SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good day and welcome to North Raleigh United Methodist Church Behind the Scenes Podcast, where we sit down weekly and discuss this week's scripture and sermon. My name is Kevin Van Hall. I serve as your moderator, and joining me today is one of the senior lead pastors here at North Raleigh, Kevin Johnson. Hi, Kevin.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Hey, good to see you.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Good to have you. Thanks for uh joining us today as we uh continue on with summer, June. It is June now, and the weather is warm and kids are some are out of school, some are getting ready to get out of school. And we are still here as we start a new series. We are starting a brand new series this week called, or this week. It's the beginning of this week. It's a seven-week-long series. The I am's we found in the book of John, the Gospel of John. Last week we had Trinity Sunday was on the Sunday sermon for Laura, and we talked about that on the last podcast about the mysteries of God and trying to understand the whole Trinity concept as a whole. I think this is a little bit easier podcast. Much, much easier. Although John can kind of get uh spiritually, metaphorically, and we're gonna talk about that on the on the podcast. So, and that's where we are today in John and the new series, I am the bread of life, starting in chapter six. So, first of all, Kevin, give us a little background. Why this series?

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Yeah, well, we realized that we hadn't preached from the Gospels for a little bit and just done a kind of in-depth series around Jesus and some of his teaching. Um and this makes for a good just really a nice um a nice set of scripture texts to look at. There are seven I am sayings in John's gospel. So there's seven specific references where he says, I am the bread of life, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the true vine, I am the good shepherd, right? So, like all of those sayings. Um and I on on one glance we think of those as really simple Jesus using himself as a metaphor to help describe who he is. I'm the gate for the sheep. And so, okay, well, Jesus, or I'm the way, the truth, and the life. Um and while that's true, when Jesus said the words I am, which are translated from the Greek ego e me, and um that word in Hebrew would have sounded really similar to the name of God that we often say like Yahweh, um it's it's the Hebrew letters Yod He Vav He. And and that verb that that word for God is really based around the the the word to be. And so that in that translated, transliterated into Greek would have sounded like I am. So when Jesus says I am, it's also it's also a play on that he's also using the the name of God. Okay. So there's there's so it's not only he he says I am, you know, these things, the bread of life, the light of the world, all of these things, but he also in other places just says, I am, the one who speaks to you am he, or something like that, or he just says, I am. And and those are also all reference to the name of God in Hebrew. So Jesus saying I am is a it's it's a it's a loaded statement in and of itself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yeah, he well, Jesus liked to stir the pot. Um he poked the bear, the Pharisees a little bit. Um they were constantly wanting signs and this, and he would often go, You're not gonna get one, after he just performed miracles. Sure, sure. So he uh we see it, it's easy for us to see it, I guess, two thousand years later, sure. Versus seeing it and listening and hearing it at the time. I wonder so often, we're we're gonna get into it a little bit more after we read the passage, we're there in John chapter six, right after they just get done feeding the five thousand. So often the disciples and others just take everything so literally. I wonder if they ever spoke metaphorically in that day.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Well, I think I think they did. I think there was plenty of metaphor to be found. I mean, I think, you know, when Jesus speaks in parables all over the place, I think, you know, those are basically extended metaphors, right, or things like that. So I do think that that world existed just as much as it does today. I think there's a level of a lack of understanding on the disciples' parts or on the crowd's parts. Also says something to us about kind of their faith in these things and and kind of where where their faith is or is not, or if they're really understanding who Jesus is. So I do think that sometimes we have to think of the crowd's lack of understanding as almost a foil against Jesus and and and a way for us to think about our own selves as to whether we're understanding what Jesus is saying about who we are. So of course it's easy for us on our side, like you said, it's easy for us on our side of it to see, oh, you stupid crowds or you stupid Pharisees and this thing, don't you get what he's saying? But I I don't think that's the purpose. I I think the purpose is really to say, oh, these on they get it on one level, especially in John, but they don't get it at at the deeper, at the deeper level. They don't they're not grasping it or they're not seeing it.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Yeah. Well, the difference between the uh first three versus John, the synaptic synoptic gospels uh versus John. John is much more spiritual, John is written much later in and John writes it with more of the meaning versus the other ones, and Matthew is more of the historical reference of the timeline of what's going on and what's what's happening, and John is trying tries to give us things. I just love how the parables, how he speaks in parables, is a way to poke poke at the Pharisees without actually calling them out in a sense as well. So, but that's where we are. We're gonna be in John in this new series, uh starting today, the I am, beginning with the bread of life. And we're gonna read here in just a second, but how about a word of prayer first? Sure.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Lord, I pray that you would open us up to hear your word today, that you would um call us to yourself, and that you would help us to receive the life that you offer us in your living bread. I pray that you would be with our conversation and be with our those who listen, that you might open their ears to hear and eyes to see in Christ's name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Amen. So John chapter six, verses thirty through fifty-nine, but we're gonna break it up just a little bit. Yeah. And then um and then talk a little bit about the way. So uh whenever you're ready. Yeah, we'll start in verse 30.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

