A Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Our second oldest son brought me some sourdough starter. Long after the pandemic craze of bread baking had passed. Ben is one of the most curious people I know, and he had committed to learn how this all works. He researched and experimented and ended up with a great starter batch and made some delicious bread to share.

He brought over the starter for me and explained how I needed to tend it and keep it going. Honestly, that process is not super complicated at all. My job was to discard half of the dough, feed the remainder with new flour and water, cover and set it aside. Each day I did this: discard, feed and cover. I did it for a long time. One time I did make some quick bread with some of the discarded starter. But I never did manage to tackle making my own sourdough bread. Eventually I admitted defeat and acknowledged that I am not a baker, or at least not meant to be a baker in this season of my life. Maybe the time will come, and I can be a baker like Fay Lohr, feeding folks in love.

Last fall the Tuesday book group read By Bread Alone, written by Kendall Vanderslice. Vanderslice is a baker and a theologian. And yes, she seems to find the humor that God made her to be a baker born into a family with the surname, Vander – SLICE!

Vanderslice illustrates the simplicity and complexity of bread in our daily life and our spiritual life. How bread, the Bread of Life, is both something that sustains our bodies and connects us to each other and to the One who made us. Bread is both common and holy all at once.

She writes, “As soon as water hits flour, a series of transformations begins: amino acids uncoil, forming bonds to create a strong sticky dough. The journey from flour to dough to bread depends on a succession of conversions – small deaths that make way for new life.”

A succession of conversions, small deaths transforming flour and water, changing it into something new.

In today’s Gospel we are meeting Jesus on the day after he had fed the 5,000. After that miracle, Jesus hightails it up a mountain because he realized that the crowd thinks he is a king, and he got out there because he wasn’t the kind of king they expected. The disciples cross over the other side of the lake without Jesus. But as their boat is being tossed about, Jesus, walking on the water, comes to their aid.

The next day is where today’s reading begins, and there are a couple of pieces of this scripture I find interesting and maybe even a little humorous.

When the crowd realizes that Jesus and the disciples are not there, they too cross the lake in search of them. They might have been a little perplexed because they hadn’t seen Jesus get into the boat with the disciples and maybe are confused when they find him on the other side of the lake.

When they do find him, I think they are pretty cheeky, even if they are confused.

“When did you get here?” they ask. I think it is pretty presumptuous to ask Jesus about his departures and arrivals, especially given what he has just done for them the day before

Instead of saying, “Who do you think you are?” Jesus in his mercy doesn’t snap back at them.

As interpreted in The Message, Jesus tells them, “You’ve come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs—and for free.”

The crowd hasn’t sorted out what kind of bread Jesus is offering just yet. He tells them the bread he is offering isn’t meant to fuel their bodies, it’s not the kind of bread that gets moldy if you leave it out.

The bread he offers is a lifeline, connecting us to him, to his Father, to the kingdom of God.

And God love them, the people get cheeky again. After Jesus tells them to get this bread they need to believe in him, to believe that God the Father has sent him into the world to transform us. They ask, “What sign are you going to give us? Prove it! Prove to us that we should believe in you. Moses gave the people manna to eat. Show us what you’ve got!”

And again, merciful Jesus, doesn’t say “Look it, I just showed you on that hill across the lake. Remember that, just less than 24 hours ago, when you all were fed what you needed with five loaves and two fish?”

Jesus responds, “Very truly, I tell you,” which I like to interpret as Jesus saying “Look it” but I know that’s not accurate.

He tells them That was God, not Moses, who fed them in the desert.

This is not bread from the market, this is a gift from God to you. It is the way we are offering to bring you home, home into the Kingdom of God.

Jesus says, I am the Bread of Life. Come to me and I will feed you what you need.

When the people say, “Sir, give us this bread always.” I do not know if they fully understand what is being given. But I don’t either. Not really. Not fully yet.

How can we keep ourselves from being the people in the crowd asking Jesus to prove himself, asking God for signs?

Jesus isn’t offering us an all you can eat bread buffet, he is offering us a way to be changed, transformed by his love.

The journey from flour to dough to bread depends on a succession of conversions – small deaths that make way for new life.

I think there are many ways that being transformed by Jesus are small deaths, or at least they can feel that way.

Learning the hard way what sacrifice looks like.

Coming to grips with the ways we take the free gift of grace and use it to our own ends.

Turning the other cheek.

The cut of forgiving first.

There are so many ways that we are called to die to self and transform ourselves, one small conversion at a time into the people Jesus is asking us to be.

Kendall Vanderslice compares bread baking to faith saying, “it is a craft to hone over the course of a lifetime, a truth that is at once exciting and liberating.”

Just as Jesus is patient with the crowds, bearing with them in His infinite love, I believe that Jesus is patient with us too. Bearing with us as daily we learn to die to self and in doing so find what we have lost is nothing compared to what is found.

When our first reaction isn’t asking Jesus just where he’s been or asking him to prove himself to us, and instead we are humble and gentle and patient with each other, with ourselves. Every time we are able to bear with one another in love, I believe those tiny conversions are taking place.

On the days when we witness beautiful souls committing themselves to Jesus, as we loudly proclaim – There is One Lord, One faith, One God and Father of all. God is above all and through all and in all.  We too are dying to self just a little more and experiencing the liberating love of Jesus.

Just as the Israelites in the desert, just as the crowd on the hillside, we are fed, always, always through the love of God, the love of Jesus. And on that gift of bread, the Bread of Life, we are made new.

They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Amelia McDaniel