You Are What You Eat          John 6:24-35     August 2, 2009
 
(This is the second installment of a five-week series, The Bread of Life, based on John, chapter six.)
 
In place of the tidbits and snacks of life we often feed on, Jesus offers a food that endures for eternal life.
 
Are you crazy for cheese curls? Passionate about popcorn? Nuts about nuts?

What you snack on says a lot about who you are.

Alan Hirsch is the neurological director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago. He had 800 volunteers take personality tests and then asked them to name their favorite snacks. The results, reported in the journal Alternative Medicine (May 2007), were astounding. People who share a personality type choose the same snack 95 percent of the time.

--Lovers of cheese curls have a high sense of morals and ethics.
--People with a passion for popcorn are the take-charge type.
--Folks who are nutty for nuts are even-tempered, easy to get along with and highly empathetic.
 
While this link might sound like a stretch, Hirsch says it makes perfect sense — biologically. “Food preferences reside in the olfactory lobe,” he says, “the same part of the brain where the personality resides.”

You are what you eat.

Last week we posed the question “What are you hungry for?” This week we suggest that too often, what we’re hungry for isn’t necessarily good for us.

Jesus runs into some serious snack seekers in the text we’re studying on these five Sundays. As the story begins, a large crowd is following him because of the signs that he’s doing for the sick (John 6:2).
 
He feeds this crowd of 5,000 with five barley loaves and two fish, and then he withdraws to a mountain because “they were about to come and take him by force to make him king” (v. 15).

That evening, the disciples set out for the town of Capernaum by boat, and Jesus catches up with them by walking on the water. The next day, the crowd follows him to Capernaum, and Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves” (v. 26).

In other words, “You have the munchies.” You crave for something to satisfy your physical need.

So what does this particular craving say about the people of the crowd? They are enthusiasts — people whose basic desire is to be satisfied and content, to have their needs met. Afraid of being deprived, they want more than anything to maintain their happiness. They want to avoid missing out on any worthwhile experiences and desire to keep themselves excited and occupied.

Enthusiasts look for Jesus — why? Because they ate their fill of the loaves.

But there’s a problem with this personality type. “Do not work for the food that perishes,” warns Jesus, “but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (v. 27).
 
The barley loaves that Jesus used to feed the 5,000 are “food that perishes,” and he tells the people that they shouldn’t focus their enthusiasm on this kind of bread. Instead, they should work for the food that endures for eternal life.

In a nutshell — or one whole loaf — this verse captures the reason that Jesus has such mixed feelings about performing amazing miracles. Any loaves that he multiplies are going to be eaten, and then the people will still be hungry the next day.
 
Any water that Jesus turns into wine is going to be consumed, and then the wedding guests will still want more. Any paralytic that he heals is going to become old and then become crippled again. Any dead child that he raises to new life is going to grow up and then die of natural causes.

Miracles are tricky because they make a big impression and then disappear. They don’t last forever.

Jesus doesn’t want us to feast on a steady diet of miracles because these amazing works don’t provide complete nutrition in themselves. They’re the cheese curls of Christian living — a tasty snack for someone who already has faith, but not a life-changing meal for a nonbeliever.

It’s true. A little later in the same gospel, the Jewish opponents of Jesus are preparing to stone him. “I have shown you many good works from the Father,” says Jesus. “For which of these are you going to stone me?” His opponents answer, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God” (10:31-33).

No collection of miracles, all by itself, is going to turn a hater of Jesus into a disciple.

This is why Jesus turns the attention of the enthusiastic crowd from miraculous munchies to “the food that endures for eternal life.” Work for this food, says Jesus, the food “which the Son of Man will give you.”
 
Then the hungry people ask, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” And Jesus answers, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (6:27-29).

This is the work of God — that you believe in Jesus, whom God has sent.

Believe in Jesus. The bread of God (v. 33). The bread of life (v. 35). Living bread (v. 51). The body of Christ.

That is life-sustaining eating. -- So, what’s the problem?

The problem is, Jesus can be difficult to swallow. We gag on his hard sayings and tough teachings. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:27-28).

Jesus would be so much easier to digest if he said, “Love your friends, do good to those who like you, bless those who compliment you, pray for those who help you.” Yes, if Jesus said these things, he would be feeding us spiritual candy bars— food that isn’t bad in moderation but can hurt us if we overeat it.

And Jesus certainly doesn’t let us snack on the tasty morsels of sin that are always sitting so deliciously in front of us. He won’t let us say, “Well, I’ll taste a little revenge, just this once,” or “I’ll have a helping of unfaithfulness, but just a spoonful” or “I’ll have some of that irresistible gossiping, just a mouthful, but no more.”

To all of this, Jesus says, “No. Put down the spoon and walk away.” In an ethical and moral Christian life, some of this junk we want to feast on is just bad for us. It will cripple us or even kill us. And Jesus knows it.

Jesus wants to feed us the good stuff, the food that endures for eternal life.

So how do we become better eaters? The people of the crowd say to Jesus, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you?” (v. 30). They fail to see that Jesus has already given them a sign of his power and glory by multiplying the loaves and fishes.
 
But instead, they review the history of God’s work in their lives by saying, “Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’” (v. 31).

Jesus knows that they’re missing the good food that’s standing right in front of them. He shakes his head and says, “I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.
 
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (vv. 32-33).
 
I am the bread of God, says Jesus. The good stuff; the healthy, life-sustaining stuff. Part of a perfectly balanced spiritual diet that gives new and everlasting life.
 
Yes, the law was given through Moses, just like the manna that was given to the people of Israel in the wilderness. But now grace and truth are coming through Jesus Christ, the bread of God.

Slowly, the people are starting to get it, so they say, “Sir, give us this bread always” (v. 34). It’s always a challenge to turn away from spiritual junk food and turn toward the food that endures for eternal life.
 
Jesus invites us to refocus our attention and see him as “the true bread from heaven” (v. 32), the one who comes down from heaven to give life to the world. He invites us to believe in him and trust him to fill us with his grace and his truth.

GO TO THE COMMUNION TABLE

 AT THE TABLE, say:
 
Seeing and believing. These are the actions that enable us to connect with Jesus in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, when we come to the table to eat the meal that he has prepared.
We see the bread that is broken for us, an outward and visible sign of Jesus’ inward, invisible grace. We believe that Jesus is present with us, offering his grace and his truth, his forgiveness and his strength.
         
PICK UP BREAD, say:

This is the good stuff.  The food that endures for eternal life.

“I am the bread of life,” says Jesus to the crowd, and to each of us. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (v. 35).
 
                                    (GO RIGHT INTO COMMUNION)
 
Rev. Rosemary Stelz