We're gonna take it probably through verse 42 um right now, and we'll see how if we get through the whole text or not. They asked, What miraculous sign will you do that we can see and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate man in the wilderness just as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Jesus told them, I assure you, it wasn't Moses who gave the bread from heaven to you, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. The bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said, Sir, give us this bread all the time. Jesus replied, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I told you that you have seen me and still don't believe. Everyone whom the Father gives to me will come to me, and I won't send away any one who comes to me. I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of him who sent of the one who sent me, that I won't lose anything he has given me, but I will raise it up at the last day. This is my Father's will, that all who see the Son and believe in him will have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. The Jewish opposition grumbled about him, because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They asked, Isn't this Jesus, Joseph's son, whose mother and father we know? How can he now say, I have come down from heaven?

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Again, uh literally versus uh metaphorically, or trying to understand the spiritualness of Jesus, that last little part. How could he have just come down from heaven? We know that he is uh the son of Joseph. We grew up here in Nazareth. So again, they they can't uh understand the concept of the uh son of God, the son of man who was with God in the beginning, and that's a little bit hard for us to understand, even at this time.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Can you imagine? I mean, can you imagine without having the creed that is set it up for us and decided I mean I don't think I would get it. And so I do think sometimes it calls for us to enter into their shoes a little bit and say, what is some he I'm the living bread that comes down from heaven? What the heck are you talking about, right? And they're saying, Well, no, you're not. We we've known you since you were little. Like I I was your babysitter, right? I you know, I wiped your tish when you were little. What are you talking about, right? That's and so I think they're like, You didn't come down from heaven? Uh you you You came from Mary. Like we they're they're just confused.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Well, yeah, well they saw Elijah go up into heaven in a chariot, right? So or they know that they they think if he says he came down from heaven, not in incarnate, they think Yeah, they're thinking a full-bodied adult coming down from heaven on the clouds with a host of angels surrounding him, and they don't understand that. So but I think Jesus is trying to under explain to him why he is the bread of life, trying to say where he is coming from. The bread comes from God, and I'm the bread, I came from God, henceforth, you know. That's why I'm saying I'm the bread of life. Exactly. They're just they they just got done uh seeing him feed 5,000 with loaves of bread and fish, right? So they're still hung up on on the bread, on the material, the actual piece of food that sustains us, and Jesus is trying to get them to think outside of the box. Or is it John that's trying to get us to understand? Because this is again, you find this in John, you don't find this in in the other gospels where they're arguing over well, what is he or who is he as much. So do you think the emphasis here is actually John trying to get us extended as much as uh because obviously if you didn't understand what was being put forth, you probably wouldn't write about it in your gospel. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Yeah, I I I think that to a certain degree all these gospel writers actually have the community that they're coming from in mind when they're writing it. So I do think that John is actually thinking about when Jesus goes into deeper detail here about you know, whoever eats of my flesh and drinks of my blood, those are clear Eucharist references for us. I'm not saying Jesus didn't say that, but I am saying that that hasn't even been established yet, right, at this point in the gospel. So I do think that John is saying something to his community too about their practice of communion or something like that, even in this, right? So so there's multi-layers going on. Jesus is speaking to these crowds, Jesus is also speaking through John too, John's church community in A, you know, AD, 80 or 90, and Jesus speaking to us today. So there there's there's just a there's a lot, there's a lot going on in the audience of whom Jesus is talking to, right? And so so there's just a lot, a lot there. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

And well, go all the way back to the very beginning of the passage um when you were talking about, and he's saying he's trying to explain how the bread that you spoke of that Moses gave you didn't come from Moses, came from God. But uh the bread that I offer, that I am, is going to be the bread of everlasting life. I don't think they actually understand it. They think of it's oh, give me that kind of bread. It's just like the woman in the well. Happens just in the previous chapter with Jesus. She wants that living water that's going to sustain it forever. I don't have to keep coming back here.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

I've got to keep coming back to the well.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

