FIRST READING Exodus 16:2-15
2The whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, 3and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. 4Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. 5On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.” 6So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, 7and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we, that you grumble against us?” 8And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him — what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord.” 9Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, ‘Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’” 10And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. 11And the Lord said to Moses, 12“I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’” 13In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. 14And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. 15When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”
PSALM Psalm 145:10-21
10All your works praise you, O Lord, and your faithful servants bless you. 11They make known the glory of your kingdom and speak of your power; 12That the peoples may know of your power and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. 13Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; your dominion endures throughout all ages. 14The Lord is faithful in all his words and merciful in all his deeds. 15The Lord upholds all those who fall; he lifts up those who are bowed down. 16The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord, and you give them their food in due season. 17You open wide your hand and satisfy the needs of every living creature. 18The Lord is righteous in all his ways and loving in all his works. 19The Lord is near to those who call upon him, to all who call upon him faithfully. 20He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he hears their cry and helps them. 21The Lord preserves all those who love him, but he destroys all the wicked.
SECOND READING Ephesians 4:1-16
1I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit — just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call — 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” 9(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
GOSPEL John 6:22-35
22On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. 23Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. 25When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26Jesus 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. 27Do 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.” 28Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 30So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 32Jesus 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. 33For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” 35Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
WHEN THE I AM SPEAKS, WE’D BEST LISTEN
It appears that someone got into the front window of life and changed the information tags. It seems that everything these days is backwards. The expensive things now have cheap labels. The cheap things have expensive labels. What’s happened is that we have, what might be called a, transvaluation of values. Everything is turned upside down. Important values have become unimportant for many people. Unimportant values have been turned into seemingly valuable categories.
Just look at the ads on television, in the movies, or the magazines being produced these days. From the perspective of popular media, you would think that getting more and more material possessions is what’s most important; you know, the guy who dies with the most toys wins attitude, and that God and the Bible are somewhere on the sideline, if we even consider them at all. Values and what’s most important have been reversed. But this isn’t something that happened over night: it happened gradually, so many of us have hardly noticed the change.
Satan is smart: he knows that sudden changes scare people. But if things are introduced slowly, in small increments, in ways that numb people to the idea, then people will generally ignore the change, even come to accept it. It’s like the old story of the frog in the kettle. Put a frog in hot water and he’ll jump right out. But put him in cool water and gradually turn up the heat and the frog will slowly die without even noticing what’s happening. Our cultural path to death is like that. Just think about the cultural and value changes that have transpired in your lifetime.
The biblical corrective for this situation of upside-down values is found in the name of God — the great I AM. This is the name that God gave to Moses at the burning bush when Moses agreed to go to Egypt and lead the people out of bondage. “Give me your name that I might tell the people who sent me,” Moses requested. “Tell them that I AM who I AM sent you,” God replied (see Exodus 3:13-15). God is the center of life.
When we put something else in the center of our lives, when we violate the first commandment, “thou shall have no other God’s before me (Exodus 20:3), we don’t work right; life becomes lopsided. God is the great I AM. We need to pay attention to Him – to how God reveals Himself and to what He says. According to the gospel of John, Jesus used the name I AM for Himself on numerous occasions. In the text before us, Jesus says of Himself, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35; also see 6:48 and 6:51). In John 8:12, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” In John 10:7 Jesus says of Himself, “I am the door of the sheep” and in John 10:11 He declares, “I am the good Shepherd.”
Other “I am” sayings by Jesus in the gospel of John include: “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). “I am the real vine” (John 15:1). “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). Time this morning doesn’t allow us to examine each of these “I am” sayings in depth, but it’s obvious that in the gospel of John, Jesus identifies Himself as the great I AM that Moses met in the wilderness. Jesus was a great teacher, but those who claim that He was just a great teacher, and not divine, have to eliminate these I Am sayings from consideration. I Am is God’s name. Jesus claims that name for Himself. We have to either accept that Jesus is egocentric and insane, or that He is what He claims to be: both God and man.
