Sometimes in the middle of the week, we would bike, walk, or drive about a kilometer down a dusty road through farm fields and past mango trees from Kulp Bible College to Church of the Brethren (Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria) Headquarters and the Women’s Fellowship (Zumuntar Matan Ekklesiyar) Restaurant. Often Grace was working and would come to the table to ask what we wanted to eat. The menu varied per day, so we would ask what they had and she would list things off—we have white rice, jollof, egusi, and food. Food was not a generic summary of the items found on the restaurant’s menu. “Food” was her translation of the Hausa word—tuwo. A dense cornmeal-based food used to scoop up various kinds of soups or stews. Most everyone farmed to supplement income or food—corn—maize, was a standard crop and tuwo was a standard food. A food so basic and assumed that it could be called simply “food.”
Like Grace’s translation of tuwo, in the New Testament Greek, artos may be bread or generically, food. “In biblical times bread was a staple food, a synonym for food itself and even the symbol for that which in any way might sustain physical life.1
This passage begins with the open feeding of the 5,000 moving toward this claim that he, Jesus, is the bread of life. The bread which truly sustains and truly brings life. We opened this unplanned series with the feeding of the 5,000 based on the gift of 5 loaves and 2 fishes given by a kid. The passage continues with the questioning and redirecting of these questions after Jesus fed and then crossed the sea. His passage in John ended with the bold assertion in verse 35, “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Today we hear some of the reactions to this.
41 Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”2
Given the misreading and abuse of passages like this, the designation of “the Jews” is understandably grating. In addition to observing our distance between this scene, and the subsequent terrible history of anti-Semitism, a commentator notes that one of the aims of the Gospel of John is group coherence and differentiation in the face of opposition. Recording, retelling, and theologically interpreting the life and words of Jesus is part of this process. So, the potential followers of Jesus are Jewish people—as are Jesus and his disciples—and they even know his family. Jesus calls himself bread—a source of nourishment—that came from heaven, and they say, no you didn’t. You came from just down the road, and we even know your parents. They may have even baby-sat Jesus as a kid.
43 Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Not just a good guy with cool catering tricks. Not simply a miraculous provider of food that will soon after digesting need replacing. Not even simply the provider of a spiritual food but is the spiritual food.
In the opening verses of the Gospel of John we read “the Word became flesh.” The Word, which was from the beginning, creating, and being one with God—being God came to humanity and even became human—became flesh. A great mystery. And now this human is claiming to be bread. Reiterating his heavenly origin and linking to the very earthly necessity of sustaining food.
The word became flesh, the flesh became bread.
Mayra Rivera, in Poetics of the Flesh, writes, “Flesh—or his flesh—is also bread. Before establishing the link between bread and flesh, the gospel draws attention to the need to feed a hungry multitude.” (21-22) She goes on about this passage noting that bread and life are elements that “twirl” around each other. (22)3
In the 1 Kings passage we read, the prophet Elijah is sustained in his long journey of running from and searching by bread miraculously appearing and somehow powering him for an impressive journey—40 days into the desert.
In these passages, we do not see a sharp distinction between physicality and spirituality. The material is necessary, and the spiritual is necessary. One points to the other and interacts with the other.
Rivera (p21) Asks if there is a fixed boundary between spirit and flesh and responds, “Apparently not, or not so in any simple way, because those born of flesh are being called to be born of spirit. The word is transformed as flesh and in the process the flesh itself changes.”4
Very physical things, even common things, become spiritual and very spiritual things become physical. Simple bread becomes a sign and a spiritually sustaining meal. In the words of pop artist nun, Corita Kent, “God’s not dead, he’s bread.” Acts of care are manifestations of divine love. Within the Church of the Brethren there is a ministry called the Global Food Initiative. At times while I was growing up, we had a can with a sticker from this fund on it. We would put a certain amount of money per person per meal we ate in it for this ministry of addressing the need for food. A sign of gratitude and care—a spiritual act of giving but also quite practical and concrete.