I want this bread every day, I want this water every day. So very, very similar. Uh, even talks about it, even says you'll never hunger again, you'll never thirst again, just like he's he tells she didn't get it, they don't get it. They want the actual water, they want the actual food. So they're just not going to um understand it later on in the verse that it gets into where some people at this point leave. I mean, yeah. So Jesus isn't talking to just a small crowd or just a few of the disciples, he's talking to a large crowd.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Yeah, I mean it says the crowd, right? So um yeah, this isn't just this isn't just the disciples, and and it's clear that they don't understand that the feeding the 5,000 was even a miracle, right? So maybe they don't grasp what has just happened, the ones who were there. I mean, I think there's a good argument be made for that, because he's saying because they're immediately saying, What sign will you show us? Right?

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Right. Um Yes, so he he they feed five thousand, he they leave, he walks across the water, and then he comes back and meet meets them again. And again, it's the huge crowd that is it that is there.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

And uh which also he's just walked on water too, and they're asking for a sign, right? So there's there's some irony there too. Like he's literally just fed 5,000 and walked on the water, and you're saying, What kind of sign will you show us? Right? So they're they just want they want Siegfried and Roy. Right? They want to be a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

I I I I show, I guess, another magic trick wasn't good enough.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Do us another magic trick, you know? Do the one where the lion eats you in half or something, right? And and and and Jesus is like, listen, you know, God provided for you a man in the wilderness, right? Remember that? Remember that in our story, people? Remember? For 40 years, every single day, God provided enough, right? And yet, you know, we can look back to that story. That's the other passage we're gonna read on Sunday, and we won't reference that too much, but you know, what do the people do, right? God says, God says, Don't don't put too much away. It'll spoil. What do they do? They put too much away. Well, they learn. Then he says, Then he says, collect double for Sunday for the Sabbath, right? On Friday I'll I'll I'll give you twice as much and it won't go bad for that extra day. And what do they do? You know, they don't collect enough for you. So so it's it's this is and Jesus here is saying, and that was just God provide for you then, but now here I am, and I'm this bread of life. And and and John, you know, this is the most that John is gonna teach about the descent of Jesus, right? So he really gets into this in his incarnational theology, but he talks a lot in John 6 about the Son of Man coming down, right? Or about this bread from heaven that comes down to you. Um and like you said, they have the imagery of of Elijah ascending, but the idea about the idea about God coming down to them is a pretty foreign concept to a Jew at that time. And so I do think it's they just don't get it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Well, they just have to, we have the luxury again. We can go back to John first in the beginning. Very, very in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God with the so when Jesus says you have to eat the bread that I have, and I am the bread, he's literally saying the word, the word of God, you have to believe in God, you have to believe in me, and then you're gonna be saved. It's just like me saying, Um, Kevin, did you see that uh that that sermon from the uh the other day from this pastor, man? The people in the audience, they were just eating it up. Yeah. Metaphorically saying, they're just eating up the word that he's he's putting out there. That's literally what Jesus is trying to say. You need to eat up, eat this up, take it all to heart, everything that I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Yeah. I think that's a good, I think that's a good way to to frame it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

And and so again, we have that luxury of having the entire gospel of John to look at it and study it and try to understand it versus them just going, okay, they understood about the manna and the desert. It was food. We were starving without it.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Yeah. They don't they don't have John 1.14 when it says the word became flesh and dwelt among us. They don't have that. They don't have that. So I can't I can't be too judgmental on their understanding. Almost think of them, you we almost have to read when we read about I think it's helpful when we read about the disciples, or when we read about the Pharisees, or we read about the crowd in this case, or Jewish opposition in some of John, to think of them collectively as as a character in the story. Right? And that what the gospel writers are always trying to do is to provide someone with Jesus to help move the story forward. And sometimes that means that they they appear really stupid to us sometimes as as readers, at least at first glance, until we realize, well, they don't have the whole story. They're not there or or we think about it from their perspective, we're like, gosh, Jesus was really saying things that are really offensive to their sensibilities sometimes. Now in this case, not as much, until he starts saying, until he goes on and says, you know, because it's gonna go on. I mean, maybe we should just read a little more, right? Verse 43, Jesus responded, Don't grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless they are drawn to me by the Father who sent me, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written, the prophets, and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has listened to the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God. He has seen the Father. I assure you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate man in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that whoever eats it from it will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Then the Jews debated among themselves, asking, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Right? So we think of it like, oh, well, obviously he's talking about communion. But but if someone came to you and said, Well, if you just eat some of my flesh, then you'll have eternal life. You sound like a madman, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:59

