Beyond The Oak Table
Sermon
Surviving In A Cordless World
Gospel Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost (Middle Third)
The day is picture perfect. The scene is a park lake, clean and tranquil. The lake draws to itself children, youth, and adults. They come to fish. They come to watch the ducks that float on the water's surface.
A young boy stands at the edge of the lake with a mission in mind. His mission is to feed the ducks. Reaching into a bread bag, the boy removes a slice of bread. Using his arm and the flick of his wrist, the boy sends the slice of bread sailing like a Frisbee across the lake's surface. When it hits the water a nearby duck is observed going for it. However, what happens next greatly surprises the viewer.
The scene drastically changes. Instead of the duck devouring the slice of bread, what occurs is quite unusual and extraordinary. That piece of bread speedily sails through the air, returning to the boy, from where it originally had come! The boy, who first threw that bread, is seen standing in shock with a wide open mouth and eyes as big as saucers.
This clever commercial advertising a local bakery offers a very clear and concise message. The message is: There's a big difference between the bakery's own brand of bread and the bread of all its competitors. So big a difference in fact that even hungering ducks on a tranquil park lake know the difference. They know the difference so well that they refuse to eat the inferior bread and send it back, knowing it will not satisfy.
Like the television commercial which emphasizes that differences exist in bread, Jesus, long ago, emphasized the differences in bread. Bread for all of us is a staple of life. Bread is important and necessary and essential. Bread provides the building blocks of life. Bread sustains us in life. Jesus makes it quite clear that there is the living bread from God which comes down from heaven, bread that brings us eternal life. Jesus also informs us that there is the bread of the earth which the fathers ate and died.
The point of Jesus in this passage is that life for each and every one of us is much more than mere earthly existence. Life goes beyond our simply moving through the motions of daily waking, eating, working, and sleeping. Life has much more to offer than our being born, living our given time, and dying. Yet how many of us live in such a way? The good news is that true life and true living, as God has meant for it to be, can only be fully realized when we are able to form a devoted and dedicated relationship with God and with one another.
This is the point behind the lesson where Jesus refers to himself as the living bread, the bread that leads to eternal life. Jesus' message is that all breads of the world give temporary satisfaction. Jesus, however, is the bread that satisfies forever, for he is the one who fosters our relationship to God.
Most significant about this lesson from John is the fact that the words life, live, and living appear eleven times in the eight verses. There can be no doubt that Jesus wants us to know that what is most important is that fullness of life, completeness of life, and meaningfulness of life are more than just meager existing. Jesus is saying that to have a relationship to God who promises the true gifts of life we first must have a part of Jesus himself. Jesus, as the living bread, is connected to God from whom we receive life abundantly when we have part of him. Therefore, when we are connected to Christ we, too, are connected to God in a meaningful, life-giving, life-sustaining, life-receiving relationship.
Jesus proclaims that one must eat his flesh and drink his blood to receive this eternal life. What Jesus is saying here, metaphorically, is that we need to receive him totally into our life and living. We must take Jesus into ourselves so that his words and his deeds become a part of us. Jesus is saying to each of us, "Feed on me, receive me into your hearts, and minds, and souls. Be filled and saturated with my example of complete humanness; receive my blood, the very symbol of God's gift of life itself."
If your life seems to be out of synchronization for you, if your life appears to be missing something, should you find yourself or your life lacking excitement, purpose, fulfillment, my question of you would be: "When was the last time you fed upon Christ?" When did you last read his words, hear his teachings, heed his examples? We can't help but be challenged by Jesus' words to take Christ unto and into ourselves. Should we really want life to be fulfilling we must be challenged to make him the very center of who we are, what we wish to be, so that we become the person God created us to become.
The bread on our tables is that which builds physical bodies. This bread nurtures and gives us energy by which to live. The earth's bread also satisfies our hunger pains until we hunger again.
But Jesus is the living bread, the bread which satisfies forever. Jesus, as the living bread, builds our relationship with God, nurtures the energy of our faith living, and satisfies us completely so that we shall never spiritually hunger again.
Fully receiving Christ, the living bread, means we must not limit or confine our relationship to God at the communion table or at the altar in the sanctuary. Receiving the abundant life, the complete life, and the meaningful eternal life God promises means we must go beyond the sanctuary's oak tables upon which the sacrament of Christ's living bread is found, offered, and received into ourselves.
Having received the living bread of Christ we must take the living bread to others in the world. The breakfast, lunch, and dinner table in every home is to be a table for Christ and an opportunity for sharing the living bread. Whenever bread is broken, shared, and received at a table in a restaurant or banquet hall or at the shore of a park lake, those tables like the tables in our homes and churches need to be places where Christ is present and always remembered. Every table needs to become the place where Christ's presence prevails. Each of your lives must be nourished by Christ the living bread.
In our devotion and our dedication to God, we must feed our starving world the living bread of Christ through our example of mission and ministry. Therefore, may the spirit of the living God challenge us to eat of the living bread of Christ, and drink of the cup of Christ beyond the oak table of the sanctuary. For as Jesus has promised, those who have part in him shall receive eternal life.
