Readings: I Kings 19.4-8; Psalm 34.1-8; Ephesians 4.25 – 5.2; John 6.35,41-51
Things are not always what they seem.
Because we usually travel home together in the evening Simon and I often cook together too. About a week before this particular day we had been entertained by a particularly large and lively mouse in our kitchen. It seemed, rather mysteriously, to have disappeared.
I was standing at the kitchen sink about to wash some Swiss chard when I smelled the smell. Dead mouse, for sure, I thought. We do have a cat who likes hunting. I know the smell of dead mouse. We’ve had dead mouse behind the piano, behind the freezer…..not to mention the ones we found before they smelled.
But no! As I turned my head I realised that Simon had taken the lid off a can of rather special fish soup which we’d been given for Christmas. It may have smelled like dead mouse, but it tasted good – and it seems the mouse must have got away after all.
Things are not always what they seem – or what they smell of. It rather depends on your expectations, or perhaps your preconceptions. This is the theme of my sermon this morning.
In our Gospel reading, we find some of those from the crowds who have been following Jesus wrestling with their own preconceptions about his identity. They have seen, or heard about the feeding of the 5,000. They’ve heard the rumours that Jesus walked across the Lake of Galilee. Now Jesus continues to speak about Himself as the bread which came down from Heaven, or the bread of life (v41, 48). This bread will be better than the manna which God sent to feed the people of Israel in the wilderness. Those who eat of this bread, He claims, will live for ever (v51).
In this passage, rather than the crowd, it is specifically ‘the Jews’ who are questioning Jesus (v41). These seem to be people who recognise Jesus as the son of a local carpenter. They may stand for all those who remained Jewish by faith at a point when Christianity was becoming a separate religion. Understandably they cannot grasp how this man, who they know as one of their own, can be claiming to be someone who has come down from heaven. As is so often the case, Jesus does not directly address their questions about how this is possible. Instead He points them to deeper truths. “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me” (v44) and “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me” (v45). In other words, Jesus and the Father are inseparable. Anyone who is attracted to Christ is being drawn to Him by God the Father. Conversely, those who have truly known the Father, will also recognise Jesus and will believe in Him.
It is God’s grace which draws us toward Him, and God’s grace which enables us to recognise Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. The Father draws us to Himself because of His love for us; He sends Jesus out of love for us. God’s grace makes our faith possible. Augustine called this ‘prevenient grace’.
For the people in our Gospel passage, Jesus was perhaps too familiar already as a local figure for them to be able to see Him as the one who came down from Heaven. We may have different reasons to doubt, but for us too, it is God’s grace which enables us to grasp who He is.
So, what, exactly, do we mean by ‘grace’?
Grace is the expression of God’s freely given love towards human beings. It is healing and restorative; it brings about new life, making us able to relate to God. It is entirely a gift, given by God and completely beyond our control; it cannot be manipulated. Here is what Frederick Buechner wrote about it:
“Grace is something you can never get but only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.
A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?
A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There’s nothing you have to do. There’s nothing you have to do. There’s nothing you have to do.”
So, that was Frederick Buechner.
Jesus, in his life, death and resurrection, perfectly expresses God’s grace towards us. As the Gospel writer puts it “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ”.
So Jesus was not what He seemed to those who were talking to Him in our Gospel passage; He was far more.
The bread which Jesus talks about is also not what people were expecting from Him. It is also far more. Despite the precedent of God’s feeding of the people of Israel with manna in the wilderness. Despite the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus isn’t going to continue to provide miraculous physical food for His followers, because His kingdom is not to be a kingdom on earth. The bread which Jesus gives is his own body, put to death on the Cross for us. This means that even death itself is not what it seems. Because this bread gives eternal life.
We share this bread every week as we gather here for the Eucharist.
A wafer and a sip of wine.
Things are not always what they seem. Amen.