A lot of people, and and I if you go on later on in the passage to John, a lot of people leave at this point. They're hung up on the bread. They didn't they hear any of the other parts? I mean, Kevin, I could I could look at that and I could argue, well, he doesn't even necessarily talking about the Eucharist to me. Sure, because he wants me to take is his word, not the actual bread or his body being broken for me. I'm thinking of that the Eucharist more of the last supper. I'm literally thinking that he's saying the word. God brings you to me and you listen to me literally, you believe in me literally, and I will save you. I'm not gonna let you go. And then they go, How is he from heaven? How is he bred? And I'm like, didn't you just hear all of everything else he said? He talked about the last days and judgment and being raised again and how you died before, but now that he is here, you'll have a chance to live. No one asks that question. Yeah. No one even talks about when you mean the last day, or you're gonna give me everlasting life, where am I gonna live? They're gonna go, oh, you're bread, and I'm supposed to eat you? Just can't get the. They can't get there. No, they can't get there. Can't get over it.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Yeah. When I do wonder what what is it, what is it that keeps us from getting like what is it that gets in our way of receiving the bread of life? What is it that gets in our way of receiving that from Jesus? I think that's where the questions start to go.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yeah, where are we hung up on that's keeping us to see the real meaning here?

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Sure. Or where are we where am I so busy trying to procure my own bread that I'm not dependent upon Jesus? I th I you know, I th I tie I I'm thinking about how to connect with the Lord's Prayer, right? And give us his day, our daily bread. And where where am I so b where am I so busy making sure I got my own bread that I'm not leaning on Jesus to actually provide me the real bread? Right. Where I mean there's a lot we can do with that and to think about it. 'Cause I do think Yeah, I I think to some standpoint we don't actually get it any more than the crowds do.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Um we well there's a hunger in your belly and that when uh you get hangry. I've been hangry before. You get tired, you've been hungry, and I'm talking about real, real hunger, and you can't focus on anything else other than I've got to get some food in my belly first before I can. And it does. It just takes it takes over your thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Yeah, you've gone you've gone to the grocery store hungry before. You don't make good decisions in the grocery store. Yeah. Um yeah. So so I do I I think Jesus also starts what's interesting with this I am saying, right? He's John starts it, it tells us this is the first one. It's so it's so base level, right? I'm I'm bread. Like not something really ethereal, like like bread, right? And I think this is what's great about sacraments when we tie it to that, is to say we're saying that Jesus is present in bread, in grape juice, in water, right? That's that's what we say in the sacraments, that Jesus is present in everyday ordinary stuff, and that somehow he meets us in that. And that that's how God has ordained the world to operate, that we can see and experience God in the normal everyday. Um Laura and I read this great book when we first had children, and and and the author, Laura Kelly Finucci, she wrote a book called Everyday Sacrament. And she wrote, she's Catholic, she wrote about seven sacraments, um but wrote about them through the lens of parenting little kids. And it was so helpful because it was it opened us up to understand God's grace in the midst of diaper changes, and um right, and you don't always remember them then, um, or tantrum or whatever. Um but the idea that that God is present and God's grace is present in the midst of kind of the everyday and ordinary thing. Um so anyway, that just kind of reminded me of that when we're well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

I mean it it's hard to think esoterically, it's it's hard to think about the kingdom of heaven and God sometimes when you're just going through struggles or things here on la earth, and I can only imagine what it is for a homeless person that just wants uh the next meal. Sure or a roof over the room.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Yeah, I mean it's it's really sort of start to think on like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? Um you know, and and on that, you know, we start with you know, food and shelter stuff, and and it's only later that he says we can get to God. But then when you meet people who who who truly are dependent upon God for their daily needs. And I think maybe it's one of the greatest challenges we have in a you know, first in America, but then also then in a pretty wealthy zip code in America, uh in a pretty wealthy area. Um it's I think it's a challenge that we have. I not just not just those darn listeners I have or something like that, but myself, right? Is is how much am I really dependent upon God for my daily needs? You know? Yeah. Oh, each or is or is or is my word or is my word of grace before a meal really a pat on the back to myself for having earned it?

