The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor
My Dad died eight years ago yesterday.
Of course, I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately.
I have not been thinking about the lessons he taught me.
I haven’t been thinking about his accomplishments.
I haven’t been thinking about the life he provided us or the love he showed his family.
I have been thinking about his quirks — the little things.
Like all people, my Dad had strange tastes in certain things.
For example, he loved to make peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
In his semi-Italian accent, he’d called them peanut butter and banana sang-wiches.
He also loved Matzoh bread with sardines.
He had it around all the time when we were little.
I distinctly remember thinking it was a giant saltine cracker.
“What kind of bread is this?” I would think.
“You can’t make a ham and cheese sandwich with this!” I thought.
What did the disciples think when Jesus said he was bread: that he was the bread of life?
What did they think when he said things like: “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”?
You can almost hear the literalists of his day asking: “What kind of bread is this?”
It is no wonder that the enemies of the Early Church thought that Christians were cannibals.
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.”
This is a great Communion reading.
When we come to the table and drink the cup of Christ’s blood and eat the bread that is his body, we are practicing one of the two central sacraments of our faith.
However, and with all due respect to our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, we are not actually eating flesh.
It is symbolic.
It is representative.
It is rich with meaning, but not meant to be taken literally.
There are all kinds of expressions and idioms that have the word “bread” in them.
Ten of the more common ones are:
- The best thing since sliced bread
- Bread and butter
- Breadwinner
- Know which side your bread is buttered on
- Taking the bread out of someone’s mouth
- The upper crust
- To butter one’s bread
- To earn one’s bread
- To have one’s bread buttered on both sides
- Man cannot live by bread alone
And then we have Jesus saying that he is the bread of life. Maybe we need to understand this in conjunction with what else he says in this passage: that the people’s ancestors ate manna in the wilderness.
Do you remember that story?
After being liberated from Egyptian bondage, the Jews wandered in the wilderness for forty years before entering the Promised Land.
They complained to Moses, their leader — that he led them out of Egypt to die of starvation in the wilderness.
How did Yahweh respond?
He gave them their daily bread.
Each morning, they would awaken to find a bready substance on the ground, almost like morning dew.
They were instructed to gather only what they needed for the day.
If they took more than what was needed, it would become rancid.
The point? They needed to trust that God would provide for them each day.
Gather enough bread for today, and trust that there will be more tomorrow.
Gathering up more than they needed was a sign of a lack of faith.
God will provide.
God always provides.
Trust him.
Jesus isn’t saying the same thing, although he references this passage from Exodus 16.
So, what’s the point?
What’s the meaning of it all?
Even though the Israelites ate the bread God provided, they eventually died.
That is because this was literal bread: flour and water that mixed together and baked helps sustain one’s life.
But as Jesus does Satan in the wilderness, “Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
We need more than physical substance.
We need the type of food that will keep our souls alive, too.
That bread is Jesus.
That bread is the Word of God.
Remaining rooted in the Word of God will sustain us.
We need to imbibe it each day, as we do literal bread.
Here it is: another sermon on reading the Bible…
But it isn’t about simply reading it.
It is about making the Word part of our DNA.
It is about knowing it so well, that it frames our thinking.
And this isn’t just any old book.
It’s not as if I am asking you to read Wuthering Heights or Of Mice and Men continually.
This is a different book altogether.
It feeds our minds, but it also feeds our souls.
It gives a spiritual foundation.
It enables us to hear God speak to us each day.
Let’s go back to literal bread for a moment.
Why do we stress good nutrition, especially for our children?
According to Tufts, good nutrition provides us with the following:
- It reduces the risk of some diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, stroke, some cancers, and osteoporosis.
- It reduces high blood pressure.
- It lowers high cholesterol.
- It improves your well-being.
- It improves your ability to fight off illness.
- It improves your ability to recover from illness or injury.
- It increases your energy level.[1]
It isn’t much of a stretch to figure out what Jesus (the bread of life) revealed through the Word provides. Here’s my Top 10:
- It gives your life a sense of direction and purpose.
- It gives you strength, especially when you are mired in times of trial.
- It will help quell your anxiety.
- It keeps you connected to the realm of the spiritual.
- It reminds you of your value in the eyes of the God who created you.
- It lets you know that you are part of a great story that is thousands of years old.
- It tells us that we are forgiven, no matter what we have done — or have left undone.
- It provides us with a promise: life everlasting.
- It reminds us that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.
- It reminds us that we are loved beyond what we can possibly imagine by the One who is
The people who were alive during Jesus’ time were very concerned about what we call food security today. Many of them did not know where their next meal was coming from. This is part of the significance of Jesus feeding the multitudes with a couple of loaves of bread and a few fish. This is also why he referred to himself as the bread of life. We, too, can eat literal bread daily, but it won’t save us. Eventually, we all die.
But there is another kind of bread. One that will give you strength that you didn’t know you could have. One that will fill you with hope, when all seems lost. One that will fill you with peace, while turmoil bubbles all around you. One that will fill you with joy, when this world constantly bombards you with news that will leave you despondent and dejected. One that will shower you with love, when all you see and hear is rooted in hatred, injustice, and strife.
What kind of bread is this?
It is Christ the Lord.
As the Psalmist declared, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
Amen.
© 2024, John Tamilio III
All rights reserved.
[1] “The Importance of Good Nutrition,” taken from tuftsmedicarepreferred.