{"id":9512,"date":"2003-08-07T19:49:51","date_gmt":"2003-08-07T17:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theologie.whp.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=9512"},"modified":"2025-05-08T11:04:36","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T09:04:36","slug":"john-61-15-22-59","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/john-61-15-22-59\/","title":{"rendered":"John 6:24\u201335"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a08th Sunday after Pentecost | August 3rd, 2003 | John 6:24\u201335 |\u00a0David Zersen |<\/strong><\/h3>\n

SEEKING TOMORROW\u2019S BREAD TODAY<\/p>\n

Even Lance Armstrong did not think about a world record in the Tour
\nde France five years ago! I know that because, coming from Austin, I\u2019ve
\nfollowed his career since 1998. A year ago, Armstrong thought he would
\ngo for a 5th victory, but that would be it! Only last Sunday\u2019s
\nexcitement of riding along the Champs-Elysees ahead of Jan Ulrich and
\nall the rest, five years in a row, with champagne flute in hand, adrenalin
\npumping, gave him the courage to say, \u201cone more year!\u201d<\/p>\n

Not everybody dreams the impossible dream. Some take life a day at
\na time. There are those, however, who knew from their earliest remembrance
\nthat they wanted to be a teacher, a movie star, or a professional athlete.
\nKobe Bryant, told Barbara Walters in a recently re-broadcast interview
\nfrom 10 years ago, that he wanted to become \u201cthe very best basketball
\nplayer of all time.\u201d As I stood in line last week to register for
\na review course in German Composition at Austin Community College, I
\noverheard a young man tell his girlfriend, \u201cI have no idea what
\nI want to do. I have absolutely no self-confidence. I\u2019m only doing
\nthis for my mother.\u201d Long range plans and visions are often difficult
\nto cast. At times we get in the way and, occasionally, we have no one
\nto help us focus. Does lacking a broader vision make any difference in
\nterms of the way we live our lives?<\/p>\n

WHEN OUR VISIONS ARE NOT BIG ENOUGH<\/p>\n

John the Evangelist wants us to see the early followers of Jesus just
\nas they were, with all of their shortcomings and shortsightedness. They
\nlacked the big picture. Today\u2019s text is one of four Gospel lessons
\nchosen from John 6 in the Revised Common Lectionary to help us understand
\nthis. Whether those being described are disciples or curiosity seekers,
\nthey all have spiritual myopia as a common characteristic. They follow
\nJesus from shore to shore around the Sea of Tiberias, but John doesn\u2019t
\ngive them much credit for planning or profound spiritual depth. They
\nare tired and thirsty and hungry. They have brought nothing to eat on
\ntheir pilgrimages to find this famous teacher. They have heard he has
\nhealed people and performed miracles. Perhaps there\u2019s something
\nhere for them too. Right now, bread would be good. Anything would be
\ngood, like a promise to help them out. I do give them some credit. They
\nknew their Scripture. They knew there was precedent for being fed in
\nlonely places. Moses, they said, came up with Mana, that indescribable
\nbread. \u201cWhat will you do for us today?\u201d they wanted to know.
\nJohn lets us see these material boys and girls just as they were because it
\nallows us to see ourselves as we are. Madonna sang it for us some years ago:<\/p>\n

They can beg and they can plead,
\nBut they can\u2019t see the light, that\u2019s right,
\n\u2018Cause the boy with the cold hard cash,
\nIs always mister right, \u2018cause we are<\/p>\n

Chorus: Living in a material world
\nAnd I am a material girl.<\/p>\n

We too are often defined by our needs. All too many are focused only
\non physical desires in a material world. When it comes to vision, many
\ndream merely about clothes, cars, houses, bigger houses, vacations, classier
\ngirl and boy friends, better jobs, higher wages. We aspire to link ourselves
\nwith words like Porsche, Cancun, Gucci and Jennifer Lopez.
\nWhen I ask people about their dreams, I\u2019m surprised at what limited
\nvision stands behind a thought like \u201cto be able to retire at 55!\u201d or \u201cto
\nbe able to be sufficiently affluent to take one major trip a year and
\nbuy whatever I need to keep me comfortable and happy.\u201d So committed
\nare we to such short-sighted visions that we want to be sure that nothing
\nstands in the way of our achieving them. After all, there is precedent
\nfor this. Many of our forbears made a name for themselves. A recent article
\nfrom the Palm Beach Post talked about the dizzying array of protections
\nthat people can buy to assure the good life that they feel they have
\na right to: Pet insurance, identity theft insurance for stolen credit
\ncards, extended warranties for all cell phones, computers and palm pilots.<\/p>\n

