An Abundance of Bread
/Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. -Exodus 16:4
The way Exodus is written, it doesn’t seem to have been all that long between the miraculous delivery of the people at the Red Sea and the rise of their complaints. One minute they’re dancing and singing praises to God, then next they’re crying out to Moses, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Granted, it had been a long trek already and there was no end in sight. God hears their complaints and says to Moses, “I’m going to rain bread from heaven!” And the next thing you know, the camp fills up with quails in the evening that they can catch and roast, and a pervasive and unusual kind of flaky bread starts appearing on the grass every morning. It was nothing like what they’d previously known as bread, and it certainly wasn’t what they’d expect as bread, but it appeared every day nonetheless, providing the sustenance they needed.
Last Sunday the gospel reading was about the feeding of the 5000. This week, we get the story of God raining bread on the people every day in the wilderness. The theme of God’s abundance is definitely in the air. In this week’s gospel, the people who had experienced the miraculous feeding of the 5000 peoploe go across the sea to find Jesus again. Because, WOW! that was really something. But when they find him he says to them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”
Jesus is offering us something deeper, wider, more abundant than simple bread. He is with them to offer more than they could even imagine. “Do not work for the food that perishes,” he tells them, “but for the food that endures for eternal life.”
What is the true food of your life?
This Sunday and for the rest of August, our Sunday gospel will focus on Jesus as living bread. Bread rains from heaven for us every three summers in Lectionary Year B! The idea of Jesus as the true bread is so central to our faith, I guess it warrants 5 Sundays. I hope you’ll come feast with us during our August summer services.
