John 6:1-14 Feeding the Multitude, Part 1 Why are we here, today? Because we want to do the right thing? Going to church is the right thing to do, we ve heard- and we believe; good people go to church, is a prevalent thought, and we want to be good. Maybe we re here for answers; or because church is a family tradition. Let us hope we are here- no matter what elseto worship God: to give praise, to listen for God, to partake of communion. We know, don t we, there are no easy answers to our questions, and even with our best intentions- try as we will, act nice and smile- we know that we can never measure up or be good enough. So, maybe that old saying applies to us as well, The church is not for the well-meaning, but for the desperate. Maybe we should admit with Peter, at the end of chapter 6, Lord, where could we go? You have the words of life. Admit our desperation without God- after all it puts us in company with the entire world. Why are we here? We are desperate, aren t we, for God s healing grace. Desperate for comfort and assurance and forgiveness. Communion, or the Eucharist, is laid out before us. If we have come to worship, to praise, to listen for the Lord, then taking this Eucharistic meal is our central act. Eucharist means thanksgiving, and worship always must grow out of
thanksgiving; and at this meal, we do certainly praise and confess him, and we listen for him, for our Lord comes to us and comforts us in the breaking of bread. We hear often, as we come to this table, the words of Jesus at his last meal with the disciples- the Words of Institution, we call them- and we can read them from Matthew, Mark and Luke, and from Paul in First Corinthians: This is my body; this is my blood; do this in remembrance of me. They are wonderful words. Words that point to his crucifixion for our sakes, and to his communion with us. Words that call for our commitment to him, and our union with one another into one family. But the Gospel of John does not contain these words. There is a last supper in John, but no words of institution. What we do have is chapter 6. An amazing and profound passage: confrontational, terrifying, poignant, full of misunderstanding, presumption, and betrayal; ending with Peter s humble and hopeful confession, but also a brooding and sinister warning. It is here, in chapter 6, that John emphasizes the Lord s Supper. It begins with the feeding of the 5000, the only miracle in all four gospels, save the resurrection. The crowds follow Jesus because they have seen his miracles, and so, he gives them another- feeding that entire mob with just five loaves and two little fish. Later, beginning at verse 25, they follow him across the
Sea of Galilee hoping to receive more free food. This second encounter between Jesus and the crowd introduces the heart of chapter 6, the long passage containing the so-called bread of life discourses, where Jesus says, I am the true bread that gives life, and I am the bread that came down from heaven. And in saying this, he compares himself to Moses leading the people out of Egypt, and compares his life and the bread he gives to the manna that fell from the skies during the Israelites lost years in the desert. As Jesus speaks the difficult and challenging ideas in this second half of chapter 6, the crowd begins to walk away, the Jewish leaders grumble and argue, and even some of his disciples withdraw and refuse to travel with him any longer. Here in chapter 6, John points us to the table in a way different from the other gospel writers. Matthew, Mark and Luke align the eucharistic words of Jesus to that last night before his death. John connects the Lord s Supper, or Eucharist, to the feeding of the 5000. The first three gospels show us the institution of the Lord s Supper as a ceremony, a rite of worship. For John, the Lord s Supper is an act of mercy. Look at the people who eat the bread at this feeding of the multitude. They are a crowd of desperate people, happy to eat the cheap barley bread. They are people who come seeking a miracle, seeking some excitement, perhaps, in their
harsh lives; but they are looking for hope, as well. They are the common crowd, and not the chosen few. Here, the Lord s Supper is a meal shared by the closest followers of the Lord- yes the disciples are there- but also, shared by those ragged thrill-seekers and camp-followers, the poor and the weak and the hungry. It is a feast given and received in gratitude and celebration. It is a meal where the lost and helpless find hope and direction and life and fellowship. Here we see Jesus as the bread of heaven sent down to a dying creation; the living bread for a desperate world. He is food for starving men and women. In John, the Lord s Supper is a meal where everyone may come and be fed. Everyone. The outcasts, beggars and aliens, day laborers, and the homeless. I have a quote for you, from an old article written by William McElvaney, former professor at Perkins School of Theology at SMU. Dr. McElvaney wrote about the prophetic significance of the Lord's Supper- prophetic in the same sense as the OT prophets calling for justice and national repentance and righteousness; in his article, he referenced a martyred priest who, just in the past few months, has been nominated for canonization in the Catholic church. We can come to a deeper experience of the Eucharist by learning from Latin American Christians. In some Latin American churches the meal is likely to be experienced as a liberating sacrament, calling forth justice and dignity
in oppressive societies. It was no accident that Archbishop Romero was assassinated in 1980 while celebrating the Eucharist. Nor was it by chance that in several places the Salvadoran military destroyed the altar, the host, and all visible reminders of the Eucharist, (because they rightly understood it to be) a sacrament calling for the transformation of society. These powers and principalities were theologically bankrupt, but not theologically naive. The Lord s Supper is an instrument of justice and beckons all Christians to join heart and hand with others on behalf of God s will on earth. When we come to the table, we are not in private communion with Jesus, we gather not only to remember his sacrifice for our sake, but we also join in fellowship with each other, and so we are called into a covenant with Jesus for the sake of the world. We must not think that Jesus is Lord and life only for us here today. He is the bread of life for the entire world; and when we eat and drink, we commit ourselves to him, for the sake of others. In John, we see this meal, not limited only to the chosen few, but for all the world. Here before us is a feast for the hungry and downtrodden; here is a feast of liberation and hope. Here is a feast for all of us. Now in verse 2, we are told that a multitude followed Jesus; and in verse 4, he lifts up his eyes and sees the multitude, or literally, a great crowd. Part of the meaning
behind the Greek word is the tumultuousness of the crowd: think of noise and smells and the teeming masses, a great throng of the common folk. The multitude. But at the end of this part of the story, in verse 14, they are the people. So, if John is right in chapter 6, that Jesus is the bread of life for the entire world, we should understand the feeding of this multitude as a Eucharist, a feast by which they are joined in communion with the man sent from God; and therefore, even this unwashed crowd, has beheld God s glory, and shared life with one another, and received grace at the hand of their Lord. The people, just like the Israelites in the wilderness were God s people, just as the church today is God s people: this hungry and dirty and ignorant pushy, grasping mass of humanity has become- in one instant of communion with Jesus- God s chosen people. It is an unexpected and glorious transformation. But it s what God does every day. And it is up to us to believe it and to be glad for it. And up to us to be made humble by it: they are our sisters and brothers. Good people go to church, the sermon began. But perhaps a more appropriate concept is that thousands and millions- of the good and the not so good- come looking for God, and Jesus finds them and makes that multitude his own people, and they become the church; let us rejoice with them at the boundless mercy of God.