My goal in talking about this focus on material affluence and the means
\nto secure it is not to be a spoil sport and say that Christians are to
\naspire to lives of poverty. Rather I would point out that when we become
\nso focused on meeting material needs, we tend to expect entitlements.
\nWe now live in a society when people sue if something stands in the way
\nof personal fulfillment. If cancer, financial insecurity or job loss
\narises, this wasn\u2019t meant to be! Our goal was to be a material
\nboy or girl! Somebody is going to have to pay for this. Or to take it
\nin a more profoundly spiritual direction, \u201cGod, what are you going
\nto do about this?\u201d If the answer is not to our liking, many are
\nthose who have then decided, \u201cwell, then of course, there is no
\nGod!\u201d It\u2019s interesting how some people make those very shortsighted
\ndecisions because they can\u2019t see beyond their own desire for physical
\nsecurity. They have limited spiritual vision. It\u2019s called \u201cpeace
\nof mind\u201d insurance. I call it \u201cLack of vision\u201d insurance.<\/p>\n

The Evangelist John may not have phrased the matter in this way, but
\nthe problem he sees in Jesus\u2019 haphazard followers is echoed by
\nmany Christians today. We live in a world which during the last 150 years
\nhas experienced an atrophy of Christian vision replaced by the dullness
\nof a materialistic, modern world view. This view assumes that God did
\nnot create matter, but that matter evolved minds that created God. So
\nconfident were those who championed this view that they came to espouse
\na seamless unfolding of the potentiality of matter. That means they assumed
\nthat in every way, our world was self-creating a better future for all
\nof us. By the end of the 20th century, however, after too many wars and
\ngenocidal policies pursued in the name of scientific materialism, it
\nbecame clear that the material vision was incomplete. In the face of
\nthe awe-inspiring complexity in even a single cell, scientists and philosophers
\nare beginning to wonder whether we are, as Dr. Stephen Meyer of Spokane,
\nWashington puts it, not cosmic orphans after all. Perhaps this is not
\njust a material world with no destiny other than one we concoct for ourselves.
\nPerhaps there are bigger visions that allow us to ask more profound questions
\nthan \u201cwho is going to meet my needs today?\u201d<\/p>\n

WHEN A VISION CLAIMS US FOR ITSELF<\/p>\n

John wants us to hear the religious response to such a query and he
\nis prepared to shock his readers with words that will free them from
\ntheir need to structure a future on a material landscape. The crowd confronts
\nJesus with that old memory that Moses gave them Mana to eat: \u201cWhat
\nwill you do?\u201d Jesus tells them that they are looking for physical
\nbread, just to eat and be filled. He hints that God does give bread,
\nbut that it comes through one sent by his Father to give life to the
\nworld. The crowds, impatient for the only Mana their limited vision allows,
\nsay \u201cgive us this bread from now on.\u201d Then Jesus stuns them
\nall by saying, \u201cI am this bread.\u201d Whoa! What do you think
\nthey thought about that?!! More specifically, he says, \u201cI am the
\nbread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry, and he who believes
\nin me will never be thirsty.\u201d Does this have anything to do with
\nwhat they want? What does it mean for him to say that \u201che\u201d is
\nwhat they need!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s think of all the things, first of all, that it does not
\nmean\u2014and we can be very contemporary in doing this. Contemporary
\nChristians who all too often seek to use God for their own purposes,
\nto fulfill their own materialistic needs, can get this all wrong. Some
\nhave seen Jesus as the bread king who will see to it that his followers
\nnever hunger or thirst. I remember \u201cRev. Ike,\u201d a television
\npreacher of some years ago, who dangled his affluence before his audience
\nbecause, after all, \u201cGod wants you to be rich!\u201d There are
\nreligious science sects in Christianity promising there will be no illness
\nfor believers because \u201cGod wants you to be well!\u201d There are
\nChristian behavioral groups which promise performance transformation
\nbecause \u201cGod wants you to be successful.\u201d All of these approaches
\ndo not take us toward the vision of Jesus as \u201cbread of life\u201d because
\nthey leave us with ourselves and our own material desires.<\/p>\n

In presenting Jesus as the bread of life, John is lifting up a sign
\nwhich points backwards and forwards to a God who is generous beyond our
\nexpectations, but whose gifts offer more than materialistic boys and
\ngirls know how to ask for (Rom. 8:26). On the one hand, by using this
\nlanguage, John has Jesus remind us that he comes in the name of a God
\nwho is so generous with people that there is always \u201csome left
\nover.\u201d (2 Kings 4:42-44\u2014last Sunday\u2019s OT lesson). On
\nthe other hand, Jesus as the bread of life is the sign for future gifts
\nwhich are given even before we think or ask. Joachim Jeremias (Das Vater
\nUnser), in discussing the petition in the Lord\u2019s Prayer, \u201cGive
\nus this day our daily bread,\u201d suggests a translation which renders
\nthe two words \u201cday\u201d and \u201cdaily\u201d less tautologous.
\nBased on a reference from Jerome, he says that the early Aramaic-speaking
\nJewish Christians would have prayed this petition, \u201cGive us tomorrow\u2019s
\nbread today.\u201d In other words, in the midst of every-day life, give
\nus not only what we need for survival, but let us here and now already
\nexperience the fullness of your final goodness for us. Let us know you,
\nin other words, as you really are!<\/p>\n

