Pentecost XI (Proper 13 B) [John 6:24-35] (5-Aug-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Over the next four weeks, our Gospel readings are taken from John chapter 6, where Jesus gives a sermon in Capernaum. This sermon of Jesus has a particular theme about “bread”—he calls himself the bread of life, and the living bread that came down from heaven. Last week, we read about how Jesus fed the 5000, and so this discussion that Jesus has with the people comes about in light of this event.

And so we read: So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”

These people are quite confused, because after Jesus had fed the 5000, the disciples headed off across the lake without Jesus. But then, as we read last week, Jesus walked out on the lake on the water to come and join them. So when they realised that the disciples weren’t there, and Jesus also wasn’t there, they went across to the other side of the lake. When they found Jesus on the other side, they were confused. How did Jesus get here? So they ask Jesus: Rabbi, when did you come here?

Jesus however doesn’t pay much attention to their question, and he says to 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. Do not work 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.”

Jesus first of all says here: Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you at your fill of the loaves.

This is a saying of Jesus which really penetrates very deeply into our sinful condition. We know that Jesus is the creator of the world together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. And Jesus teaches us to pray: Give us today our daily bread. Every single thing we need for our bodies and for our lives comes from God. All the food in the world, the drink in the world, the clothes, the shoes, the houses, the homes, all the land in the world, all the animals, all the money, all the stuff, all the things in the world – every single thing that we think of belongs to God. And so rarely do we ever think of asking him for these things, and we think that if we want them, it has to come only from our own achievement. But then, there are those of us who ask God constantly for these things, for each little thing that we need, even for a parking space when we go to the shops. And then when Jesus gives us these things, we so often don’t thank him. But then there is another temptation: we start to look to Jesus as the giver of stuff, but we’re not really interested in him. For example, when we go to Woolworths or Coles, or wherever, we’re not going there so that we can meet the manager, we’re going there to buy the stuff we need. And so Jesus says to us: Do you want me, because I am your God, your Saviour? Do you want to hear what I have to say to you? Do you want to learn about what it means to believe in me and follow me? Or, on the other hand, do you just want me to give you stuff?

And so, Jesus says: You are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. It was a wonderful miracle that Jesus fed these people, but then they come to Jesus, only because they think they might be able to get another free meal out of him. And so here’s a question for us: are we only happy to talk with Jesus and learn from him when he gives us what we want him to give us? It’s easy to come to church and to listen to Jesus when our piggy banks and our pantries and our stomachs are full, but what about when they’re not? What about when we have a drought, when we hit hard times, when we have to count our pennies, when we’re hungry? Do we still thank Jesus for the abundance that he has given us? Do we love Jesus because he is Jesus, or do we just love him because he gives us stuff? Do we just want the gifts, or do we want the Giver?

And so Jesus says: Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.

Jesus says here: Do not work for food that spoils. Now, let’s be clear here. It is a good thing to work, and it is a gift of God to have a job or an occupation and to make a living and an income. It is our duty to work, just as Jesus says: You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength. We should work hard out of thankfulness to him for all that he has given us.

However, God is the one who gives success to our labour, who provides us our daily bread, who gives us what we need. There are so many things that could have gone wrong in our work that God does put right, so that we end up with food on our table. Psalm 127: Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. We can build and work all we like, but God is against us, every piece of bread between our teeth is nothing but a curse.

We read in Matthew where Jesus says: He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. So if things are going well for us, and we are enjoying a good life, we need to remember than anyone, whether they are Christian or not, could have a nice life. When Jesus fed the 5000, he spoke his blessing over that food—and yet even that food Jesus calls “food that spoils”. Having a good life could be a blessing, if we thank God for it. But if we think that having a good life is all there is, then all of our good life is a curse.

So Jesus says: Do not work for food that spoils. He doesn’t say: Do not work. Work is good. Just don’t work for food that spoils. Work because Jesus is your Saviour who has given you this gift of work, and he is your master. Don’t let money, food, even family be your master. You are allowed to have a home, and money and food, but you must be master over them. You cannot let them be master over you. They are not your master: Jesus is.

 And so, Jesus says: Do not work for food that spoils, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. Jesus is the wonderful food which endures to eternal life. He is the only one who can satisfy our hunger, and so we commend ourselves and all our weakness and all our work to him. He is the one who feeds us with heavenly food – with his Word, with his forgiveness, with his gospel, with eternal life, with Baptism, with the Lord’s Supper, with all kinds of Christian encouragement – and he will continue to feed us as he promises us: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb. The whole of eternity will be a wonderful heavenly banquet.