SPEAKER_00 25:40

There's something to be said there about that arrogance, that self, that pride that's I mean, I I'm just I'm just saying, right? And so uh and but yeah, but and but back to this ideas. But we're gonna start just because we're starting to run out of out of time, but we want to start uh just trying to summarize it and and push your sermon. I I know you haven't probably written it yet, and you're just coming up with ideas. There's several different ways you can go here, other than just the uh bread. There's so much offering uh instances of the last day, eternal life, and if you believe in me. But I also find very interesting is no one comes to me except the Father, that Father has to send them to me. Never really looked that that hard in this passage, other than myself getting hung up on the fact that Jesus is saying he is the bread of life. He's literally saying the Father is going to send people to me. So again, these words are written for us and are gonna last. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

I do think, I mean, I do think in those things, I I this is very John, is this idea of the unique relationship of the Father and the Son, and that somehow we then get caught up into that. This is it it's another way to understand the Trinity that Pastor Laura didn't have time to get into last week, is that the spirit is actually the bond of love between the father and the son. This is what Augustine said. And um and that and he really drew this a lot from from John, from John theology. And you can hear a lot of John theology undergirding that language at the beginning of the Sun part of the Nicene Creed, right? God from God, light from light, all of that, true God from true God, that's that's John 1, right? That's that's um so I do think that this unique relationship of the Father and the Son, and that the Son is doing the work of the Father, the Son is carrying out, yeah, drawing us as humans into relationship with God, that that's all that pervades John's world too. So there's like you know, whenever we look at one of these passages too, there's multi-levels for us to look at. So I mean, I think the challenge the challenge for a preacher in it is figuring out which string to pull, because there's a lot. There's a lot to pull on. There's a lot of good stuff. So it is. It's rife with all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

A lot, a lot. At least like we said, the comparison always goes back to the woman at the well. It makes me think of you could lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. That water that drink is is that Jesus is it's there. But you someone has to lead that horse to it. And then once the horse is there, it still has to have the choice. It has the choice to will if I want to take up this water, take up this bread, believe in Jesus or not. But until that horse is led there, the guy's leading people or to Jesus, that horse could wander around the desert lost. So, how often are previous people just wander around lost? And we need to be led to Jesus and then not only led to Jesus, we need to eat up that word and understand it in order to really understand it and be saved.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Yeah, I mean, it makes me think, you know, your your frame of eating eating the word, it makes me think of Ezekiel, and when Ezekiel talks about like, you know, God tells him, Well, eat this book. He says, the prophet Ezekiel, or early in it, when he's given Ezekiel's calling, he said, he says, eat this. He says, Eat the book. And he says, I ate it. And you know, it reminds me then of Revelation when he says, Eat, eat this scroll. And he says, Well, I ate it. It tasted like honey. I mean, there's it's really there's ties into this like consuming the word of God um in there that are also really interesting. I probably won't preach about on Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Well, that's why we we have that opportunity to talk about it here on this podcast. We expand on it. It's a it's 30 minutes long. We get an opportunity to go above and beyond what might be said in the sermon. Uh sermon sometimes is you only got so much time, you got one point to get across, you can't get three or four.

SPEAKER_02 29:49

No, if I still preach about Ezekiel in the middle of this one, you know I've gone I've gone off the rails a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

It's not like the old days, like uh John Wesley sit in the pulpit for two or three hours, put people to sleep. But uh can you imagine? I yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Can you imagine if we went for hour 15 one Sunday, what people would do? Lord have mercy.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Well, I don't I don't know. I have no idea what everyone would know. What's everyone's gonna happen? I don't even know what people actually think of our podcast. We get good responses, bad responses. Uh we want to thank everyone for listening and for giving us the feedback. Give us more feedback. If you love of what you hear, let us know. If you don't, um let Laura know. She'll do. So, but um so you gotta come to uh service, I guess, on Sunday to hear what you can.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

See what's gonna happen. We got I'm gonna do with this. During 11 o'clock, we'll have graduation Sunday this Sunday. Um so that's coming up as we kind of are in that in that kind of beginning of summertime, and and there's some some good, exciting things going on in in the life of the church. And uh just invite you to come and come and be a part of it and come worship with us. And if you're if you haven't ever before, we'd love to have you come.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Right, right. And uh shout out, we've got a new contemporary service. I have our intern is started now.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Yeah, yeah. Our interim, our interim worship leader Jacob has started. He's doing a great job. So uh that's going well. And yeah. So that's good.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

So even though it's you think it's summer break, a lot of things are still going on. Yeah. A lot of still things still happening. And we'll be here next week as we continue on with this series of the IM series. And next week, um, I'll be here with Laura as we talk about the light of the world. That's right. So please come back and uh and join us next week. So until then, may the love of Christ be with you always. Goodbye, everyone. Thanks.