Another ministry we are connected to as a denomination is the National Farm Worker Ministry. This ministry connects churches to farmworker organizing for justice in the fields. In addition to this, again, very practical work, NFWM embodies the act of spiritually receiving as gift. Living in gratitude of those who are ignored, forgotten, or intentionally kept out of public sight. Recognizing that the gift of food comes through many hands and much effort. What Rivera writes of communion bread is also the case for all food. She writes,
“[T]he bread offered in the Eucharist cannot be abstracted from the gifts of the earth and labor that materializes the bread….An elemental materiality connects the bodies of workers with shared bread, with consecrated bread. These are not arbitrary metaphors—bread is produced by the labor of human hands and the fecundity of the earth. Sharing consecrated bread is a practice by which Christians receive and become the body of Christ. These practices overflow the boundaries of both symbolic and economic exchange.” (23)5
Jesus is the bread of life, eternal life, and invites us to believe. Believe.
But admittedly belief does not always come easily or for everyone or with the degree of certainty that we might hope for. We might, with the crowds say, “c’mon Jesus, we know your parents.” We hedge our theological bets wanting more data—just one more sign.
This is where the inseparability—the resolute connectedness of the physical and spiritual is essential. We experience God, not in the heavenly ether but in the everyday. In bread. We discover a vocation—a call to ministry—in the struggle for justice for farm workers, in the creation of beauty, in the care for a neighbor. We see divine love saturating the changing plants in a garden or along a road. In this observing, watching, tasting, and acting we can get on with faith even if belief doesn’t always feel stable.
St Augustine, who lived from 354-430, a bishop in what is now Algeria, wrote, “A great miracle: but we shall not wonder much at what was done, if we give heed to Him that did it. He multiplied the five loaves in the hands of them that brake them, who multiplieth the seeds that grow in earth, so as that a few grains are sown, and whole barns filled. But, because he doth this every year, no one marvels. Not the inconsiderableness of what is done, but its constancy takes away admiration of it.”6
It isn’t just bread that Jesus provided and provides. This is “For the life of the world.” For all life. For our life. Life-bread. Bread of life. Take and eat. Taste and see that God is good.
We are sustained by God not merely for our own benefit but are called to the work of Jesus. Not only do we hear the Gospel of Peace but we are called to proclaim the Gospel of Peace. In Ephesians we read, “As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.”
If you were here some weeks, you may have noticed our child’s shiny rubber boots. These newly purchased boots are yellow with rainbow stripes. They replaced boots that were too tight. Within a week or so he had also gotten new sandals (strap snapped off the last pair). These both have very specific functions or at least strengths. He was clomping around church in boots last week because we went to the Aquatic gardens before church.
The paths between the lotus ponds are quite swampy and the boots were a good call. Though in many places the puddles theoretically could have been avoided they were nice for jumping in. The sandals have soles with heavy tread and are good for summer as well as trail running and hiking. Closed-toe good for rocks and also good for creek crossing. While rubber boots certainly can be worn to church their specialty is puddles.
In Ephesians, the list of gear includes footwear—put on whatever helps you to proclaim the gospel of peace. If puddles then__ If rocky terrain then__.
The call to proclaim the gospel of peace is definite and contrasts with the first part of that sentence. “As shoes for your feet put on whatever.” The ambiguity of this caught my eye. I appreciate the implied flexibility. The end goal firm but the means open to innovation. The New International Version reads, “and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”
The armor imagery and war language may at first seem to reinforce the use of conventional force. However, the words “our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,” place the struggle elsewhere.
And the invocation to put your feet that which makes you ready to “proclaim the gospel of peace” reorients and subverts war-like impulse. Though it also challenges any tendency to avoid conflict, struggle, or passiveness. The analogies—that language picture of the armor is just that, descriptive language that evokes, suggests, and draws on known objects to describe realities that may be hard to grasp—faith, righteousness, Spirit, Word of God, Gospel of peace, and salvation. These are words that point to life and are life.
In John we see the continuation of the narrative, Jesus feeding with bread and then asserting that he is the bread. The play between material need and spiritual sustenance. Imagery of him as bread and then the bread that symbolizes him bringing spiritual benefit even though it is “just” bread. We start today with Jesus’ proclaiming, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”
This consuming leads to abiding together in the way that Jesus abides with the heavenly Father. A blurring the lines of identity. Clearly distinct but thoroughly one. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of his listeners are offended by this strong language and visceral imagery.
Jesus continues,“It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
“The flesh is useless” Is surprising. Is this comparative? Hyperbole? Did Jesus care for people’s bodies only to convince them of something spiritual? This seems at odds with much of Jesus’ ministry.