Here is language which allows us to see beyond ourselves and the materialistic
\nnotions which come from needs for self-preservation and self-aggrandizement.
\nIn such visioning we come face to face with all that Jesus seeks to be
\nfor us, more than we can think or ask. We also find ourselves claimed
\nby him who is our bread in ways that allow us to be bread for others
\nas well. There is a fundamental Eucharistic exchange taking place in
\nthis dynamic which is, of course, part of our Sunday morning gathering.
\nIt is also, however, the nexus between our regular relationship with
\nour gracious giving God and our brothers and sisters all around us. Just
\nas God shares the bread of acceptance and forgiveness, love and sustenance
\nwith us at the Eucharistic table, so that greater vision of his affirming
\nlife empowers us to feed our neighbors with bread that fills in ways
\nthat Mrs. Baird\u2019s or Silvercup cannot. When we think of God in
\nterms of extravagant kindness, lifting us to yet unseen heights of hope,
\nhow might such a vision claim us more personally and profoundly?<\/p>\n

Desmond Tutu, former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa,
\nin his book, No Future Without Forgiveness, tells a powerful story which
\nmakes clear that spiritual dimensions of Christian visionaries are not
\nmere weak gestures. It happened that a South African woman was allowed
\nto confront in court a police officer who, along with others, had shot
\nher eighteen year-old son at point blank range. He and others partied
\nwhile they burned the son’s body, turning it over and over on the fire
\nuntil it was reduced to ashes. Eight years later, Officer van de Broek
\nand others returned to seize her husband. She was forced to watch her
\nhusband, bound on a woodpile, as they poured gasoline over his body and
\nignited the flames that consumed him. The last words she heard her husband
\nsay were \u201cforgive them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now Officer van de Broek awaited judgment. South Africa’s Truth and
\nReconciliation Commission asked the woman what she wanted. \u201cI want
\nthree things,\u201d she said calmly. \u201cI want Mr. Van de Broek
\nto take me to the place where they burned my husband’s body. I would
\nlike to gather up the dust and give him a decent burial.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecond, Mr. Van de Broek took all my family away from me, and
\nI still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him
\nto come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can be a mother
\nto him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThird, I would like Mr. Van de Broek to know that he is forgiven
\nby God, and that I forgive him, too. I would like to embrace him so he
\ncan know my forgiveness is real.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the elderly woman was led across the courtroom, van de Broek fainted,
\noverwhelmed. Someone began singing Amazing Grace. Gradually everyone
\njoined in.<\/p>\n

The bread which this woman in her simple act of extravagant kindness
\nshared with another sinful human being is the shocking kind of bread
\nwhich you and I have received, as did she, from a gracious and loving
\nGod. If we are capable of imagining, visioning, such surprising gifts
\nof love at work within and through us, then John is right and tomorrow\u2019s
\nbread is on our table today. We have full baskets ready to be delivered
\nto those who long to be stunned by a God whom others have for too long
\nconfined to prosaic parsimony. When people want mere things and the best
\nthey can hope for is god as a distribution agent, they need to be reclaimed
\nby the vision of Jesus as bread of life. It would involve more than living
\nlife one race at a time or one major acquisition per year. It would involve
\nnever hungering or thirsting for more.<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

\n

Prof. Dr. Dr. David Zersen, President Emeritus
\nConcordia University at Austin
\nAustin, Texas
\ndzersen@aol.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a08th Sunday after Pentecost | August 3rd, 2003 | John 6:24\u201335 |\u00a0David Zersen | SEEKING TOMORROW\u2019S BREAD TODAY Even Lance Armstrong did not think about a world record in the Tour de France five years ago! I know that because, coming from Austin, I\u2019ve followed his career since 1998. A year ago, Armstrong thought he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,454,727,157,853,108,222,110,250,349,3,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-9512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-johannes","category-7-so-n-trinitatis","category-archiv","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-current","category-david-zersen","category-engl","category-kapitel-06-chapter-06","category-kasus","category-nt","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9512"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23710,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9512\/revisions\/23710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9512"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=9512"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=9512"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=9512"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=9512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}