Sermon: To whom else can we go?
This is my sermon from last Sunday (and my only preach this summer on this chapter of John, thanks to our good fortune in having readers and visiting clergy) . Drawing the Roman empire is obviously something new and different for me… I thought about using Juvenal’s bread and circuses line rather than Gladiator, but you know, I do like a good movie reference.
Readings: Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18;John 6:56-69
How many picnics have you been to this summer?
And how many of them have not included some form of bread? Sandwiches, flatbreads for dipping, breadsticks for crunching, croutons in salad… even tortilla chips originate with a form of bread! It can be hard to imagine a British picnic without bread – something that I imagine those of you with gluten intolerance know with some frustration.
Bread is a staple in the diet of much of the western world – Europe, Western Asia, North Africa, North America. It has always been a staple. In the Ancient World, the grain trade was vitally important. Alliances and trade deals were established to secure it; wars were fought over it; it was a political tool. For example, in ancient Rome, laws promising grain rations to citizens were passed pretty regularly as a way of securing votes.
Today we come to the end of our ‘season of bread’ in the lectionary. Throughout the summer our different preachers have walked us through this chapter of John, starting with the feeding of the five thousand and ending today with Peter’s declaration that Jesus has the words of eternal life. It’s a wonderful chapter to reflect on in our Sunday Eucharists as it is the chapter in which John unfolds the nature and meaning of this meal that we share together every week. But as we come to the end of this chapter, I want us to recognise that Jesus’ claims in this passage are not just about what he wants us to know about him. They’re not just religious or spiritual claims. They’re about life in its totality – making them deeply political, challenging the society and economy of his world. And of our world.
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How many of you have seen the movie Gladiator? For those who have not, it is the story of a Roman general, Maximus, who escapes being killed by the new emperor, only to be enslaved and forced to fight as a gladiator, making his way to the Colosseum in Rome… where he is able to challenge that emperor, Commodus. Throughout the film, when Maximus dreams of the home that has been taken from him, he is walking through a field of wheat, his fingers dragging through the ears of corn. When he dies (sorry, but this film is twenty years old now), this is the image we see as he passes into the afterlife. This recurring image of wheat symbolises Maximus’ freedom from Commodus, who claims to control his life and death.
Gladiator gives us a really good picture of the power of the Roman emperor, and of the capriciousness and violence with which this power could be used, and of how little it could be trusted. Now, Gladiator is set later than Jesus’ life. But the Roman emperors were the rulers of the Mediterranean world, including Judea, during Jesus’ day.
Bread and grain are a metaphor for the giving and sustaining of life in our readings this season. But it is not just a metaphor: the emperors and their appointed representatives were responsible for the security of the grain supply, for making decisions about who received the grain ration and for how much they received. They controlled this source of life and, beyond this, they held the power over life and death more broadly: only they could pass the death penalty for example. The imperial gift of grain, for bread, claimed to give life. But in reality, it was a mechanism of control—keeping the people loyal and in good order. It could be given as a reward or withheld as a punishment. If the harvest failed, or the grain supply was threatened—the emperor might find himself at risk
So, when Jesus says things like, ‘I am the bread of life’ and ‘whoever eats me will live because of me,’ he is challenging the claim that the Roman emperor, the ruler of the known world, can really give life.
It is Jesus who is the bread of life – which never runs out. This bread isn’t given as a reward or withheld as a punishment; it isn’t a mechanism of control. It is offered to all who want it.
It can’t be threatened by harvest, or war. It is the bread of life because Jesus died and rose again – freeing us from the fear of death that the Roman emperors exploited.
It is an invitation into life—into the life that gives all life, for all eternity.
How can anyone challenge that — even an emperor who claimed to be descended from the gods? Why would we go to anyone else?
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Whoever eats me will live because of me.
This is what we remember and this is the invitation we accept every time we come to the Eucharist. And even though we, here and now, don’t live under an emperor this meal —this bread— continues to challenge all the other things in the world that claim to give life or ward off death. It continues to remind us that life, true life, is found here.
And so, as we prepare to come to the table together today. I want us to ask ourselves—what other sources of bread do we rely on every day? What are the things that claim to promise life, but actually, control us through the things we fear?
There are a lot of things we might identify, I think…
Hard work, good school and university results, good jobs, good salaries? We are promised that if we work hard enough, seize our opportunities, we will be financially secure.
Exercise, physical wellbeing — eating healthily, taking your vitamins, avoiding the many and various things that we are told are bad for us. We are promised that we can ward off illness, delay death.
Relationships? We are promised that we just need to find the one romantic partner or the gang — the core group of friends — who will know us, love us — look after us.
Comfort and security at home? We feel that if are nested, and rested, or if our countries are ‘secure’, we will be able to deal with the challenges we face —and then go home to our cocoons.
And listen: our fears are real. Most of them are very rational. Death is real. The world that we live in and the systems that we have often leave us vulnerable. It is natural to want to protect ourselves and to turn towards people and things that claim that they will protect us. And trust me when I say those of us in ministry — we feel these things as much as anyone else. Everything I just listed is something that pulls me away from remembering and trusting that Jesus is the bread of life.
Wanting to work hard, have good relationships, and be healthy are not bad things in and of themselves! God made us to have an enjoy all these things.
The problem comes when we start to believe that these things are ‘bread’ – that they give life, and they will save us from our fears. It comes when we believe we have to secure them for ourselves, or to commit ourselves to the things we think will secure them for us, because without them life will fall apart or feel impossible. And when feeling and thinking like this starts to pull us away from this table, from remembering that Jesus is the bread of life—this is when we find ourselves all turned about.
Because feelings of trust and fear grow, don’t they? The more we act to ward off our fears and secure our lives, the more afraid we actually become, the more dependent on these other ‘breads’ — it spirals. But the more we encourage ourselves to be present to Jesus, the more regularly we share in his body and blood, the more we trust that this is the bread of life, the more we abide in it and from it. The other things may stay important — but they are not all important.
This is a challenge to take Jesus’ claim seriously, and to reflect honestly on what we actually see as the bread of our daily lives.
What and who we trust with and for our lives.
What we think is saving us and protecting us.
And to ask whether it really, truly, is doing that.
And it is a challenge, because the norms of our society and economy and culture do pull us away from this table.
But today, let this meal itself be an encouragement to you.
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I can’t offer you a field of wheat to walk or run your fingers through as a reminder… Instead, we have the wafers we use in communion, which become for us the bread of life. We have the story we tell each week in which we remember that, by his death and resurrection, Jesus Christ defeated death, taking away its fear and its power. We invite the Spirit to make this real for us.
We come to this table every week, not out of fear that if we don’t we’re going to be punished in some way. We come because we want life and something has told us that we might find it here. We come, because the more we come the more we find that this bread and this wine, Jesus’s body and blood, is the source of life—we feel it in our hearts and minds, our bodies and souls. And we recognise, ever more deeply and truly, with Peter, that Jesus has the words of eternal life.
To whom else can we go?