Exodus 3:13-15 records these words from the mouth of God: “This is my name forever, [I Am] and this is my title for all generations.” That is the high, holy, and exalted name God uses for Himself; Jesus used that name for Himself. So, we must decide: should Jesus be dismissed as a healing prophet as Islam sees Him, or, should we claim Him as Lord of all and exalt Him and worship Him along with the Father and Holy Spirit?
In our gospel lesson for today, we hear the claim of divinity and the connection between the wilderness story of Moses and the preaching of Jesus on the theme of bread. Moses and the Israelites received the manna from heaven. Jesus claimed to be the manna from heaven. Moses told the people that they needed to eat the heavenly manna God sent to sustain them. Jesus said He is the heavenly manna that sustains us. Moses pointed away from himself. Jesus pointed to Himself. Jesus is either a dynamic egomaniac, able to sway scores of people, or He is who He claims to be: God incarnate. There is no middle ground here. We can’t limit Him to being a great religious leader. He was of course that, but He is also so much more. He was, He is, and always will be the great I AM who is the Bread of Life.
Since Jesus is the great I AM, that means He is in control. I’m not in control, but my sinful tendency is to try and be in control. Far too often, we’re just like the servant in Jesus’ parable in Luke 19, the parable of the master who went away to be crowned king, we say “We don’t want this man to rule over us” (Luke 19:14). We don’t want anyone to rule over us, not even the God who created us. That’s the biggest conflict that we face these days. As a matter of fact, the entire Bible can be outlined around this theme of God’s rule over us.
In Genesis 1, God creates us in His image. He commands that the fruit of one tree is out of bounds. Chapter 2 of Genesis tells us that we rebel against God’s authority and eat that one forbidden fruit. And then we play the pass the buck game. Adam replies to God when asked what happened, “It’s her fault. She made me do it.” Eve responds, “The snake is responsible.” If the snake was allowed to respond, I suppose it would say, “Don’t blame me. You made me that way.” In other words, not only do we rebel against God’s authority, but we make excuses instead of repenting for our wrong doing. Sounds a bit too familiar, huh?
The rebellion and rationalization mean that we don’t want God to rule over us. The rest of the Bible from Genesis 2 through the last verse in Revelation is about God working to restore us to His reign over us. God works to restore us in His way, not by forcing us under His control with power, but by inviting us back to His control for our own good.
This invitation comes because God gave us the option of saying “Yes” or “No” to Him. He created us with a free will. But now that free will is in bondage to sin. We have the freedom to reject God’s offer of accepting us in Christ, in spite of our rebellion; all we have to do is truly repent and come to Him sincerely. However, the good news is, before we come to Jesus, He has already come to us by the power of the Holy Spirit to create the faith we need to be saved. As Luther said, “I cannot of my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ or come to him, but the Holy Spirit called me by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith….” [Explanation to the 3rd article of the Apostles Creed, Small Catechism.] While we struggle with the rule of God over us for our own good, God is at work in us to bring us back into the fold. That’s the classic battle in our souls between God and the devil.
God has accomplished our salvation by Jesus dying on the cross. Inspired and prodded by the Holy Spirit, we’re called to appropriate what God in Christ has finished. From the cross Jesus said, “It is accomplished” (John 19:30.) It’s like a gift of a million-dollar check being given to us by God’s grace. It’s been given, but unless we turn it over and sign it, we don’t receive the benefits of that gift.
Some foolish and stubborn people will refuse to sign the check. They refuse to listen to the great I AM. Instead, they put other things first in their lives thereby committing idolatry. As mentioned earlier, many people have turned the biblical values on their head. They value things that are cheap and devalue things like faith that are precious. That’s happening in our culture. In addition, many churches, have so emphasized the horizontal dimension, things like the social gospel, the gospel of prosperity and the gospel of political correctness at the expense of the vertical dimension.
The horizontal dimension is the human relationships we have, the need to respect one another, serve one another, and love one another. In many churches, the social gospel has replaced the gospel of salvation through Christ alone. In other words, the emphasis on the horizontal dimension of our faith is true enough, but not big enough. The whole truth is contained in the biblical admonition, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).