A young boy stands at the edge of the lake with a mission in mind. His mission is to feed the ducks. Reaching into a bread bag, the boy removes a slice of bread. Using his arm and the flick of his wrist, the boy sends the slice of bread sailing like a Frisbee across the lake's surface. When it hits the water a nearby duck is observed going for it. However, what happens next greatly surprises the viewer.
The scene drastically changes. Instead of the duck devouring the slice of bread, what occurs is quite unusual and extraordinary. That piece of bread speedily sails through the air, returning to the boy, from where it originally had come! The boy, who first threw that bread, is seen standing in shock with a wide open mouth and eyes as big as saucers.
This clever commercial advertising a local bakery offers a very clear and concise message. The message is: There's a big difference between the bakery's own brand of bread and the bread of all its competitors. So big a difference in fact that even hungering ducks on a tranquil park lake know the difference. They know the difference so well that they refuse to eat the inferior bread and send it back, knowing it will not satisfy.
Like the television commercial which emphasizes that differences exist in bread, Jesus, long ago, emphasized the differences in bread. Bread for all of us is a staple of life. Bread is important and necessary and essential. Bread provides the building blocks of life. Bread sustains us in life. Jesus makes it quite clear that there is the living bread from God which comes down from heaven, bread that brings us eternal life. Jesus also informs us that there is the bread of the earth which the fathers ate and died.
The point of Jesus in this passage is that life for each and every one of us is much more than mere earthly existence. Life goes beyond our simply moving through the motions of daily waking, eating, working, and sleeping. Life has much more to offer than our being born, living our given time, and dying. Yet how many of us live in such a way? The good news is that true life and true living, as God has meant for it to be, can only be fully realized when we are able to form a devoted and dedicated relationship with God and with one another.
This is the point behind the lesson where Jesus refers to himself as the living bread, the bread that leads to eternal life. Jesus' message is that all breads of the world give temporary satisfaction. Jesus, however, is the bread that satisfies forever, for he is the one who fosters our relationship to God.
Most significant about this lesson from John is the fact that the words life, live, and living appear eleven times in the eight verses. There can be no doubt that Jesus wants us to know that what is most important is that fullness of life, completeness of life, and meaningfulness of life are more than just meager existing. Jesus is saying that to have a relationship to God who promises the true gifts of life we first must have a part of Jesus himself. Jesus, as the living bread, is connected to God from whom we receive life abundantly when we have part of him. Therefore, when we are connected to Christ we, too, are connected to God in a meaningful, life-giving, life-sustaining, life-receiving relationship.
Jesus proclaims that one must eat his flesh and drink his blood to receive this eternal life. What Jesus is saying here, metaphorically, is that we need to receive him totally into our life and living. We must take Jesus into ourselves so that his words and his deeds become a part of us. Jesus is saying to each of us, "Feed on me, receive me into your hearts, and minds, and souls. Be filled and saturated with my example of complete humanness; receive my blood, the very symbol of God's gift of life itself."
If your life seems to be out of synchronization for you, if your life appears to be missing something, should you find yourself or your life lacking excitement, purpose, fulfillment, my question of you would be: "When was the last time you fed upon Christ?" When did you last read his words, hear his teachings, heed his examples? We can't help but be challenged by Jesus' words to take Christ unto and into ourselves. Should we really want life to be fulfilling we must be challenged to make him the very center of who we are, what we wish to be, so that we become the person God created us to become.
The bread on our tables is that which builds physical bodies. This bread nurtures and gives us energy by which to live. The earth's bread also satisfies our hunger pains until we hunger again.
But Jesus is the living bread, the bread which satisfies forever. Jesus, as the living bread, builds our relationship with God, nurtures the energy of our faith living, and satisfies us completely so that we shall never spiritually hunger again.
Fully receiving Christ, the living bread, means we must not limit or confine our relationship to God at the communion table or at the altar in the sanctuary. Receiving the abundant life, the complete life, and the meaningful eternal life God promises means we must go beyond the sanctuary's oak tables upon which the sacrament of Christ's living bread is found, offered, and received into ourselves.
Having received the living bread of Christ we must take the living bread to others in the world. The breakfast, lunch, and dinner table in every home is to be a table for Christ and an opportunity for sharing the living bread. Whenever bread is broken, shared, and received at a table in a restaurant or banquet hall or at the shore of a park lake, those tables like the tables in our homes and churches need to be places where Christ is present and always remembered. Every table needs to become the place where Christ's presence prevails. Each of your lives must be nourished by Christ the living bread.
In our devotion and our dedication to God, we must feed our starving world the living bread of Christ through our example of mission and ministry. Therefore, may the spirit of the living God challenge us to eat of the living bread of Christ, and drink of the cup of Christ beyond the oak table of the sanctuary. For as Jesus has promised, those who have part in him shall receive eternal life.