Jesus speaks about himself as the Son of Man, who will give this eternal food to us and he says: For on him God the Father has set his seal. If God the Father has set his seal on Jesus then we can be absolutely confident in every word that he says. He will never let us down, he is completely reliable: his words are more powerful than heaven and earth, his words are completely true, and they are perfect love, love that we could never have imagined we even possible. On Jesus, God the Father has set his seal.

But also it is a wonderful thing that Jesus is actually the exact imprint of his Father. Jesus says: Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Hebrews says: He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. We read at the beginning of the Gospel of John: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Jesus Christ is true God together with the Father, the exact imprint of his Father, and on Jesus God has set his seal.

And so, we read in our reading that the people ask Jesus a question. Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

It’s strange. When the people heard Jesus say: Work for the food that endures to eternal life, they thought that they had to earn it. They thought that they would have to so some work, and that God would then pay them at the end of the day for doing it. And so they ask: What must we do, to be doing the works of God? In other words: what do we have to do to please God and to earn his blessings? But they completely misunderstood it all. And so Jesus says: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

To believe in God is the work that pleases him. But in actual fact, believing in God isn’t actually our work at all. The work that pleases him isn’t our work! Believing in Jesus, believing in him whom God has sent, is actually God’s work. If you believe in Jesus, that faith didn’t come from you in any way shape of form whatsoever. That faith was created in you and was given to you by God the Father himself. It didn’t come about because of your choice, or your free-will, or your achievement, or your work, or your pious behaviour, or whatever. It was a free gift – it was God’s work, just as St Paul says in Ephesians: By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. And so if this grace and this faith was not your own doing, whose doing was it? If it was not a result of works, then where did it come from? It was God’s doing, it was his work, as Jesus says: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

Then the people say to Jesus: Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Here the people ask Jesus to prove himself. They say: What sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ The people are talking about that event in the time of Moses where the people of Israel were in the wilderness, after they had been led out of Egypt through the sea, and they found themselves in the wilderness. During that time, God had fed them with manna, a kind of heavenly bread.

And so Jesus says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” The people come to Jesus and say, “This is what Moses did for the people, so what are you going to do?” Are you going to feed us? But there’s a great difference between what happened at the time of Moses and the people who were with Jesus on that day. The people were fed with manna because they were wandering through the wilderness, and were completely lost. If God hadn’t fed them in this heavenly, supernatural way, they would have starved to death. However, when Jesus fed the 5000 people, there was no famine on, they were not in the middle of a wilderness. It was just that on that day, the people had found themselves a long way from home, and it was the end of the day. If Jesus had sent them away, some people might have fainted on their way home. So Jesus has compassion on them, and feeds them. They all did have homes to go to, though, and they would have been able to go back home and be fed eventually. And so these people weren’t quite in the desperate situation that the Israelites were when they were wandering through the desert. It’s a bit strange to ask of Jesus to provide for them something like manna in the wilderness, when they weren’t really in the same situation.

But actually, they were in a worse situation. In fact, we are all in a worse situation. Jesus acknowledges full well that they are in a wilderness, not physically, like the children of Israel in the days of Moses. When Jesus enters the world, we see that the whole world is convicted of sin, and that Jesus is the only Saviour of the world. The whole world is a wilderness, and Jesus is the only manna, the only bread from heaven.

St Paul writes in Romans 3: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. He also quotes from the Psalms earlier where it says: None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. We read also in Ephesians: You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lives in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Do we really believe this judgment that God has spoken over us? Do we really believe that we have all sinned and completely fallen short of God’s glory? Do we really believe that all our good works are completely worthless in earning anything from God? Do we really believe that because of sin, we are completely dead, and are children of wrath? Do we believe the conclusions of our own reason, our own sinful flesh, and think that deep down we’re OK, rather than the truth of God’s word, which says: Every intention of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually?

Yes, we are living in a complete and total spiritual wilderness. We are completely useless to save ourselves, and even our so-called “good works” are tainted and corrupted by sin. And so Jesus says: Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Jesus says to them, My father was the one who fed the people in the wilderness. But you are in a greater wilderness, and you will be walking in this wilderness not just for 40 years until the people reached the river Jordan. You are walking in a wilderness that will last your entire lifetime, and the lifetimes of your children right up until the very last day of this sinful world. From now until that day, God the Father will feed the world with bread. But what bread? Jesus says: My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

Jesus is the true bread from heaven. The manna in the wilderness was only a little shadow by comparison. Jesus himself has come down from heaven, and he gives life to the world. And so, the people say: Sir, give us this bread always.