The whole truth, the big enough truth, is that we’re called to love the Lord our God above and beyond anything else. That’s the first and greatest commandment (Matt. 22:36-40.) That’s the vertical dimension so often neglected today. Our text provides a corrective by reminding us that Jesus is the great I AM and the Bread of Life. The great I Am is in charge. The fact that we’re called to love our neighbors is the second commandment which doesn’t replace or override the command to love God first.
From the perspective of the gospel of John, there are two options in life: either I am in charge, or the great I AM is in charge. When I’m in charge, life doesn’t work the way it was designed. When the I AM is in charge, life works the way it’s supposed to work according to God’s plans and purpose.
When I’m in charge, I consistently mess things up, make excuses for the mess I make, and refuse to take responsibility for what goes wrong. In other words, the biggest problem I have in life is that I’m self-centered. The center of the word “sin” is I. That’s the problem we all have. We can’t get ourselves out of the center, even when we try hard. No act of the self can lift the self out of the self because the self is the problem. Unless that which is above us rules that which is within us, that which is around us will. In other words, we get trapped in one idolatry after another when we don’t submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ, the great I AM.
Harold was a man trapped in addiction. They called him “Hap,” short for happy, because he was a happy addict. As far as most people knew, “Hap” was a respected judge and a good family man. But “Hap” had a secret. He abused substances to solve his problems. When the substance abuse became his chief problem, he resorted to further abuse to solve that problem too. That’s the cycle of substance abuse. “Hap” claimed that he wasn’t an addict; that he could stop any time he chose. When his life began to cave in, he tried to stop, but failed time and time again.
One day, the bills from a recent trip arrived. The trouble was, “Hap” didn’t remember making that trip. He had invited his buddies to fly to Chicago with him, take in a Chicago Bears football game, and eat at expensive restaurants — all at his expense. He stared at the bills and said, “I don’t remember inviting my friends to go with me. I don’t remember the flight to Chicago or the football game. I don’t remember any of the meals we ate. But these bills prove that I did all that. Since I don’t remember any of it, I know I’m out of control in my life. I give up. I acknowledge that I can’t handle my life. I give up control to you, Lord.”
From that point on, as “Hap” arose every morning, he prayed, “Dear Lord, I can’t handle my abuse problem. I commit my life and my problems to you. Without you being in control, I’ll mess things up as I’ve done before. You are the only one who can keep me from substance abuse today. I turn my life over to you, one day at a time. In Jesus’ name. Amen.” From that point on, for the rest of his life, “Hap” never abused substances again. As he looked back on his former life, he said, “One drink, or joint or pill was always too much and a thousand were never enough.” If you complimented him about his decision to stop, “Hap” would always say, “Not me, God.”
In terms of our text, “Hap” made the transition from “I’m in charge of my life” to “I AM is in charge of my life.” To put it another way, Jesus became the nourishment “Hap” needed for life, the food and drink that kept him alive. For the last years of his life, he listened to and depended on the great I AM. He also witnessed to the power of Jesus Christ to other people.
When the great I AM speaks, we need listen. The great I AM has spoken. What He says is called the word of God. That word of God is primarily Jesus Himself. In addition, that word is the Bible and the preaching and the sharing of the gospel. Will we listen to the siren calls of the world, or will we listen to the word of God and pass it on?
The answer to that question is given in a story about a bully and a wise man. The bully decided to challenge the wise man. “I have a baby chick in my hands, behind my back. If you are so wise, tell me, is it alive or dead?” Of course, the wise man knew that if he said, “Alive,” the bully would kill the chick. If he said “Dead,” the bully would pull out the chicken from behind his back and say, “Wrong.” So the wise man said, “That’s up to you.” In like manner, the answer to whether we follow the ways of the world or the ways of the great I AM, is the answer given by the wise man. “That’s up to you.” All we have to do is sign the check!
Amen
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