Hungry for more!

Year A - 2019-2020  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  20:01
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Deep hunger pangs. Not the type you get when you skipped lunch but the type you feel after a day of hard labor without time for a meal. Deep and aching pains that seem like they will go on forever. Children grabbing their parents’ sleeve and asking when the meal will come and parents who aren’t sure how to answer. This is the setting for the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.
The aching bellies were filled with bread and fish, but it didn’t take long before those bellies began to rumble again. Hungry people heard of the miracle, and they began to seek out Jesus to see if the miracle he performed once would happen again—to see if they could be part of the next one. Only, when they came to Jesus, he admonished them about looking for temporary fulfillment; about looking to have their stomachs’ filled for a moment when what he was offering was so much more than that.
It is like eating those Lay’s potato chips, you can’t just eat one. Get a dozen of donuts from the Pie Shoppe, you can’t just eat one. We eat one and we are not satisfied, we want more.

Food for their bellies is really more important than anything He can teach them. How true this is of much introverted, narcissistic modern-day religion, even that which calls itself “evangelical.” “What can I get out of this?” “Will it save my skin?” Listen to the invitation being given, “Why don’t you come to Jesus right now? He will take care of all your needs.”

We often look for temporary fulfillment too, sometimes even in the form of food. There is a reason fasting is so often linked with food—because it is something we need. We cannot give up eating altogether, but so often, eating can become something we do to try to fill our hearts and not just our stomachs. Fasting reminds us to shift our focus away from whatever we might use to give us momentary fulfillment—whether that be food, social media, television, or unnecessary shopping—so we can focus on Christ, who wants to fill our hearts and not just our bellies.

1. The followers of Jesus were still focused on the momentary satisfaction that work would bring.

The language of “work” is used throughout the text. The followers were focused on the type of work that produces something temporary.
This type of work is focused on the law, not on grace.
They had just seen and partaken of a miracle, yet they are still focused on what they must do.
There is a legalism in their questions, betraying their wrong thinking that they had to do something in order to earn favor with God.
Jesus shifts the language of work, telling them that the true work God desires is faith—to believe in Jesus as the Son of God.
Jesus is shifting them away from this idea of legalism and law to one of faith, grace, and love.
Jesus is the fulfillment of the law, he said himself:
Matthew 5:17 CEB
17 “Don’t even begin to think that I have come to do away with the Law and the Prophets. I haven’t come to do away with them but to fulfill them.
Late on in Romans, Paul wrote that love is the fulfillment of the law
Romans 13:10 CEB
10 Love doesn’t do anything wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is what fulfills the Law.
It would not be an unfair connection to say that, because God is love (1 John 4:8) and Jesus is God, there is still a deep connection here to Jesus being the fulfillment of the law.
The law, again, is not about legalism but ultimately about loving God and others.
It’s important to note that Jesus doesn’t say that following God requires no work—it’s just that the work itself changes.
Faith is its own kind of work, and it is often difficult.
However, the work of faith is not legalism.

2. They were looking for signs from God while missing the ultimate sign of God—Jesus, in their midst.

The followers were so focused on the bread they just ate, and the miracle it was, that they missed out on the true miracle in front of them.
They asked for more signs, even though the text implies they had participated in the feeding of the multitude just earlier.
In verse 26, just prior to the passage, Jesus even admonished the people for seeking him because they weren’t truly looking for him but for what he could do for them.
They ate their fill, and they longed for more.
They so desired another sign from Jesus that they seemingly tried to guilt-trip him into one by speaking of manna in the wilderness with Moses.
They still missed the point even there, though, and Jesus had to remind them it wasn’t Moses who gave them the manna but God.
Do we run the danger of missing the point in our own time? Are we looking for Jesus and all the while he is right here in our midst?
God is the one who provides signs for God’s people.
This reminder is again seeking to point back to Jesus, who is the ultimate sign from God.
This connects with the text of the Samaritan woman in chapter 4. It follows the same theme.
She talks about when the Messiah will come and what will happen, while missing the Messiah in her midst.
This is a theme for John: despite having the Messiah in their midst, they continue to miss him. They continue to fail to understand who he is and what he is doing.

