all four gospels marks its significance for the Christian communities that were writing the gospels. They linked Jesus’ miraculous gift of food to this crowd, to the Eucharist. In the synoptic telling of the miracle, Jesus is described with exactly the same words that are used when describing his actions at the last supper, words we continue to use at each celebration of the Eucharist.

It’s clear that we are headed toward a discussion of the Eucharist in this text, but this week, there is something else at stake. The passage begins with one of Jesus’ most familiar sayings, “I am the bread of life, Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

In the gospel of John no matter how powerful or spectacular the miracle, there is always a deeper meaning that needs to be explicated. It’s easy for readers of the Gospel, for contemporary Christians to be distracted by the miracle stories. They raise all sorts of questions for us. Those of us with a more skeptical mind, a scientific background, are going to query the text—could that really happen? Did it really happen? Others, more credulous perhaps, don’t doubt the miracle, in fact think the miracle is the point, it proves Jesus is God’s Son.

But in the gospel of John, miracles are not about the miraculous. Miracles point to something deeper, more profound, and the temptation for the readers of the gospel, just as the gospel writer suggested those who saw the miracles were also tempted, the temptation is for us to stay with the miracle, to focus on it, rather than on its deeper meaning.

Jesus teases out the deeper meaning of this particular miracle in a lengthy discourse. “I am the bread of life” he says, but lest we too quickly assume he is alluding to the Eucharist, he says more, “whoever comes to me will never be hungry, whoever believes in me will never thirst. Jesus is not talking about physical hunger or thirst, physical eating and drinking, not even the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Rather, he is referring to something else. Just as in his encounter with the Samaritan woman in chapter 4 of the gospel, when he tells her if you drink from the water I give you, you will live forever, here food and drink refer to him, they refer to his message and his gift of life.

Later in this passage, Jesus will chide his opponents with reference to the miracle of manna given to the Hebrews in the wilderness. Unlike manna, which lasted for a single day, Jesus is the bread that comes down from heaven and whoever eats from it will live forever. There is another allusion here, pointing to a verse in Deuteronomy, where Moses tells the Israelites “Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

This language of food and drink, hunger and thirst, is so powerful for us because food and drink are necessities for existence. Like the woman at the well who asked Jesus where she might get the water that would quench her thirst forever, our lives can be consumed by the quest for food and drink. One of the powerful images that confronts me each day as I come to work at Grace Church is the scene of people who come to this place looking for food from the Pantry or a bed for the night. That search can be an all-consuming one for people in their situation. They have no time, energy, or inclination to look for anything deeper.

For most of us who live with adequate financial means, the search for food and drink can become a hobby, or a different kind of obsession—a quest for the perfect meal, or ingredients, or some new taste sensation. But for all of us, as creatures of appetites, we yearn to fill those holes in our stomachs, or in our hearts. We have come to this place, not quite like those who come to the food pantry or to the shelter, but we come in search of something. Sometimes our search is for something we can’t even describe or name, sometimes our search is quite clear—we seek healing or help, or wholeness. For some of us, though our appetites for food and drink, for the things of this world, become something a diversion, a way of avoiding the deeper questions, deeper longings, deeper appetites that lurk in our souls. We gorge ourselves at the table or department store or wherever, because our real, deep needs aren’t being met.

Bread can be utterly ordinary, or it can be spectacular. It is something we eat everyday. There is bread that has no texture, no substance, bread known familiarly, ironically, as wonder bread. There is also truly miraculous bread—freshly baked by someone who has tended the starter, kneaded it by hand, sweated while it baked in a fiery hot oven—crusty, chewy, delicious. It is a miracle. That bread brings us in the presence of the divine; it reminds us of Jesus’ words here and in the sacrament, “take, eat.” The one kind of bread is designed for mass appeal, the other for a dinner for friends or loved ones.

Have we come to Grace Church this morning in search of bread to fill our souls? Have we come to satisfy our curiosity, or just because of habit? Perhaps you’ve come, like all those who have expressed their excitement about my arrival here at Grace. You are full of hope, but perhaps a little apprehensive about what the future may hold. You may even want to see me work a miracle or two. Well, if you’re hoping for the latter, I’m probably going to disappoint you. I can promise you a lot of excitement, but I don’t know that I’ve ever worked a miracle.
Jesus offered the crowds bread, and then he offered them the bread of life. We come here to receive that bread, in the proclamation of the Word, and at the Eucharistic feast, but as we come together around the altar, we need to remember that it’s not about you, or me. It’s about Jesus Christ, the bread of life he offers everyone. Nourished by that bread, nourished by the Eucharist, let us go forth to offer that bread to all.