2nd August 2009 - "The Food that Endures"

Coralie McCluskey - St Mary's and St Michael's

What do Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Pakistan have in common? They are amongst the most dangerous countries for minorities in the world according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

In amongst all the latest news on 'swine flu and communion', the debate on 'marriage with baptism' and issues on a two-track communion as a result of the blessing of same sex unions, this week the Church Times centre page, features the Church in Pakistan.  It is an excellent and informative article, possibly the only article that comes near to reinforcing what I believe the church and the teachings of Christ are really about, so much of the rest is about petty squabbles.

The Church in Pakistan is under threat, yet it continues to help the country’s 3 million internal refugees.  Imagine just for one moment what it must be like to be one of just 5 million Christians amongst 160 million others. Sectarian and religiously motivated violence against Christians and other minorities has been on the rise since the 70’s and 80’s when an Islamisation programme was ruthlessly enforced and the growing power and influence of the Taliban has seen an increase in violent assaults against religious minorities.

How do the Christians survive? How do they cope with continuous low-level harassment: children being mocked or bullied at school, excessive work loads for lower pay than other employees, eviction from accommodation without notice. The answer must be - the bread that endures that sustains life permanently – the main theme of the lectionary readings this morning.

Let’s begin with Exodus - The feeding of the people in the desert with manna is the classic example of God’s care for his peoples. On the fifteenth day of the second month after their escape from Egypt the Israelites moaned, grumbled….. if only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread: for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. So the Lord says to Moses, I’m going to rain down bread and meat from heaven for you and the people can go out and collect what they need for the day but no more except on the 6th day when they will collect enough for the 7th. I am going to test them and see if they follow my instructions.

It’s a wonderful story, a desert experience giving the people an opportunity to get close to God, to learn how to rely on God, to trust in Providence on a daily basis. Oh but the Israelites find it difficult. Why?

It’s about distinguishing between faith and trust, they are closely linked but are not the same thing. It’s rather like somebody asking those of us gathered here this morning. Do you believe in God? I assume that we’d all say yes, but then if then asked, do you trust that God will see to it that you have all that you need?, well we might say given some time to think I’m not quite sure that I’ve reached that stage yet. The person who firmly believes, trusts completely, and if someone does not have perfect trust in God, then their belief may be faint as well.

And as we turn to the Gospel, we recall that last week we heard the miracle of the feeding of the 5000, Jesus fed the people with ordinary food and did so with great generosity and so they follow him, Jesus is an amazing person, such miracles, let’s have more of this and they are pleased when they catch up with him again; but things are about to change. Jesus will not give them what they want, he doesn’t cater to consumers’ tastes and pleasures as a producer who simply provides for that for which there is a demand. For Jesus this must have been the first temptation all over again: turn these stones into bread. The temptation to use his power to give the people the material they want.

But Jesus knows that material things by themselves will never truly satisfy people. These physical needs can never be satisfied and only increase when yielded to. Food is only the beginning. We eat in order to live; we don’t just live to eat. It is, though, a great temptation to give people what they want rather than what they need. The temptation is to please the crowd by giving them what will satisfy their immediate wants - when they don’t really know what they need.  The spiritual teacher, Jesus, must challenge people to go beyond their tastes.

Jesus makes it clear that the Son of Man has not come to satisfy physical hunger. He has come to give the crowds and us the heavenly bread that they and us will eat and never again be hungry, Jesus challenges them, he challenges us, Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. I am the bread of life.

The question then and now is, do you want it or not? The crowd don’t know how to answer, when Jesus was talking about actual bread it was easy, 'give it to us always', but when it becomes clear what he’s really talking about, they don’t know if they want salvation. It is so difficult to differentiate between our needs, some of them can destroy us if we feed on them, the more they are fed to us the more demanding they become. But there are many needs to be satisfied if we are to be properly nourished as human beings and children of God.

We need acceptance, relationships, motivation, faith, hope, love but above all we need God because only God can satisfy our deepest need, salvation, eternal life.

We are tempted to live for material things alone but it’s not because we deny the spiritual, but that we neglect it, rather like forgetting to pray, to give thanks to God for all that is good in our lives but then turning back when things are difficult.  The manna sustained life temporarily, the food Jesus gives us sustains life permanently. To us, pilgrims on the streets of time, but often driven by an irrepressible desire for immortality, Jesus comes with the promise: 'he who eats the bread that I give will live forever'.

To return to the Christian communities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia during communism, the emerging church in China - it is the bread of life, the bread from heaven and the gathered Christian community trusting, as advocated by Paul in the epistle to the Ephesians, in God for its daily needs that sustains and survives, it is, according to Martin Warner in the Church Times in his reflection on today’s readings, the bread that has no sell-by-date.