Being the Bread of Life.

What would we ask for if we were offered what we want by God? The ability to fly? Health, wealth, and happiness? A winning lottery ticket so we could build a fellowship hall that was more easily accessible for people with mobility issues?  Of all the things that Jesus teaches during his earthly ministry, this is apparently one of the most explosive. When he told them, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh,” I think it must have really shocked his listeners. John tells us that many people who had begun to follow Jesus came to the conclusion that they could no longer associate with him because of what he says here. 

It’s a bit like a congregation dispersing because of a controversial statement by the clergy, people are shocked and pull themselves together and leave because they are scandalised. The heart of the scandal, I think, comes from Jesus’ persistent admonishment to drink his blood. Leviticus 17 makes it crystal clear that absolutely no one is to ever, for any reason whatsoever, consume blood. The consequence of violating this commandment is being “cut off” from God. Of course, Jesus isn’t ignorant of Leviticus, and neither is he ignorant of how his words grate on the ears of his listeners.

 No, Jesus doesn’t speak out of ignorance, but rather with Leviticus in mind. Blood was not prohibited food because blood is unclean or dirty. Quite the opposite; blood was regarded as sacred because it contains the very life of the creature. So when Jesus gathers crowds of people around him, and he tells them to “eat my flesh” and “drink my blood,” what he’s really saying to them is to take his life and pour it into their lives. His blood does indeed contain his very life, and he wants God’s people to have it coursing in their veins— his life in our lives. Jesus could have probably found a gentler way to say this and saved himself from a mass desertion. 

However, his point, and the point of the gospel is extreme: Jesus’ life is a gift for us. So we are called to accept Jesus as the bread of life for those who lack and suffer hunger throughout the world, that all who suffer may know the nourishment of your love. We are also called to be that bread of life in our world. We want Jesus to feed creation with his eternal life. Jesus invite our community to the banquet of your divine life, where we may know the works of your hands, which are faithfulness and justice, full of majesty and splendour. Watch the movie Babette’s Feast and you will get an idea of what that might look like. 

We ask God to feed his creation with eternal life, yet what is our role. I found the book by Sara Miles called ‘Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, challenging and eye opening around this issue. When she said, “I met thieves, child abusers, millionaires, day labourers, politicians, schizophrenics, gangsters, and bishops—all blown into my life through the restless power of a call to feed people, widening what I thought of as my “community” in ways that were exhilarating, confusing, and often scary.”

 

Later on she says, I was, as the prophet said, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. I found it at the eternal and material core of Christianity: body, blood, bread, wine, poured out freely, and shared by all. I discovered a religion rooted in the most ordinary yet subversive practice: a dinner table where everyone is welcome, where the despised and outcasts are honoured. And so I became a Christian, claiming a faith that many of my fellow believers want to exclude me from; following a God my unbelieving friends see as archaic superstition. Personally I don’t see myself as that radical but acknowledge her challenge and the journey I am on. 

The question for me is whether like Sara I have become that bread for God’s world, as Jesus calls me to be.