at the First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

Do any of you read Time magazine? Then you may have seen last week’s cover story – “The Myth About Exercise.” The blurb on the front says, “Of course it’s good for you, but it won’t make you lose weight.”

Well, my reaction to this news was: You gotta be kidding me! Now you tell me?

Over the years, I have probably spent thousands of dollars on gym memberships, and hundreds of hours sweating away on such torturous equipment as the Stairmaster and the rowing machine, not to mention humiliating myself by wearing those figure-revealing spandex outfits. And now Time is telling me that all my sweat-drenched huffing and puffing did not, does not, and will not help me lose weight.

The cover goes on to say “…it’s what you eat that really counts.” I guess it really is true that you are what you eat.

And there is certainly a lot of eating in church – coffee hour, brunches, potluck suppers, pancake suppers, Lenten soup suppers, etc. etc. And where else is it perfectly OK to eat cookies and cake before lunch?

There is also a lot of eating in the Gospels. Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners. He invites himself for supper to Zacchaeus’ house. He eats at the homes of Mary and Martha and Pharisees and lepers. He eats a Last Supper with his disciples. He uses the image of a heavenly banquet to describe the Kingdom of God. And he shows us how to pray, asking God to “give us this day our daily bread.”

Yes, eating can be a holy experience. I always find that when people break bread together, the relationship deepens. Gathering for a shared meal is a universal expression of friendship, love and welcome, and the act of eating together changes things, for it can nurture relationships, heal families, and repair broken bonds.

But eating can pose challenges, too, especially for those who try to fill an inner emptiness with food. In my Weight Watchers meetings, people are always talking about how they try to find solace in the refrigerator when they’re sad, or overwhelmed, or lonely, or bored, or angry. Food – like sweets and chips and, especially chocolate – will satisfy them for a little while, but in a couple of hours, after the sugar high wears off, the emptiness returns. Because feeling full is not the same as feeling fulfilled.

This is not just a modern-day concern. The same was true twenty centuries ago, when Jesus spoke to a group of 5,000 people on the shores of Lake Galilee. They were hungry for food, and so Jesus took five loaves of bread and two fish, and he was able to feed them all. But they were hungry for something more, too. Even though their stomachs were full, their hearts were not fulfilled. The crowds continued to follow Jesus, because they knew loneliness and dissatisfaction and emptiness and were hungry not just for food, but also for love and for acceptance and for meaning in their lives.

Throughout the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, which is referred to as the “bread discourse,” Jesus offers to his followers – then and now – the one thing that can fill up the emptiness inside – a relationship with him. “Do not labor for the food which perishes,” he says. “Labor for the food which endures to eternal life” [v. 27]. In this morning’s gospel lesson, Jesus then identifies what that food is. “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst” [v. 35]… “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” [v. 51].

Jesus knows that it’s not just the body that gets hungry. There is another kind of hunger, a yearning of the human heart, and it’s a longing we try to satisfy with all the wrong things. When we sense an emptiness in our life, we often seek to fill the void with money, power, or material things. Even if we “have it all” by earthly standards, we may still be hungry for something the world can’t begin to understand, much less satisfy. And it is to us that Jesus speaks, saying he is the bread, the food that will feed us and fill up the God-shaped hole in our hearts.

It is a relationship with Christ that will fulfill us – a relationship that is nurtured within a faith community and cultivated through spiritual practices such as those we have talked about for the past year and have depicted in our banners -- daily prayer, weekly worship, daily bible reading, serving others, developing spiritual relationships, and giving generously. And the relationship that we develop with Christ will transform our lives.

When I was working in the corporate world, I read books and attended lectures by Peter Senge, who is on the faculty at MIT and a recognized expert in organizational development. Senge¹ once addressed a large gathering of Christian leaders, and told them that in preparation for his speech, he had gone to a bookstore to find out what people were reading. The bookstore manager told Senge that the most popular books were about how to get rich quickly. The second most popular were books about spirituality, and in particular, books about Buddhism. Senge asked his audience of pastors: “Why are books on Buddhism so popular and not books on Christianity?” He went on to answer his own question: because Christianity presents itself as a system of belief while Buddhism presents itself as a way of life. “So I wonder,” Senge told the clergy, “how I might persuade you to rediscover your faith as a way of life, because that’s what people are searching for today. That’s what they need most.”

A way of life. That’s what people seek, and that’s what Jesus offers. Jesus said, “I am the way,” and early Christianity was called “The Way.” It is the way of compassion and love. It is the way of acceptance and peace. It is the way to fill the emptiness inside.

And when we make our relationship with Christ a way of life – not just something we do on Sundays, or an hour on Sundays – when we make our relationship with Christ a way of life, we will be held in his loving arms, accepted with mercy, aimed toward goodness, and set free to live fully. When we feast on the food of faith, we will experience healing, wholeness, and transformation through the abiding presence and love of the living Christ.

Do you have a longing that money can’t satisfy; a void that success can’t fill; an inadequacy, a loneliness, an ache that won’t go away no matter how much you try?

Jesus reaches out to us, saying, “I am the bread of life; let me fulfill you.”

And so, come and feed on the bread of life, the food of faith Christ offers – a banquet of hope, forgiveness, compassion, love, understanding, and new life. Come, and be fed, and never be hungry again. Amen.

¹Brian McLaren, Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008), p. 3.