Jesus says: I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. And so we receive Jesus as our Saviour, purely by faith alone, without anything that we have done or contributed. And when we believe in him, and the Holy Spirit works this living faith in us, we feed on Jesus, the bread of life. He is our life, our salvation—he gives us right now the complete and total forgiveness of everyone of our sins, he gives us the wonderful promise of eternal life, and all the way through this troubled life, through this sinful, deathly wilderness of a world, he will never let us down, and he will safely lead us through it. He is our Good Shepherd, and his sheep will never be in want.

Next week, we will continue to read through this chapter, but for now, we’ll leave it there. Today, of course, we will come to receive the Lord’s Supper, where Jesus will feed us with his own body and blood, this wonderful food which he supplies for us from heaven, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins. He enters into our church and speaks his words of forgiveness to us and shows himself to us as our wonderful Saviour. Let’s thank him for these wonderful gifts, but let’s also thank him simply for who he is. He is the food that never spoils, he is the bread that has come down from heaven and gives life to the world, he is the bread of life. Amen.

Dear Jesus, give us this bread always. Let us always feed on you each day of our earthly pilgrimage through this wilderness. Create in us a living faith, that we may believe in you, our Saviour, whom God the Father has sent. Amen.

Harvest Thanksgiving [Matthew 6:25-33] (26-Nov-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Today in our church, we are celebrating Harvest Thanksgiving. And thanksgiving, giving thanks to God, is right at the heart of our faith. For example, there are so many times in the bible where it says: Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his love endures forever.

There’s a particularly favourite passage of mine about this topic, about thanksgiving, that comes from Romans 1. The book of Romans is a wonderful book, written by St Paul, where he gives a very detailed explanation of so many of the central parts of the Christian faith. It’s a book that is well-loved by many Christians. In Romans chapter 1, St Paul describes the world of unbelief, and of unbelievers. He says: Although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

He says that although people may have known that there was a good, even though people may be able to look at the world and all the wonderful plants and animals and the way so many things in the world and in nature are structured and ordered in a wonderful way, what was the problem? It says: they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him. Can you see how giving thanks is so important here, and how St Paul makes such a big deal out of it?

But then what’s the alternative to thanksgiving? It says: They did not honour him or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Instead of thanksgiving, they end up with futile thinking, foolish hearts which are darknened. Futility, foolishness, darkness. It’s almost like there’s this cancer that sets in, or a mold, or a rust that enters into our hearts. But with thanksgiving, the cancer, the mold and the rust is washed away. Giving thanks to God is like an antidote, like a medicine that drives the darkness away. I remember meeting someone once who said that when she couldn’t sleep, she would just go through her mind of all the things she could give thanks to God for.

But there’s one more thing that’s really wonderful about this first chapter of Romans. In verse 21, we read the verse I just read: For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. But if we back track a few verses, right back to verse 8, which is just after Paul has written his greetings and introduced himself at the beginning of the letter, this is what we read: First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. Did you notice what he says? First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you. St Paul is about to write this wonderful letter to the Romans, and he has so much to teach them, and the Romans have so much to learn. But he doesn’t begin by saying: You lousy Romans, you’re all so stupid, and none of you know anything about anything. He says: First, I thank my God. So even though later in the chapter, he makes that wonderful statement about thanksgiving as being a kind of antidote to the diseases of foolishness, darkness, and futility, here at the beginning of the chapter, he actually models thanksgiving to us. This is so incredibly helpful for us, in our fast-paced lives—what do you have to give to God for?

Actually, Martin Luther, has some wonderful things to say about this in his Small Catechism, about the Lord’s Prayer. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray: Give us today our daily bread. And Martin Luther explains it like this: God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realise this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving. What makes Christians different from other people? Do Christian farmers get healthier and more fruitful crops than other farmers? No. Do Christians have nicer homes than other people, more money than other people, better clothes than other people? No. Are Christians healthier and less sick and less injured than other people? Once again, the answer is no. In Matthew chapter 5, it says: God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Everyone, whether you are a Christian or not, enjoys the gifts of sunshine and rain, and the many gifts that come from it. So if there’s going to be a difference—if Christians are going to make a difference—what’s it going to be? Let’s listen to Luther’s words again: God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realise this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.