3. How often do we look for signs from God, while missing God at work in the world around us?

Nostalgia—looking back on the experiences we had with God in the past and longing to go back there—can at times distract us from the work God is doing in the present.
Just like the people who ate the bread at the feeding of the multitude were looking back—both at their own experiences and also at the experiences of their ancestors.
Many of us have had moments of great experiences with God, and we long to go back to those moments, whether it was a moment at camp or a conference, or a significant conversation with someone.
It is good to look back on the goodness of God in our lives and in the lives of those who have gone before us. However, it is not good to do so at the expense of what is happening in the present.
One of the significant moments in the story of Moses is that God calls himself “I Am.” This designation is rendered in the present tense. God is present with God’s people.
While looking back at the miracle of the manna, the people seem to have forgotten the “I Am”ness of God.
We often forget that “the good ol’ days” also had their problems.
The filling of their stomachs at the feeding of the multitude was temporary, and a hunger both preceded and followed the miracle.
The filling of the stomachs in the wilderness with manna was surrounded by difficulty.
The people complained about the lack of food and their hunger.
They longed to go back into slavery.
They struggled with idolatry, even in the midst of miracle after miracle.
These miracles, and being part of them, do not guarantee long-term faith or the disappearance of problems.
Focusing on work instead of faith.
While we claim to be a people of faith and grace, we still get caught up in legalism.
Instead of pursuing love, we often view faith as a checklist of avoiding certain things, while doing certain others.
We know we fall into this trap when we tend to walk around in slavery to shame.
We know we fall into this trap when we fail to extend grace and forgiveness for ourselves.
We know we fall into this trap when we believe that God can love and forgive others but can’t possibly love and forgive us—or when we believe that there are limits to God’s grace, forgiveness, or love.
We can also focus on the work of others, instead of focusing on being love to others.
We fall into this trap when we have a judgmental spirit toward others, instead of extending grace.
We fall into this trap when we decide who is in the kingdom of God and who is out, instead of seeking to embrace all and allowing God to do the sorting.
We fall into this trap when we decide we shouldn’t associate with certain types of people, instead of embracing all people with the same love that God embraces us with.
We also focus on work over faith when our life never exhibits a rhythm of Sabbath rest. Work is not just about the legalism that can be part of following the law but also can just be about work.
Now more than ever is a time to look at people as God sees them. Sheep in need of a shepherd. People are worried and panicking. If the Church begins to worry and panic, who will we ever be able to help someone and point them to the true Prince of Peace?
When the momentary satisfaction of our busyness consumes us, there is little room for other things.
When we are prideful about how busy we are.
When we are not taking time to spend time with God because we are just too busy doing the work of God. (This is a hard one for those of us in vocational ministry to remember, but all of us are susceptible to this trap.)

4. Jesus is the bread of life. He satisfies beyond a mere moment.

The idea of Jesus as the bread of life connects to John 4 and the story of the Samaritan woman at the well again.
In John 4, Jesus claims to be living water that will cause those who drink it thirst no more.
He contrasts this assertion with drinking from a well, which will only satisfy for a short while.
The woman at the well wants this water, even without fully understanding what it means.
When she realizes what Jesus is talking about—that he is, in fact, the Messiah and that he longs to connect her to a relationship with God—everything changes for her.
The people aren’t looking for anything more than bread for the moment, but Jesus offers them something more anyway.
We see bread used symbolically in much of Scripture.
Maybe most famously are the words “give us this day our daily bread” from the Lord’s Prayer.
The focus is on trusting God for provision in the present. This is a lesson that the people are still learning as they long for signs of the past instead of trusting God in the moment.
Bread is a cornerstone food for all societies. Every culture has some version of bread, and though it is not always nutrient-dense, this prayer for daily bread tends to be somewhat universal.
We also see bread used in the Eucharist (see Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19).
Bread is being used to illustrate the body of Christ and the ways it is broken for the world.
Jesus is present in this ordinary, life-sustaining food.
Jesus wants to be more in the lives of his followers than momentary satisfaction. He wants to be a regular, life-sustaining part of his followers’ lives.
Jesus’s followers wanted food for the moment, but Jesus wanted to be more than a moment in people’s lives and more than just a temporary miracle.
Jesus wanted to be the sustaining part of their lives.
Jesus wants to be more than momentary satisfaction for us as well. He wants to be a regular, life-sustaining part of our lives.
He wants to give us daily bread.
He wants us to have a regular relationship with him.
He was broken for us.
He wants us to remember the great lengths he went to in order to have a relationship with us.
He wants us to see what he is currently doing in our lives and in the world, instead of just waiting for the next miraculous sign.
Jesus is present not only in the hugely miraculous but also in the miracle of ordinary things, like bread.

CONCLUSION

In this season of Lent, we are reminded through our fasting that God wants to be more to us than momentary satisfaction. God doesn’t want us to miss out on the miracles of the ordinary ways that he is at work in the world in the present just because we are focused on what God did in the past or longing for what God might do in the future.
In the beauty of Communion, we are reminded that Christ’s body was broken for us and that he is the bread of life. He longs to feed the deep desires and longings of our hearts, to release us from legalism and sin, and to free us to a life satisfied by a regular relationship with him.
The Father is patiently working, gathering His whole family of believers, a complete, inclusive community. This calling together of God’s people is the deepest key to history.
Fredrikson, R. L., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1985). John (Vol. 27, pp. 130–131). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Matthew 24:14 CEB
14 This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all the nations. Then the end will come.
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