"The Bread of Heaven"

Scripture: 

2 Samuel 11:26 - 12:13a and Psalm 51:1-12  • 

 

Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15 and Psalm 78:23-29  • 

Ephesians 4:1-16  • 

 

John 6:24-35

Last week we studied the feeding of 5,000 from the account in John's gospel, and people begin to ask just who this Jesus is. We discussed God's power. This week we learn more about the transformative power of God in the presence of Jesus, who tells us he is the bread of life. Jesus teaches us, and feeds us what we need, not necessarily what we want, and we are transformed if only we have ears to hear, and hearts open to his message and love.


Dianne Bergant, in "Bread of Heaven," tells us: "Jesus makes a bold claim today: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger.” Paul insists that acceptance of Jesus as the real source of our life and the very nourishment of our spirits effects a total transformation in us. We are no longer content to live with full bellies but empty minds. We put aside our old selves steeped in ignorance and self-interest, and we put on a new self, created in Christ’s image. Having fed on the bread from heaven, we are mysteriously transformed into it. The spirit of our minds has been renewed. We have learned Christ; we are nourished by his teaching. As a result, we launch out into a way of living that witnesses to our new understanding, our new life."


Christopher Burkett, in "The Ultimate Restorative," says: "Common stuff of living and God through Jesus takes them and transforms them into the  new things of his kingdom. Bread of life indeed! Like any good craftsman, God takes ordinary things and shapes them into something wonderful. He is not jealous with his skill. He shares it. He takes, he blesses, he breaks, he gives. And he is generous enough to call us his body that through us his action might be known in the world. Bread and wine are taken off the tables of our daily lives and put into Jesus' hands to be transformed into what he meant all things to be – a direct means of contact between humankind and God." - We are joined and reconciled with God in the presence of Christ in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

An offertory invitation by John Westerhoff:

Sisters and brothers, I invite you to bring your lives in their 
brokenness and incompleteness and lay them in bread and wine on Christ's table, 
a sacrifice holy and acceptable to God; that in this holy Eucharist God might 
take your life, transform it, and give it back to you made whole, infused with 
the life of Christ, that you might go forth to love and serve in his name.