It’s a miracle to come together for Sunday worship. It tempers our independence and reminds us of our commonality. Regardless of our differences, we each worship a God who accepts us just as we are and invites us to receive the life and grace of God in our lives.

Every time we gather, we can think about those in our church who don’t have the resources available to them that others have. And that’s a good thing, because when we worship, we’re empowered by the Holy Spirit to offer ourselves as “a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us.” As we are nourished by the spiritual food of Christ, as we come to believe more and more in God’s love and grace for us, as we learn to live not by bread alone but by the living bread that comes down from heaven (as we turn over to God what we worry about), as we become less self-involved, as we grow more concerned in the wellbeing of others, we change, year after year, and thought by thought, into the Body of Christ for here and now. Our actions become more aligned with Christ’s actions, and our minds become more like the mind of Christ.

That’s what it means to call Jesus the bread of life. He is God’s presence to the people; he is a means of grace, a channel of God’s work in the world. And by the Spirit, we can be transformed today – to be more caring, more concerned for the wellbeing of our neighbor, more generous with our time, our energy, our empathy. It’s a mystery that’s bigger than a sacramental meal: “When Jesus said, ‘Do this in remembrance of me,’ he referred not only to the Last Supper but to his entire life of teaching, healing and welcoming all—a welcome so radical it scandalized religious leaders.”[1] Those leaders and authorities complained loudly that Jesus was going too far, in promising God’s presence today. Do you believe that God is with you? Have you ever felt that way?

Does that change you? What does it look like for each of us to lead our whole lives in a way that reflects Christ’s life for the world? What Jesus inaugurates is “a start to the Kingdom in history, a Kingdom of freedom, of communion with outcasts and full confidence in the Father,”[2] a kingdom where God reigns – not us. It is a kingdom where grace and goodness direct our attention away from our own grumblings and outward, to care for those who need care. It is a kingdom started by Christ, which we are gifted with the privilege of continuing.

But the work of being part of God’s kingdom is not out of obligation, guilt, or shame, not out of an obsession to be better or to be accepted or to make sure that we get our way. Better than all of that, our participation is out of gratitude to God. That we do anything at all, is out of gratitude for the gifts of God which we have each received – acceptance, validation, life itself.

God gives each of us a gift. The gift is life, and life to the full, given freely out of love, an abundance of love, from the Creator of the world and the stars and the incredible expanse which grows, changes, and develops, as a kind of endless garden where each of us can grow, change, and develop, too.

God gives each of us a gift in Jesus Christ, who is the archetype of gifts, the epitome of grace, the presence of God’s love made real – more real than anyone could or can believe. To any who had the eyes to see it, Christ revealed God to them. As one Jesuit scholar put it, “this absolute, abiding Mystery can exist not only in the guise of distant aloofness, but also as absolute proximity to us.”[3] In the grace of God which knows no boundary, no limitation, no corner of creation that cannot be reached, and no corner our heart cannot be healed, there is no aspect of our lives cannot be saved. Do you believe that, that Christ can renew you?  

Is there some part of you that needs saving? Could you believe that God has a gift for you, something you don’t have the capacity to work for, a gift you can’t begin to reciprocate? That’s what it’s like to receive the living bread: You just receive love and grace. It is offered to you without expectation. As one writer urged: “Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. [But] Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!”[4]

The living bread that has come down from heaven is not what is made by us or purchased from the fruit of our strivings. The living bread is not what is made when the laborer harvests the wheat and grinds it, removes the chaff, and kneads the ground wheat, adding water and ambient yeast from the air, and baking it finally into something that nourishes our bodies. [5] The essence of the living bread, the gift of Jesus Christ, is that it is a gift, a gift from God.

And knowing that the world is filled with the gifts of God, that can make our lives better. Because the striving, the worry, the fear of failure, the burden of performing for approval can cease. And the self-justification can end. And everything we do can be saturated with thanksgiving. 

So will you take and eat of this living bread? Will you be permit yourself to be fed by God and not by your own labors and strivings? Will you allow God’s love and life to be enough, not just for your life, but enough for the life of the whole world? And will you see the world around you in the light of Christ’s love, as the object of God’s affection, as the recipient of God’s healing and provision? Will you see the world as God sees it, and will you, moment by moment, become a part of the Body of Christ for here and now? I pray you will. Amen.   

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[1] John Buchanan, “Shared Meal,” The Christian Century, http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2013-09/shared-meal

[2] Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988), p. 30.

[3] Karl Rahner, “The Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology,” TI 4 (Baltimore, Md.: Helicon Press, 1966), p. 72.

[4] Paul Tillich, sermon: “You Are Accepted,” p. 5.

[5] R. Jason Rubenstein, “Bread from the Earth and Torah from Heaven: Celebrating Shavuot,” Hadar (May 9, 2017).