Sermon Notes for Sunday, October 14, 2012

Its a Sign!
The Fourth Sign: God’s Barley Loaf
John 6:1-15, 31-35, 48-58
Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost
October 14, 2012

Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon. -Doug Larson

* At Cordon Bleu for the morning and watching the preparation and cooking of a pork loin wrapped in bacon.

Lets remember the purpose of the signs - pointing beyond themselves to the One employing the Sign Language. We’ve encountered emptiness pointing to Fullness, words pointing to the Word, water pointing to the Water of Life, and now we find some real ‘food for thought’: the bread of the poor pointing to rich bread of heaven.

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

I. Jesus, Our Powerful Sufficiency
A. He brings us to the end of our poor supply so that we might enter into the bounty of his supply.
B. One Boy, Five Loaves, Two Fish, and Twelve Baskets later
* Barley Bread - fare of the poor, pointing to the One who became poor that we might be made rich in grace (2 Corinthians 8:9)
* True and False Concepts of the Kingdom: Force for Force; Grace for Grace


II. Jesus, Our Passover Supper
* The sign occurs in the wilderness, near to the time when Pascha would be celebrated, but the full import of the sign is explained later in a synagogue of Capernaum
A. The Bread of Life
* Born in the House of Bread and placed in a food trough, he grows to offer himself as the food of the soul
- Unleavened Bread of Liberation; Manna in the Wilderness:
- Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts! -James Beard

B. The Bread Broken
* Eucharistic Life
* Radical Hospitality
- The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. -Calvin Trillin
III. Jesus, Our Passionate Savior
A. He is the young boy who surrendered all he possessed to feed the multitude, and he feeds us still with his body and blood
B. This Supper is also about our Union with him, the One who has ‘taken, blessed, broken, and given’, showing us not only how we have life but how life is given through us to others in the Eucharistic Community.



How long will we go on receiving without serving? How long will be go on eating without sharing our bread with the hungry. In the face of the great, hungry multitude we can go on pointing out the food of others, or get busy pointing others to the One who is our Food. Come to the Table!