A Sermon Preached at St. Stephen’s on Aug. 20, 2006, by the Rev. Cork Tarplee

       On the back streets of Key West , there’s a run-down shop with a hand painted sign that reads “Cole’s Peace.”  Actually, over the years we’ve been going to Key West , Cole’s has been located in three different run-down locations.  Apparently, when rents get too high, Cole’s is forced to shut down, but it always pops up somewhere else.  If it didn’t, someone would probably re-invent it and it would show up somewhere with a different name.  Cole’s is a bakery of the sort that will never be really glamorous, but will never really quite die out.  No éclairs and cheesecakes at Coles.  No sliced white bread, either. Coles specializes in solid bread, whole grains and other wholesome stuff.  In a town filled with great places to eat unhealthy foods, Coles is not going to excite Key West ’s visitors.  But when you’ve had your fill of fancy, fat-filled eats, and you start hungering for something that really satisfies, you’ll find your way to Coles.

            Our Gospel this morning is an ad for the spiritual equivalent of Cole’s. Jesus has just fed five thousand people with a little bit of fish and bread and the crowds have gone wild over this show of God’s abundance.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus uses this event as a way to point to the enduring quality of what his life, teaching and ministry means.  “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh.”  He finishes this announcement by saying: “This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate [the manna in the wilderness] and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

            Physical bread, like the bread Jesus used to miraculously feed five thousand people, and even like the bread the Israelites ate in the desert, physical bread, eventually leaves you hungry and needing more.  What Jesus has to offer lasts forever.  And what exactly is Jesus offering?  He’s offering himself: sacrificial, unselfish love that is willing to die for us; and radical acceptance of all people, no matter who we are and what we’ve done.  Staking your life on physical food—on getting more and more good things in this world and on physical security, eventually leads you to the end of the road where you’ll have to give it all up anyway.  Staking your life on Jesus’ compassion and radical acceptance, feeds you in an entirely different way—and changes the whole world.

            Ever heard of Henri Dunant? No. Neither had I until I read about him on the internet a few days ago. He was a banker—and a successful one at that. So successful that he was proposing to lend money to Napoleon in 1859.  When he sought out Napoleon to do that, he found himself on a hillside watching the bloody battle of Solferino.  He never made it to Napoleon’s camp, but instead witnessed the aftermath of that battle and the hundreds of wounded and suffering who had no one to care for them.  That experience changed the direction of Dunant’s life.  He went out of the banking business and founded a grassroots movement to care for those in crisis.  Like many idealists, Henri Dunant died poor.  He also was the first recipient of the Nobel Prize.  Most people know the movement he founded: it became known as the Red Cross.

            A lot of us who stake our lives on Jesus’ compassion and acceptance do so in less dramatic ways.  Preacher Fred Craddock tells about being stranded in Winnipeg, Canada, when a freak early fall snowstorm dumped three feet of snow on the unprepared city, shutting everything down for a day.  That morning, Craddock with only a windbreaker and a baseball cap to keep him warm, struggled to a diner where all they had to offer the patrons who found their way in was some pretty unappetizing soup. Craddock was toying with his bowl of soup when a woman came in and sat at the counter.  When the owner took her order, all she asked for was a glass of water.  He refused to give it to her and insisted that she order something.  She whispered that she had no money, but really needed a glass of water.  He insisted that space in his diner was for paying customers. Their argument was loud enough that everyone in the diner knew what was going on.  Finally the owner loudly ordered her to leave.  And when she got up to go, the other customers, one by one, also got up and headed for the door. The owner relented, and even dished up a bowl of soup for the woman.  When everybody was seated again, Craddock says, he returned to his own bowl of soup.  Now, suddenly the soup that hadn’t seemed very interesting at first was warm and inviting and nourishing.  It even, said Craddock in his preacherly way, tasted a little like bread and wine.

            Jesus-like sacrifice and compassion, Jesus-like acceptance and solidarity with those in need, these feed us and feed a hungry world.  Eclairs and cheesecake are nice in their way, but to really live our lives we need something solid, like a hunk of whole grain bread from Coles. Enjoying God’s abundance is great, but when we share it we feed on the bread of heaven.                                                                AMEN