This language and these claims are so strong that some “turned back.”
Jesus asks his closest friends and followers, “Do you want to leave?”
And Peter responds, “Where would we go? You have the words of life. You are the holy one of God”
These contrasts or tensions exist in some strong ways within the scriptures but are also challenged or undermined in other ways. The dramatic statement of flesh as useless and spirit as life is one such contrast. There are tensions in the text. Some interpreters will try to get rid of these tensions. To minimize or smooth out the wrinkles. Some interpreters will try to exploit these tensions and show that they are in fact fissures that disprove. They will argue that the Bible, the text, is incoherent and that there are contradictions that show fatal flaws.
I believe that both of these approaches miss the mark in some ways. The words are, as Peter asserts, “Words that give life.”
Khay Tham Nehemiah Lim, a theologian from Singapore (in his theological engagement with philosophy of language), argues that words can describe but not exhaust or fully define or enclose God7. We can say something about God but we cannot say everything. We work to describe God and our experience of God using figures of speech like armor—or perhaps more fittingly for us “the bicycle helmet of salvation” or the “running pack of truth,” “the paint brush of the Spirit,” “the spreadsheet of righteousness.” With these we understand and proclaim the words of life.
Church of the Brethren preacher, Sarah Righter Major was born on August 29th, 1808. Soon after experiencing conversion, she experienced a call to preach. Challenging those who quoted the Apostle Paul in order to stop her preaching she wrote, “I conceive it would be very inconsistent in an apostle who laid his hands on men and women and prayed over them that they might receive the Holy Ghost to quench the gift of the Spirit of God because it was given to a woman…”8.
This is a similar approach to African American biblical scholar, Mitzi Smith, who writes, “While we acknowledge that Ephesians is a book often quoted from because of the hope it offers, we must read it critically, just as our ancestors did. African Americans can salvage what is liberating and lay aside that which threatens our freedom.”9
These approaches to interpretation do not mean that we arbitrarily choose what we want. It does mean that the process of reading—reading and discerning as a community—is a dynamic and life-giving calling. Reading for life
Words of life does not mean that they merely reinforce any or every impulse—they may be corrective and challenging. To be challenged and confronted may bring about life. For example, there are numerous instances of “freedom” in the Bible. Such as, God leading the enslaved Israelites from Egypt. However, this does not mean that “freedom” in American national discourse functions in the same way and should not be challenged. That “freedom” is used differently does not necessarily make it wrong, it just means that though the words sound the same they may not be meaning the same thing.
Words of life—Gospel of peace
“Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’”
“As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.”
My dear siblings in Christ—we are called with a calling to speak and hear words of life, to proclaim the gospel of peace. Therefore, in your places of work, in your neighborhood, at the grocery store, alone at home. In your commute or on zoom—prepare yourself to speak and hear this good word.
Prepare yourself to proclaim this good word “As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.”
- D.J. Williams, “Bread,” Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. Joel B. Green and Scot McKnight, (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, 1992), 83.
- All biblical references are to the New Revised Standard Version
- Mayra Rivera, Poetics of the Flesh, (Duke University Press: Durham, 2015).
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- “The Works of St Augustine, Sermon LXXX,” Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Early Church, 498.
- Khay Tham Nehemiah Lim, Not Beyond Language: Wittgenstein and Lindbeck on the Problem of Speaking about God, (Pickwick Publications: Eugene, 2021), 77.
- “Major, Sarah Righter,” The Brethren Encyclopedia, (The Brethren Encyclopedia Inc.: Philadelphia, 1983), 783.
- Mitzi J. Smith, “Ephesians,” True to Our Native Land: An African American Commentary, eds. Brian K. Blount, Cain Hope Felder, Clarice J. Martin, Emerson B. Powery, (Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 2007), 349.
Nathan Hosler is a pastor at the Washington City Church of the Brethren. For his employment, he directs the Office of Peacebuilding and Policy (the Washington Office) for the Church of the Brethren denomination. He has a BA in Biblical Language, MA in International Relations focusing on religion and peacebuilding, and a PhD in Theological Studies (working in theological ethics). Nathan likes to run long distances, bike commute in Washington DC, cook and try foods from around the world, and create and/or collect art.