I suppose my child’s mind was piqued by those words in that I knew we were about to eat a dried little wafer passed on flat silver plates.  A dried little wafer that stuck to the roof of my mouth so that I found it difficult to chew.  We were not tasting the Lord.  But that’s how a child begins to learn, isn’t it?  A child begins to sort out the literal from the figurative.  A literal expression pointing to a figurative meaning teases us into discovering a new and deeper level of understanding. 

It’s like all those times I’ve used a figure of speech with my oldest grandson and he stops me because he won’t accept the literal, but wants me to tell him what I really mean.  He doesn’t know what he’s asking then exactly, but he does know that he doesn’t “get it” the way I’ve said it and needs to have it explained.  It doesn’t make sense as I’ve said it.  So I usually begin by saying that it’s a “figure of speech,” but then I attempt to make clear what the expression is really trying to say.  And there begins the child’s growth in linguistic sophistication, separating the literal from the figurative, fact from metaphor or symbol.  And in so doing the mind expands.  Understanding broadens.  Feeling deepens. 

As Paul says in those familiar words in First Corinthians 13 – those beautifully immortal words about love that Nancy and Ray will sing in a few minutes – When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.  I think that at the heart of our reading this morning from the Gospel of John we’re being urged to put an end to childish ways.  We’re being coaxed away from the literal to the figurative, from things temporal and temporary to things divine and lasting.  Let me try to explain by setting our reading in its larger context.

The sixth chapter of John’s Gospel begins with a crowd following Jesus to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  John tells us that they follow him because they have seen the signs that he does for the sick.  That is, they see the miraculous acts of healing Jesus performs.  Surely this man must be from God.  But they want to see more.  They need more proof.

Quickly they get some.  The crowd becomes hungry, and Jesus’ disciples wonder how they’ll handle feeding all those people.  You remember the story.  I think you heard it recently if you’ve been here in worship.  There’s a small boy in the crowd with five loaves of bread and two fish.  Jesus blesses the meager provisions and miraculously they become enough for the crowd to eat their full.  That part of the story concludes this way:  When the people saw the sign that he had done . . . they began to say . . . “This is indeed a prophet who is to come into the world.”

Their natural inclination then is to raise this prophet to the position of power they desire: they would like him to be their king, to induce him to take on the Roman occupiers and restore the glory they had known under their great king David.  But that is not Jesus’ role, and he slips away from them to be by himself.  He has a mission, but it is not what the people think it is.  How can he make himself clear?  Maybe a little time away to think things through will help.

Meanwhile, as night falls, the disciples get into a boat to return to Capernaum.  A strong wind comes up, the sea grows rough, and Jesus appears to them – walking on the water.  He calms the sea and tells them not to be afraid.  They make landfall safely then.

And it is at this point that our story for today begins.  Essentially it’s a conversation between Jesus and the people around him about mistaken motives and misunderstandings, between things literal and metaphorical, temporal and eternal.  First of all, the people are confused about how Jesus even got to Capernaum.  There had been only one boat that left with the disciples, and Jesus was not on board.  “Rabbi, when did you come here?” they ask.  That is, not only when but how. 

Even in this exchange the Gospel writer suggests a playful tug of war between literal and figurative.  While the crowd asks a logistical question – How did you get across the water without a boat? – the writer of the Gospel might be suggesting something quite different, in fact answering the question with the words with which he began his whole account:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God . . .”  John’s proclamation is built on the conviction that the Spirit of Christ, the Word incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, has always been present.  The Spirit of love and life, of truth and justice – all that lives in the person Jesus – is eternal, beyond the breath and life of human mortality.  What Jesus embodies is God’s gift always.

That’s what Jesus has been trying to say throughout the conversation: that in him is God’s gift of nourishment for human life.  He’s like bread, but not really bread.  He seeks people not to desire him because he can give them what they want, but that through him God can give them what they need.  “For the bread of God,” Jesus says, “is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  And the people respond quickly and as if in unison, “Sir, give us this bread always.”  I wonder to what extent they know what they are asking at that moment.

You see, they remember that just the day before Jesus miraculously had taken meager provisions – five loaves of bread and two fish – and fed them all.  That reminded them of the story they knew so well, the one we heard this morning about the Israelites starving out in the desert wilderness and God providing manna so that they not starve.  Now they’re hungry, too, though perhaps in other ways, and they want Jesus to give them food to fill them.  But his is a greater food than that of old.  If they want to be truly fed, he says, they need to look beyond their stomachs to their souls.  Manna was only a stopgap measure to get the people through the wilderness.  The bread of heaven Jesus brings is the promise of true life; essentially, I believe, of hope.  Of hope that affirms a life that is rich and full, a life that makes sense and is connected to some higher purpose than we have known, a life that is free from fear and threat and anxiety.  The kind of life Jesus promises if we believe in him.

But believing in him means more than rationally acknowledging that he is one sent from God.  Believing in him means turning our lives to his ways, for he is the way, the truth, and the life.  Or, in the metaphor he uses, Jesus himself is the bread of life, the bread from heaven, the Messiah who brings light and life to the world, if only we will taste and see how good the Lord is.

I just spent a week with my family, including the youngest member, an eight month old, who experiences the world by tasting everything in sight.  You know how that goes.  Don’t let him have that; it’s so small he could choke on it.  Don’t give him that long-handled spoon; he’ll gag on it.  Tasting is how babies first take on their world.  Among our physical senses, tasting is a very intimate act.  The nourishment of our bodies begins with the act of tasting, of testing what we like and what we don’t like.  Tasting leads to ingesting and to growing.

So it is, says Jesus, in matters of the soul.  How can we know the meaning, the experience, the true satisfaction of life unless we are willing to taste of the bread of heaven, to taste and see how good the Lord is?   To believe in the Son of God, however, means that we cannot simply partake on a trial basis, full of skepticism and reluctance.  You can tell sometimes by the way someone tastes something that she is prepared to dislike it.  There’s a grimace before the taste buds have a chance to respond.  Blessed is the one who willingly and openly tastes, ingests, and recognizes the nutrient value that leads to a changed life.

The writer of the First Letter of Peter enjoins all prospective Christians and those already professed to partake freely in the tasting of the Lord.  “Like newborn infants,” the writer says, “long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

Let me close this morning with this brief story.  A rabbi tells how, as a young boy, he and his family were prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp.  They were given barely enough food to survive – some water, a little stale bread, and a spoonful of lard each week.  Despite the harsh conditions, his family continued to observe Sabbath, somehow managing to scrounge around for a candle and a little food.  Every week they faithfully said their Sabbath prayers and pronounced the Sabbath blessings in the midst of their dire circumstances.

One week there was no candle.  So when it was time for the meal, the father took some of the lard and molded it around a string, lighting a makeshift candle.  He began to lead his family in prayers and blessings.  The son, now the rabbi, remembers being enraged.  When the prayers were over, he confronted his father.  “How could you waste what little lard we have to make a candle?” he demanded.

His father answered him, “Son, without food we can live for several days.  Without hope, we can’t live for a single hour.”

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Amen.