Our whole lives as Christians is one big offering of thanks. There are so many things that God has given to us—we are called to thank him, and to offer our lives back to him in thanksgiving. We are given so many things for our bodies and for our lives—food, drink, clothing, shoes, a house, a home, a family, peace, good government, protection from war, from violence, from major disease. We are so blessed in this country. Just a word about government—we have heard a lot of talk in recent years about corruption, but there are some countries that have had years of corruption that has completely crippled their country, and would take years to turn around. Also, I remember when Kevin Rudd returned to be prime-minister again after Julia Gillard, an African man said to me at the church door, that if that had happened in Africa, there would be a civil war. Don’t we have so much to be thankful for in this country? And not to mention, all the spiritual things that God gives to us, for the benefit of our souls—God’s word, the ability to read it, to ability to hear it, a wonderful church building such as this one, our church musicians, the gift of baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the opportunity and the privilege of prayer, Christian friends, and people who speak to us God’s word. And we have I remember hearing a story about an old pastor, who used to say a prayer like this: Heavenly Father, you have give me so many things in life to enjoy. Give me one thing more—a thankful heart.

And so now, I’d like to come back to Jesus’ words from Matthew 6. And this is a well-known passage, where Jesus teaches us about the relationship between our spiritual life to the needs of our body. He says: Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Just before this, Jesus says: No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

After this, then our reading begins where Jesus says: Therefore, do not be anxious about your life. On one hand, the worship that we offer to God is thanksgiving. On the other hand, the worship we offer to an idol, to a false good, is anxiety. Jesus says: You cannot serve God and money. If we serve God, we do with thankfulness. If we serve money, we do it with anxiety.

In the broad scheme of history, and in comparison to the rest of the world, we are very wealthy people. And yet, there’s many people who are constantly anxious about all kinds of things—about their finances, about the future, and all kinds of things like that. Many parents today are especially anxious about their children. But our Christian life should not be directed in such a way to simply alleviate their anxiety. Some people are anxious and they don’t even know why they are anxious. And then they jump from one thing to the next, from one novelty to the next, looking for a fix. But people don’t become closer to God by offering little sacrifices to their false gods through anxiety. There’s no use saying: My prayers to God don’t seem to be working, I think I’ll pray to the devil instead. Of course not!

Let’s listen to what Jesus has to say. Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? Think about it, Jesus says: what has anxiety ever really done for you, except make your life a misery?

Jesus says: And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’

Let’s just stop for a minute—do we really worry about what we’re going to eat or drink or wear? In Australia, we really don’t have to worry at all about famine, or going without clothes. But then, we like to have variety in our food and diet—I’m not talking about the fact that a varied diet is a good thing, but we get bored with the same old thing. So we worry: what are we going to eat? We can’t eat fish and chips tonight! Why? Because we had it last night. All this is anxiety about food and drink.

Or what about clothing? Many of us are not overly anxious about not having anything to wear. But then, there’s the whole question of variety again. Many people can’t bear to be seen wearing the same clothes to two different occasions. People say: I can’t wear that outfit, or that tie, or that jacket, or that dress, to that wedding, because people will remember it from some other occasion. All of this is anxiety over clothing. We might think that we have to live in this kind of luxury in order to make a good appearance, but if that’s the case—fine, then you have to know that we’ll be anxious. And this anxiety is simply the offering we make to a false god.

Don’t you know how valuable God thinks we are? Don’t you know that he values us so much more highly than anyone in our life who we think might value us and appreciate us the most? Jesus says: Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Jesus says: For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and you heavenly Father knows that you need them all. You see—here Jesus points out the fact that our anxiety about our life doesn’t make us different from anyone else. Gentiles can be anxious too. Unbelievers will be anxious too—they don’t honour God or give thanks to him, and so as St Paul says, they become futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts are darkened.

So what then? Jesus says: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own evil.

Seek first the kingdom of God. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. Build your life and your faith with a thankful heart. And seek his righteousness. God’s righteousness comes from the forgiveness of sins, which Jesus has won for us on the cross through his suffering and death and through his resurrection. Seek this. Trust in it. Put your anxieties into the hands of this man who shed his blood for you. St Peter says in his first letter: Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. St Paul also says in Philippians: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving (notice that: with thanksgiving!) let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

A pastor once said to me, that God provides everything we need for any given day. If we find that we are not coping with what needs to be done, if we think that God hasn’t provided the strength and the capacity for us to cope, maybe we are doing something and dedicating our hearts to something that we don’t need to. God is constantly our teacher, and he knows in his wisdom how to alleviate our hearts from all of our burdens.

So, to conclude our sermon today, I’d like to read a couple of verses from the book of Acts, by way of encouragement, about the first Christians after the day of Pentecost. It says: And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favour with all the people. May the Holy Spirit give us the same gladness and generosity of heart, and above everything, a thankful heart!

Amen.

Dear Jesus, you have given us so many things to enjoy, both for our bodies and for our souls. Give us one thing more, a thankful heart. Amen.