Food for the Body, Food for the Soul
Food for the Body, Food for the Soul by Rev. L. John Gable
May 2, 2021
Is that someone’s stomach I hear growling? Perhaps it is yours, or it could be mine. Or maybe it isn’t a stomach I hear growling at all, maybe it’s a soul; maybe yours, maybe mine. It could be either, or both, and we would do well to learn to listen to them.
In our Gospel lesson Jesus performs perhaps His most famous miracle, the feeding of the 5,000. While each of the four Gospel writers have their own particular stories to tell, this is the only one of Jesus’ miracles that is told by all four. Clearly this one made an impression on all of them.
Jesus is with His disciples, in some remote spot somewhere along the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee and He is in desperate need of rest from the demands of ministry (a good reminder to us that the fully divine Jesus was also fully human, and if He needed rest from His labors, so do we!), so He heads to the mountains to be alone with His Father. The first of many good lessons we can glean from this teaching. As He steals away He looks out to see a vast crowd which has been following Him. They had seen the miracles (John calls them “signs”) of healing He had performed and wanted for more, but rather than going higher and deeper into seclusion Jesus responds to their need. A second good lesson He gives us as to how we might respond to the interruptions which come in to our carefully planned days, willingly, not begrudgingly, seeing them as an opportunity to do ministry, provide a helpful service, maybe even, perform a miracle.
We know the story. He turns to Philip, one of the disciples, and asks, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Another good insight about Jesus. He recognizes the needs of the people, perhaps He even hears their stomachs growling and then chooses to act, rather than ignore or avoid, and in so doing He invites us who follow in His way to take notice of the people and the needs around us as well and then join Him in doing something to help.
Of course, Philip states the obvious: the place is remote and their resources are insufficient to meet the overwhelming need. We know that feeling as well, don’t we? But then Andrew, another of the twelve, steps forward with the meager provision of a peasant boy’s lunch: five barley loaves and two fish, and even that minimal offer of food and faith is sufficient for Jesus to perform this remarkable miracle.
After instructing the disciples to have the people sit down, all 5000 of them, Jesus takes that meager offering, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to that hungry crowd; then He does the same with the fish, and they eat, until all were filled. And then, once all had eaten, Jesus instructs the disciples to collect all the left overs, twelve baskets full; nothing is wasted in the economy of God.
If we were to hear nothing else but John’s telling of this story, it would be enough for us to surmise the meaning of Jesus’ miracle. If He, the Lord, hears and responds to the hunger pangs of the crowds around Him, then we who are called by His name must also do the same. What Jesus does for us the church is called to do for others in His name and the difference between the needs of the crowd then and needs of our neighbors now is simply a matter of the economy of scale, not of the economy of heaven. If Jesus was attuned to hear the growling of empty stomachs, we must be as well.
According to the organization Feeding America 42 million of our citizens (1 in 8) experience food insecurity; of those 13 million or 1 in 6 are children. More locally, 22% of residents in Marion County rely on some form of food assistance (SNAP, WIC, food pantries, congregate meals) and still 5% of our neighbors have unmet needs for food, ½ of those being children. And this, friends, is in the wealthiest nation on earth. I hope you were able to participate in the virtual Amaizing lunch last Sunday and were able to see the videos and hear the stories about the UMOJA project we support in Western Kenya through which we provide a daily meal to orphaned and vulnerable children. If you missed it last week you can still view the video on line. I visited the Umoja project in 2012 and still, nearly a decade later, I picture those hungry children, with stomachs growling, as I read this passage from John 6 and I am grateful for our response to their cries for help in Jesus’ name, just as I am grateful for the response we offer to our neighbors closer at hand through our Open Door ministry every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and our Fresh Stop (farm to church) ministry which will start up again soon and our support of the Mid-North Food Pantry. In these ways, and many others, we are hearing the call of the Gospel and responding to the needs of our neighbors.
But still, I too often feel like Philip in our Gospel lesson, looking at the vastness of the need around us (locally and nationally, much less globally) and wonder, why are so many people still hungry? There are two fundamental reasons: unemployment and poverty and both of those disproportionally affect racial and ethnic minorities. The overall poverty rate in the US in 2019 was 10.5%. 9% among whites, 19% among blacks and 16% among Latinos. 200,000 people in Marion County live in what is called a food desert, defined as an area lacking affordable and healthy food options within a 1 mile radius; that represents 33% of the population, including our neighbors just outside our doors, again those most susceptible to unemployment and poverty. Responding to the physical needs of our neighbors, near or far, is not an abdication of the Gospel, a work better to be done by a social service agency as some might suggest, it is the call of the Gospel, as is our advocacy to work toward making fundamental changes, just changes to the policies and practices and programs which keep people in such dire conditions. Food for the body is as much a spiritual matter as it is a physical one. And for that reason it is essential that we hear both sections of this reading from John chapter six: the first section telling of the miracle and the second Jesus’ explanation of it. If we were to listen only to the first teaching we might assume that Jesus is only interested in providing food for the body; and if we were to listen only to the latter, we might assume He was only interested in providing food for the soul, and neither assumption, without the other, would give us a full understanding of the call of the Gospel.
