A few years ago, Bishop Will Willimon wrote an article about how we live in a culture that lacks focus, or that has become this vast supermarket of desire, of choices, of options, of things, offering us and promising us satisfaction. He reflects on how our hungers run so deep that we rush around – mostly unaware – for the latest thing to fill our emptiness, as we have such a need to fill our lives with stuff. Yet, we don’t seem to want to face our emptiness.
Willimon then asks this question: Might it be true that Christ is the bread we need, even though he is rarely the bread we seek, and that many of the things we desire in this life, in the eternal scheme of things, are not what really matters? How would we answer that question?
When Jesus says, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty,” do we hear the kind of invitation he is making? To receive what is imperishable, eternal?
When we consider the kinds of “faith promises” we are making and the promises we make to follow Christ, how might we see what we are doing as sharing in this “bread of life promise” for God’s children here and around the world – providing ways for others to feed on Jesus too, and to realize what difference his Bread-Life makes? How might we see what we are doing as participating in the work that endures forever as we share in faith-promise missions giving?
It is a wonderful invitation: to receive from Jesus the very promises of life, to receive his broken and blessed body and to realize that it is not simply for us, but for the life of the world. For all. The very Bread of Life Promise himself. May we open our hands and hearts to receive him now. Amen.
Pastor Andy Kinsey
Willimon then asks this question: Might it be true that Christ is the bread we need, even though he is rarely the bread we seek, and that many of the things we desire in this life, in the eternal scheme of things, are not what really matters? How would we answer that question?
When Jesus says, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty,” do we hear the kind of invitation he is making? To receive what is imperishable, eternal?
When we consider the kinds of “faith promises” we are making and the promises we make to follow Christ, how might we see what we are doing as sharing in this “bread of life promise” for God’s children here and around the world – providing ways for others to feed on Jesus too, and to realize what difference his Bread-Life makes? How might we see what we are doing as participating in the work that endures forever as we share in faith-promise missions giving?
It is a wonderful invitation: to receive from Jesus the very promises of life, to receive his broken and blessed body and to realize that it is not simply for us, but for the life of the world. For all. The very Bread of Life Promise himself. May we open our hands and hearts to receive him now. Amen.
Pastor Andy Kinsey
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