We’re in John chapter 6 – the Bread Gospels. We’ve been reading this for a while; today I’m finally going to (sort of) preach on it. Next week we’re finally back to Mark, the Gospel we’re mostly following this year!
I’m going to share four things that I struggle with about John 6, as we’ve been receiving it, and two things I like.
- The first frustrating thing is the way the lectionary spreads it over FIVE FULL WEEKS.
It is really long – seventy verses – and detailed, and somewhat redundant! But at the same time, it is all one story. Jesus feeding the crowd leads into his preaching about bread, and the response of people who are curious… and then upset.
John’s Gospel has several extended stories like this – the woman at the well; the young man born blind. Those are a little shorter – about forty verses each – but the lectionary gives them on one day, as one story.
I don’t know why it breaks this one up so much. I know a lot of my fellow preachers have been really annoyed by it – have run out of things to say about bread. Erin, our office coordinator, has been joking with me about using up all the bread hymns… !
2. The second frustrating thing is the way the lectionary breaks this story from the story of the woman at the well in John 4.
In that story, Jesus meets a woman who is getting water. He tells her: ‘Everyone who drinks the water from this well will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ And the woman says to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
That sounds a lot like parts of this story, right?
The author of this Gospel means you to read that story, then read this story, and have them build on each other. But the lectionary gives us that story in Lent of Year A; we’re in late summer of Year B. Eighteen months apart – literally as far apart as it can be, in a three year cycle of reading. (We’ll read it next in March 2026!!!)
3. The third frustrating thing is the way John talks about “the Jews.” Not in the script today but in the Biblical text the people who question and argue with Jesus are just called “the Jews.”
Which is odd because Jesus and his disciples were Jews! Other Gospels name particular groups and movements within Judaism who had beef with Jesus in various ways. John is written a little later; maybe Christianity has begun to really separate from Judaism. Or maybe John’s community had their own reasons to cast Jews in general as the enemy.
But it’s not true to the real dynamics between Jesus and the groups who opposed him, and it’s led to a lot of violence by Christians against Jews over the millennia.
4. The fourth frustrating thing is the way Jesus talks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood is, in fact, kind of gross, right? Eugh. And he kind of goes on and on about it.
In the other Gospels he says what he says at the last supper – we hear it every Sunday: “Take, eat, this bread is my body, broken for you… Drink this, all of you; this cup is the new Covenant in my Blood, poured out for you and for many…”
But John’s Jesus really leans into the cannibalism thing. It’s no wonder that it turns some people off and they decide to stop following him!
I snuck it into the script version of the text that we just read, but I want us to understand that the idea of drinking someone’s blood is EXTRA upsetting in Judaism. God’s people the Jews have special, holy food rules that they follow, that are very important for them. And one of those rules, from way back in the time of Moses, was not to eat or drink blood. The way they kill animals for food reflects that rule. And of course Jesus knew that. So he is saying stuff he knows will upset people – perhaps including some of us!
But this starts to lead me into some of the things I like about this passage.
5. I like the way there’s a kind of riddle here.
What do we call the part of our service where I say, or we say, “Take, eat, this bread is my body, broken for you… Drink this, all of you…”
That’s the Eucharist, right? Or in our books it might say the Great Thanksgiving. Which means the same thing. Or sometimes we say Communion.
In the Eucharist we tell the story of the Last Supper that Jesus shared with his friends, before he was arrested and executed, and how he shared bread and wine with them and gave them a new meaning that night. And he also told them, Keep sharing a special holy meal like this! Do this and remember me!
Which is why we do it, and remember him.
That story is really important for Christians. And it’s in three of our four Gospels – Mark, Matthew, and Luke.
BUT IT’S NOT IN JOHN’S GOSPEL.
John doesn’t show us Jesus creating the Eucharist. Instead, on that final evening, John’s Jesus washes the disciple’s feet.
People have wondered: Did John not know about the Last Supper and the Eucharist? Did he disagree that it should be a core practice of the church? Why isn’t it in his Gospel?
Except… it kind of is in his Gospel! It’s just here, instead of on his last evening with his friends.
John has Jesus talking about eating his body and blood, just like at the Last Supper. But he’s not giving people bread and wine, to say: These things become kind of a holy extension of me; you don’t actually have to eat anything upsetting.
I think this scene makes it very clear that John knew about the Eucharist and thought it was important.
Maybe he even thought it was so important that people should be kind of weirded out by it.
And I think it’s interesting to wonder about why John’s Gospel tells us about Eucharist this way, instead of telling us the Last Supper story, which he knew.
That’s an interesting riddle, to me!
6. The last thing I want to say about this story is something I kind of like and also kind of struggle with, as a preacher and pastor.
In this story and in the story of the woman at the well, Jesus says, basically:
You’re drinking regular water, or eating regular bread.
You’ll get thirsty again, and hungry again.
I am offering you water and bread that will satisfy you, forever.
That will keep you from ever being thirsty, or hungry.
That will bubble up inside you like a fresh spring…
That will sustain you so completely that you’ll live forever.
The problem with this is it’s just not true, right?
Not in a literal or earthly sense.
Even the disciples, who received Eucharist from Jesus’ own hands, got hungry again and had to eat more meals.
When we take Communion here, we’re still pretty ready for those coffee hour snacks!
There’s a really strong theme in John’s Gospel where Jesus uses something from the real world to try and talk about how things are in God’s reality. He talks about being born again.
He talks about the wind, and how that’s like God’s spirit.
He talks about water, and thirst; about bread, and hunger.
He talks about blindness, and what it means to really see.
And much more.
And people get confused. They don’t understand.
Some of them get curious and want to know more.
Some of them get mad and leave.
So I understand that John’s Jesus is talking about a different kind of hunger, and thirst.
Not the way you feel when your body really needs a drink,
But the way you feel when the part of you that isn’t your body really feels dry and shriveled and needs to be refreshed.
Has anybody ever felt that way?…
Not the way you feel when your body really needs some food,
But the way you feel when the part of you that isn’t your body just doesn’t have any fuel… any enjoyment… and really needs something that can sustain you and give you delight.
Has anybody ever felt that way?…
I have felt those things. I know what it’s like to have the part of me that isn’t my body be thirsty, or hungry. I know what it feels like when the part of me that isn’t my body gets that refreshing drink, or that sustaining meal.
But it is hard to talk about, outside of those metaphors. And I know those metaphors might not make much sense to a lot of people. Just like they didn’t in Jesus’ time.
So, I like it when Jesus says that what he’s offering people is something that will refresh and sustain the not-body parts of them. Like a cold lemonade and a delicious sandwich when you’re really hot and thirsty and hungry.
But I don’t know how to give that to someone who’s looking for it. I don’t even know how to find it reliably myself. It’s not as simple as handing someone a plate of cheese or cookies at coffee hour!
All I can do as a pastor is say what Jesus says, more or less: There is something, here, that can offer relief and satisfaction to the hungry heart or the thirsty soul.
It’s not easy to find it, for all kinds of reasons.
But it’s there, and Jesus – who is God – wants to give it to us.
And I think that’s good news.
Lord, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty;
Lord, give us this bread always.
Amen.