The very next day Jesus is with His disciples and He begins talking about the miracle they had all witnessed the day before and as He explains it to them He utters another one of His famous “I AM” statements. Two weeks ago Oscar preached on His saying, “I am the way, the truth and the life”; last week I looked with you at His saying, “I am the good shepherd”; and this morning we hear Him say, “I am the bread of life.” Again in each of these He very aptly uses a metaphor, referring to Himself as something He is not (in this case a loaf of bread) in order to describe who He is and what He has come to do; offer nourishment and sustenance for eternal life, saying “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never be hungry and whoever believes in Me will never be thirsty.” Notice His double use of the word “never”; a remarkable claim to be sure.
Drawing on a reference very familiar to His listeners, He contrasts Himself to the manna which God provided to the Children of Israel during their forty year sojourn through the wilderness. He says, “I am like that and not like that at all.” Admittedly, like the manna of old, Jesus had come from God, was given by God, was a provision of God; but unlike the manna of old which satisfied and sustained the people for a day, He is the bread of life which will satisfy and sustain those who come to Him for eternity. An end to hunger and thirst is promised to all who believe in Him, spiritual, not physical. Confusing as that may have sounded to His disciples back then, and perhaps to us still today, this is a distinction which clearly sets Jesus apart from any other. No matter how full I am after my most sumptuous meal, I am always hungry for more several hours later or at least by the next morning. When I was growing up we fell in to something of a tradition on Thanksgiving evening around supper time. No matter how much we had eaten earlier in the day, my dad always piled us kids into the car and we headed out to White Castle for some grabbers and sliders, a St. Louis mainstay. In like manner, when the people who had been more than sufficiently filled with bread and fish beside the Sea of Galilee one day came looking for Him the next, they too came because they were hungry, physically hungry, they wanted another free meal. “Show us another sign” they said, but this time Jesus was more interested in talking about food for the soul than He was food for the body, and this too is the call of the Gospel.
We know the tell-tale signs of our physical hunger: stomachs growling, an onset of weakness or lethargy, an inability to concentrate, and so on. Extrapolate that out over days, weeks, years and the results are catastrophic. Since visiting Kenya I have very intentionally tried to censor myself from ever saying, “What’s for dinner? I’m starving!”; I certainly am not. We know well the signs that we need food to nourish our bodies, but what about food for our souls? Are we as attuned to those tell-tale signs? Likely not and there are many. To name but a few: when we are spiritually depleted we experience a loss or a waning interest in the things of God, of time in His Word or in prayer (both sources of spiritual nourishment for Jesus and for His followers through the ages), an apathy toward to needs of others and a lack of energy or willingness to do anything about those needs of which we are aware; a lack of discipline or obedience to apply the God given truths we know to the practicalities of our lives. In short, we get weak and lazy and lethargic spiritually when we are under-nourished, just as we do physically. Just as our bodies need daily nourishment, so do our souls. Like the manna in the wilderness, food for the body sustains us for a day; but Jesus alone is the bread of life which “devoured in faith” is able to keep us alive forever.
With this in mind, let me repeat something I said earlier, what Jesus does for us, we, His Church, are called to do for others. He calls us to join Him in providing both food for the body AND food for the soul to all those who hunger and thirst; to reach out in His name to the needy world around us with basic services for health and well-being AND to share with all who will listen the Good News of who Jesus is and what He desires most to give and is alone able to offer- a right relationship with the God who loves us and the promise of eternal life. Food for the body to meet a daily need and food for the soul to sustain for eternity. The Gospel calls us not to either/or but to both/and, and it begins here, in worship, at this table. We cannot serve from an empty plate; we cannot offer to others that which we have not received for ourselves.
This morning we are invited by Jesus Himself to come to this table, to participate in this meal, to eat and drink of Him. Whether here in the sanctuary or worshiping with us at home I know that the bread we eat and the cup we drink hardly seems like the banquet table of the Kingdom of God, but I assure you it is a foretaste. Eaten physically this food for the body will likely do little more than wake up your stomach juices and make you hungrier still for a meal to follow, and in like manner, I hope that taken spiritually, this food for the soul, will awaken your openness to the things of God and Your desire to one day participate in that glorious feast that will allow you to never hunger and thirst again. Using the words of St. Ambrose, “This food which you receive, this bread which comes down from heaven, holds the substance of eternal life.”
This is Jesus Christ, the bread of life. We are all He wants. He is all weneed. So, come to Him all who hunger and thirst.
Rev. L. John Gable
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
Indianapolis, IN