John 6:25-35

Kathy Redpath, Pastoral Intern

"What’s for dinner?"

If I asked that question today, I’d probably receive a different answer from everyone I asked. But if I ask that question on Thursday, just a few days from now, peoples’ answers would probably be much more similar. On that national day of thanksgiving I would guess that most of us here today are anticipating bowing our heads to offer our thanks to God just before we dig in to some version of the traditional Thanksgiving day meal:  golden roasted turkey, bursting with savory dressing. Creamy mashed potatoes, bathed in thick brown gravy. Sweet potatoes, smothered in gooey melted marshmallows. Tart cranberry sauce, sweet corn, green beans, crisp salad, warm dinner rolls. All this...and then… the desserts! 

We tend to eat our fill, and then, ignoring the signals from our stuffed bellies, we eat just a little more. Many of us will gather with friends or family to consume this enormous meal around midday on Thursday. Then, after helping ourselves to more than enough food, we’ll announce that we cannot possibly eat another bite… and we’ll wander off into the family room to spend some time doing whatever is traditional for us following the meal. In my own family, the tradition involved decorating gingerbread houses for the coming Christmas season. In your family, it might mean visiting with relatives, watching a football game, or maybe taking a little afternoon nap.

Impossible as it would seem, sometime in the late afternoon or early evening, something quite predictable will happen. In houses all over Dallas and beyond, there will be a sloooow but purposeful migration back to the kitchen. Someone will pull the turkey out of the refrigerator, someone else will round up some clean plates, the salads and the potatoes and the pies will all reappear… because just a few hours after eating what we thought should be enough food to hold us over the entire weekend...we’re hungry again. That wonderful meal, delicious and filling as it was, just didn’t keep our bellies satisfied for very long. We’re ready for more food.

Our gospel reading for Thanksgiving Day-the one we just read-picks up with a crowd of people who are looking all over the countryside for Jesus. On the previous day this same crowd had gathered around him on a grassy hill beside the sea of Galilee. They had come out from the surrounding villages when they heard he was nearby. Jesus had wondered aloud how the crowd was to be fed. He was told that one young boy had with him a few things--The boy was carrying with him five barley loaves and two fishes.  Jesus had taken those few loaves and fishes from the child and after giving thanks… Jesus had distributed the food among the crowd of about 5000 people. From just that small amount of food, ...they had all eaten until they were full…

Here’s where today’s reading begins.  Now it was a new day...and the crowd was hungry again. Just as our own Thanksgiving feasts will soon leave us feeling hungry once more, this crowd was looking for food. Their rumbling tummies were demanding to be filled again.  No doubt they were remembering how well they had been fed the previous day.  They went looking for Jesus, hoping that he would feed them like that again.  They didn’t give up easily-when they couldn’t find him in the grassy area where they had been the day before, they piled into a couple of wooden boats and they crossed the choppy water to the other side of the lake. There they finally caught up with Jesus, the man whom they knew from recent experience, could give them food for their bellies.

But on this day, Jesus doesn’t offer to fill their bellies again. He doesn’t suggest belly food at all, but instead, he points them to "soul food" ... Food for the soul.  Food that will keep them filled not just for a day, but for eternity. Food that will fill them up with not just sustenance for today, but with life forever.

So what was Jesus talking about-what kind of food is it that endures for eternal life? What kind of food could keep people from ever needing to be fed again? 

Obviously, Jesus is not talking about food for their bellies.  Jesus says that God sends down "bread that gives life to the world."  God sends bread that will nourish our souls. Bread that will fill us for more than a few hours, for more than a few days, for more than our lifetime here on earth. Bread that will keep us from ever being hungry again. Food ... for our souls

 "I am the bread of life," says Jesus. And then he proceeds to give himself in a magnificent feast of bread and wine…

In a few minutes, here at the altar, we are going to give thanks as we are invited to feast, not on a banquet of turkey and trimmings, but on a small morsel of bread and a few drops of wine. This is "soul food."  Food that will nourish our souls.  This is the bread of life that combines ingredients that the Food and Drug Administration never includes on its labels: Forgiveness. Love. Hope. Victory over death. Reconciliation with God.  Eternal life...100% of the recommended lifetime requirements for each of these ingredients. This is the food that will keep us from hungering or thirsting ever again. Every time we eat that bread and drink that wine, we are assured of God’s grace ...grace that will fill us forever.

So...consider two invitations: for which do we give thanks? First, an invitation to a Thanksgiving Day dinner, where the table will be groaning under a heavy load of delicious home-cooked food...and second, the invitation which will be issued right here, an invitation to gather around the communion table, where we will each receive a mere fragment of food-a bit of bread and a taste of wine-but tidbits that promise to be a "foretaste of the feast to come?" 

The truth is, we don’t have to choose. We give thanks to God as we eat the daily food that satisfies our bellies. And we give thanks to God as we eat at the meal we call Holy Communion, the meal in which Jesus offers himself as "the bread that gives life."  

We don’t have to choose-we can gratefully accept both meals, the daily blessings of the belly food and the eternal blessings of the "soul food." God, in Christ, provides both the food that nourishes our bodies and the food that nourishes our souls. We can accept both with thanksgiving. 

For several weeks now here at Christ Lutheran Church, we’ve been focusing on stewardship, as we spoke of telling our stories and sharing our gifts. Today we will submit our completed pledge cards indicating our promise of support for the on-going work of God’s church. This promise of support is one of the ways that we can express our thanks to God for that "bread that gives life to the world," one of the ways we can continue to share our gifts and to tell our stories… Thanks be to God.