God's Last Words

“An Everything Bagel”  John 6: 35, 41-51     

Have you even played the “telephone game?” It’s started when someone whispers a string of words in the next person’s ear and then repeated over and over until the last person is asked to repeat, out loud, what was whispered in their ear.

What survives the telling generally has little in common with the initial phrase or content and usually is a function of the number of people told. This happens because each of naturally attaches pieces of ourselves to the words; as we hear, process, and translate personal significance and meaning to the words. We slant and spin them in other words.

I can’t overstate the fact that communication is very important in relationships; in marriage, in business partnerships, in sports, in school, and especially in churches with large numbers of people involved in information processing and transmission.

Communication requires trust, openness, and a willingness to listen if ideas and teaching must occur. Sometimes when the listeners hear something that challenges their beliefs or doesn’t make sense problems happen.

Let’s face it: humans aren’t the most rational or precise at times – look at our language:

You tell a man there are 400 billion stars, and he’ll believe you. But tell him a bench has wet paint, and he has to touch it. Why?

Why is ground meat stuff called hamburger when it’s made of beef? 

Why do you put suits in garment bags and put garments in suitcases? 

Why doesn’t  glue stick to the inside of the bottle? 

Why isn’t there mouse-flavored cat food? 

If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes? 

When two airplanes almost collide, why do they call it a near miss instead of a near hit?

Why do banks charge you a nonsufficient funds fee on money they know you don’t have? 

If the black box flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn’t the whole airplane made out of that stuff?

Listen to our Gospel lesson:

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”  

They were saying. “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”  

Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’

Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.”

“Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Finally the people are listening and being taught by Jesus. But suddenly what He is teaching gets caught in their ears! The words and claims don’t make sense. 

They are taken aback that this man whom they knew, this man whose parents were among them, is claiming to have been sent from Heaven. 

What’s more, Jesus is claiming to have seen, talked to, and received authority from Almighty God Himself!

He tells them that things are now going to be done differently – God used prophets and intermediaries in the past to meet their needs but now God is physically with them. He is the living manna, the living bread, present in the flesh.  

He is here to eliminate death; so that those who believe in Him, will live forever.

As humans we have two problems with what Jesus is saying, as did the Jews.

First, Jesus is deviating from expectations. He is beginning to teach things a different way from the way we think things work. And the Jews don’t understand. They work hard to understand their faith from a pyhysical and intellectual perspective and this total spiritual stuff is new.

They don’t want change, they want the security and safety of knowing they are in control and know what to do. They want their world neatly ordered, controlled, and easy to deal with.

How about us? When people live up or down to our expectations, we’re happy.  

When people deviate from our expectations we want to know why – so we look for a reason. “He’s having a bad day,” or “Well I guess we didn’t know her well enough,” or: “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph?”

Psychologists, marketers, politicians use a process called “fictionalization” to use this against us. Knowing our expectations, they often make things up that could be true or sounds like it could be possible (i.e. meets our expectation), in order to get us to go along or go against an idea, product, or political opponent.

That's right - if it sounds true then it is! It must be right?

The second thing, harkens back to what Jesus said in John 3: 12:

“If I have told you about things that happen on earth and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about things of heaven.” (HCSB)

The Jews knew God gave them physical manna (bread stuff) from heaven in the wilderness; Moses prayed for it and it magically appeared. They understood that.

But a careful word study shows the difference between the words manna (Greek word manna) and the word Jesus uses for bread (artos). They are different words with different meanings and uses.

The Jews couldn’t understand the concept of spiritual manna in the form of a physical person standing before them, even if He did miracles and other sights and signs as someone “who came from God.”

As funny as it sounds Jesus is telling them He is an “everything” bagel in a world that only knows flat bread. (An everthing bagel has everything you'd want in bagel (sesame seeds, poppy seeds, onions, and all) baked right in.)

They can’t understand it because it's never been done that way before, so they immediately begin to cut him down.

They can understand Him as a prophet – but they just can’t make the transition to the embodiment of God. They can’t comprehend the Heaven part because the Jews never got the earthly part. Neither do we!

The biggest barrier we have, because we live in a physical world, are the physical things that separate us from God. If we are off a little bit in our understandings of the needs of our everyday lives we put up blocks in our relationship with God.

This is seen in the biggest irony in our lives: The very thing the world values most – Gold, is simple paving material in heaven. The most sought after human recognition – fame, is nothing as we learn to reflect the Glory of God.

The Jews were hung up on doing for salvation, of eating manna provided by God, Jesus is changing it so that salvation is obtained by believing in the bread provided by God. A subtle different that caused much pain and suffering.

We are told countless times that there is nothing physically we can do to earn our way into heaven. Several verses before today’s scripture it actually says:

Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?”Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

Belief, faith, and being taught by God: Jesus is suggesting it is spiritual things that get us the manna that comes down from heaven that yields eternal life.

The rules are changing (and simplifying), life is changing, spiritual security is at hand. Reach out and grab a bite of God’s manna sent from heaven. Drink deep in the grace and glory of Jesus Christ. Amen.