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This Week's Sermon THE NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 02 August 2009 "I Am the Bread of Life" John 6:22-35 LSB Series B Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

Last Tuesday syndicated columnist Dennis Prager made what I consider to be a profound statement. He was speaking about certain political realities, but he unwittingly made a profound theological assertion. The full sentence reads like this:

"The left does not perceive that poverty is the human norm and therefore asks, "Why is there poverty?" instead of asking the economic question that matters: Why is there wealth?" [Townhall.com, July 21, 2009]

In the midst of a political and economic statement, Prager, a theistic Jew, stumbled upon a great truth, namely, the words "poverty is the human norm."

Centuries before, two days before his death, Martin Luther wrote his last words [16 February 1546]. His final confession about interpreting the Bible became his final words. He said: "We are beggars, that is true" [quoted in Martin Luther The Preservation of the Church. Martin Brecht, p. 375]. Beggars are on the receiving end of things. All comes from the gracious hand of God, from his material gifts to the most precious gifts of Word and Sacrament, grace, mercy, and eternal life. "We are beggars, that is true."

Think of it. We are born with nothing and we carry nothing out of this world, as the Apostle Paul reminds us [1 Tim. 6.7]. Everything you gain in this world is bestowed. You think that you earn it, but it is really bestowed. In a certain human sense we can say that we have earned our daily bread, but who gives daily bread after all? Is it not bestowed by God himself? The Psalmist reminds us:

"You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart." (Psalm 104:14-15, ESV)

Did you not hear two weeks ago in the feeding of the five thousand men that the people were completely dependent upon our Lord's beneficence? Did not our Lord teach you that it is only by his hand that you are fed and nourished, that all depends upon him?

But mankind has always been drawn to a strange idolatry, the idolatry that daily bread comes from another source. Man likes to think that he creates his own wealth. God warned Israel as they prepared to enter the Promised Land, the land described as "flowing with milk and honey," not to forget that he is the Giver of it all.

"Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.' You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day." (Deuteronomy 8:17-19, ESV)

The Apostle James warns us:

"Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil." (James 4:13-16, ESV)

These crowds that followed Jesus were looking for material security. While Jesus provided them with bread for their stomachs they were guilty of following Jesus for the wrong reason. He warned them:

"Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves." (John 6:26, ESV)

As long as Jesus filled their stomachs they were interested in him. Once he made it clear that he was not going to be their bread king, they wanted nothing more to do with him. They couldn't see beyond their stomachs.

Maybe that's an apt description of Americans, perhaps literally so! We are consumed with consuming! We want more and more. And our Lord's words echo in our ears, "Is not life more than food and clothing?" [Matt. 6.25]. Americans, like many of their western European counterparts-wearied with two major world wars in the last century-want material security. Part of our sin lies in thinking that when we have material security-bread for our stomachs-we have eternal security. We want cradle to grave security. We want to be assured that we shall suffer no want. We want our larders filled to overflowing. We demand every luxury invented by man as though we deserve them by divine right.

But, as Luther wrote, "We are beggars," and as Dennis Prager wrote, "poverty is the human norm." All is bestowed, given in one form or another. If nothing more, it is given in the opportunity to gain wealth, as God said through Moses [Deut. 8.17-20]. Oddly, there are many who actually do believe that all wealth is bestowed, but the one bestowing it is not God, but the government. When one looks for cradle to grave security in our society, one expects the government to provide it, yet no such command has been given by God to any government of any age. The government should not, must not, replace God as the giver of all good. It has never worked. The Communists of the last century promised to provide all that their people needed, but those systems were miserable failures. Instead of providing abundance, material things were rationed, many people not receiving enough. They outlawed God, installing themselves in his place.

Man cannot provide these things by his own efforts. Only God, the Creator and Preserver of all that is can do that. He is the One who opens his hand and provides all that you need to support this body and life. You know this because you have been taught to pray the words of the Psalmist by Luther in his prayer before meals:

"The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing." (Psalm 145:15-16, ESV)

If God does not bless it, man's efforts come to nothing. When God placed Joseph in Egypt he put him there in order to save his people because from the Jews would come the Christ, the Savior of all. Through the wisdom given to Joseph God provided not only for his chosen people, but he provided also for the Egyptians. Without God's blessing, many would have starved to death. Without God's blessing no one is blessed. There is only corruption and greed and violence as people cheat, rob, murder, and steal from others because they lack what they want.

But there is something more important than all of this. As important as your daily bread is, something eclipses it. Jesus said here to those who followed him for the bread for their stomachs:

"Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." (John 6:27, ESV)

Besides the bread for your stomachs, Jesus gives another kind of bread more valuable and lasting than that. He gives the world himself. The work of God is bound up with this Christ. The bread that has come down from heaven is this Christ who gives life to the world, he who gives himself to you.

Many in our world have no concern for the life that never ends. They are so concerned about bread for their bellies that they ignore the hunger of their souls. "Their god is their belly," writes the Apostle Paul [Phil 6.19]. They ignore the warning of God that sin must be dealt with, that man must repent.

The other day one of the readings in The Treasury of Daily Prayer included these words from the Smalkald Articles on why all people need to repent and where Dennis Prager has unwittingly said something spiritually profound:

36 This repentance is not partial and fragmentary like repentance for actual sins, nor is it uncertain like that. It does not debate what is sin and what is not sin, but lumps everything together and says, "We are wholly and altogether sinful." We need not spend our time weighing, distinguishing, differentiating. On this account there is no uncertainty in such repentance, for nothing is left that we might imagine to be good enough to pay for our sin. One thing is sure: We cannot pin our hope on anything that we are, think, say, or do. 37 And so our repentance cannot be false, uncertain, or partial, for a person who confesses that he is altogether sinful embraces all sins in his confession without omitting or forgetting a single one. 38 Nor can our satisfaction be uncertain, for it consists not of the dubious, sinful works which we do but of the sufferings and blood of the innocent Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
39 This is the repentance which John preaches, which Christ subsequently preaches in the Gospel, and which we also preach.¹

Did you not confess at the Preparation of the Divine Service that you are "by nature sinful and unclean?" Did you not plead guilty to all sins of "thought, word, and deed," sins that you have done and sins that you have left undone? Have you not pleaded spiritual poverty with no hope of repaying? You did so when you declared that you have deserved God's "present and eternal punishment." [LSB DS I, p. 151]. This is the real poverty with which you were born. And Luther echoes, "We are beggars, that is true."

But Christ has all riches because he is the Son of God. Jesus offered himself as the Bread of Life to those who had sinned by committing idolatry, thinking that life consisted merely in filling their bellies. Jesus offers himself to you as your Bread of Life, too, for you who have sinned as did these people and who have sinned in ways these people never thought.

You see, the real Bread of God is this Christ. Without him you truly are poverty-stricken no matter how much bread you have for your stomachs. Only this Bread of Life satisfies for eternity because only he has the words of eternal life. Only he offers you his righteousness, his sinlessness. Over and over again he comes in the Divine Service in Word and Sacrament to feed you with himself, this Bread of Life. This is God's mercy and forgiveness bound up in his body and blood. And so our Lord Jesus invites you:

"I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." (John 6:35, ESV)

In your poverty you have nothing that is not bestowed. In miraculous fashion your Lord Jesus Christ feeds you again today out of the riches of his mercy. Today again God has opened the doors of heaven and rained down on you the Bread of heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

¹Theodore G. Tappert, The Book of Concord : The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 308 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2000, c1959).