More than bread Pt 0 (Prologue) – Hungry for the Word
Readings: Mark 6. 30-34, 53-56
We have as our Gospel reading today a rather odd selection of passages. I’ve spoken a few times recently about Mark’s love for sandwiches, not the ham and cheese variety, but taking a section of teaching or a miracle or incident, and putting either side of it a pair of related incidents so that they shed light on one another.
And here we have the end of the sandwich we started a fortnight ago, where the disciples were sent out by Jesus, we had the filling last week with the death of John the Baptist and then here today we have the disciples returning, telling Jesus about all they have done and taught. And then we have the start of the next sandwich, Jesus and his disciples heading off to a deserted place to rest, but the crowds find them. We then skip ahead, past the filling of this sandwich, the feeding of the 5000 and Jesus calming the storm, to Jesus and the disciples arriving back across the lake where the crowds find him again.
Now, why have I mentioned all of this. Well firstly because Mark has been careful in structuring his Gospel but we’ve rather butchered it today (for reasons which will become obvious next week), and I wanted to highlight that. But also because on first reading of these passages I wasn’t sure what to do with them. We always focus on the filling, the feeding of the 5000, the death of John the Baptist, the calming of the storm.
We read these bits when we read our Bibles but only to get to the next bit, this stuff doesn’t matter we may think. When you eat a sandwich your focus is often on the filling, what’s in it, not so much the bread. That’s why you’re having a sandwich. But when I looked closer, I realised there’s a lot going on here. These little snippets aren’t meagre thin slices of white bread, there’s real flavour here, stuff to get stuck into, to chew over. Right, enough sandwich talk, onto the text.
The apostles are back, and no doubt excited, and Jesus tells them to come with him somewhere quieter, to get some rest. We’re told so many people are coming to them that they can’t rest, they can’t even eat. So off they go to somewhere quieter in the boat.
But as they’re leaving the crowds recognise them, and they hurry around the edge of the lake on foot with more people joining them as they go. And they head at such a rate that they reach the shore ahead of the boat. And as Jesus steps onto shore he is moved, he has compassion on them because he sees that they are like sheep without a shepherd.
And if we skip ahead to the second half of this sandwich, the end of today’s Gospel reading, the same thing happens. They get out of the boat and are recognised and the crowds start to form again.
And what we find, and what Jesus has recognised in them, is that they’re hungry. Not for physical food (although that happens in the middle of these passages), but for spiritual food, spiritual sustenance. They’re not being cared for, not being fed. To the point that they will race a boat around a lake to ensure they get more, to keep hearing more of what Jesus has to say. And he is moved with compassion. Moved to do something about their state. And so he begins to feed them. Not with bread, but with his teaching. Here are a people who are spiritually starving, and so he feeds them. As Mark records; he begins to teach them many things.
Is that us? When were we last hungry for the Word of God? Longing to hear more of what Jesus has to say, longing to hear more of the words of life? Was there ever a time when we were keen for something else to be over so we could go and open our Bibles? When we woke up in the mornings and hurried to open up our Bibles to spend time with Jesus. When was the last time we went out of our way to hear great preaching? To hear God’s word opened up to us?
Do those crowds racing around the shore of the lake, do they describe us? Is that what we’re like with Jesus? Or are we more cool and detached? What I’ve found over the years is that to get that hunger we need to start by doing. You can’t sit and wait to want to read God’s word, wait to be hungry. Because we don’t know we’re hungry until we start to eat. It’s true in life isn’t it. You start to get hungry for food around a mealtime, but if you push past your body almost forgets you need to eat, only when you start to eat do you realise you’re hungry. That’s what these crowds found, only when they heard Jesus preaching did they realise they were spiritually starving and wanted more, enough to chase him around the lake on more than one occasion.
What I’ve found is that only by opening the Bible, only by reading it, slowly taking it in, digesting the words, only then do we start to realise we’re hungry. And great commentaries and books to help us open God’s word can really help with that.
Only when we hear great preaching which applies God’s word to our lives, helps us to see Jesus more clearly, only then do we want more of him. A few years ago Katy & I were worshipping in a church where every sermon felt like a feast, rich with the joy of the Gospel, rich with God’s comfort, his hope, his life. And when we left, I was really disappointed that I’d only get to listen to my sermons from now on. So I found their recordings on Spotify, and try to listen regularly. I’ve looked for others too and have recently been listening to some of Tim Keller’s sermons.
We won’t realise how hungry we are until we start to eat.
Jesus recognises the hunger of the crowds and recognises that they’re like sheep with no shepherd. And what this means is that the shepherds that are meant to be caring for them, the shepherds who are supposed to be acting on God’s behalf aren’t doing their job. We heard that passage from Jeremiah condemning the shepherds of God’s people in his day, the same it seems is true in Jesus’ day. The people have been left uncared for, directionless. Perhaps they even feel confused or trapped by the many extra rules and regulations being imposed by those religious leaders. And so here Jesus fulfils that prophecy of Jeremiah, here is the righteous branch bring raised up for David, the true shepherd who will care for the flock.
In our day there’s a similar hunger. A hunger for truth, a hunger to better understand life, better understand how the world works. We live in a society where truth is relative. We have my truth and we have your truth. And the two might not align, may even contradict, but we deem both to be true. We’ve made fact into opinion and opinion into fact all in the name of freedom. But in doing so we’ve created a society that’s starving. People looking for firm foundations but left in a wasteland of shifting sands. People hungry for truth but finding none, only more relativism. And we as a church can buy into that, present the Gospel as one truth among many, provide a pick and mix approach where people can pick the bits they like of the Gospel to add to all the other bits they’ve picked up, even if the resulting mix makes no sense. And they’re still hungry.
We need to be confident in proclaiming the Gospel, in all its fulness is true. That it’s the best way to understand the world we live in, to understand reality. That in the person of Jesus we find both stooping Saviour and mighty Lord. That the Gospel both saves us where we are, and calls us to grow, to change, to move further onwards, to change our lives by the power of the Spirit.
People are hungry and all the world provides is junk food, chocolate and sweets and biscuits. Enough to keep going for a bit, probably tastier and more exciting than bread, but we’re soon left hungry again. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is bread to the starving. Food which lasts, which fills and sustains. We’re to present it, humbly but confidently. We don’t have all the answers, but we should share anyway, as one preacher put it ‘Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.’
My brothers and sisters, I said I was done talking about sandwiches, yet here we are at the end of my sermon, still talking about bread. Let us not be like the religious leader of Jesus’ day who had no need of him, let us instead rediscover our hunger for Jesus and the words of life. Let us feed that hunger day by day with the good food of the Scriptures and of solid preaching. And let us not neglect those who find themselves spiritually starving, but humbly and confidently share the Gospel, that bit by bit they may realise their hunger, and bit by bit find themselves longing for more of the one who alone can satisfy.
Amen.