On Sunday the 30th of July the Peace/Shalom Mission Trip group went to the Founders’ Museum in Thunder Bay. We spent two hours walking the grounds of a wonderful collection of 19th century tools and artifacts and listening to lectures about the lives of the settlers, given by guides in period dress. On Wednesday the 3rd of August, we went to Fort William, the modern re-creation of the old center of the fur trade on Lake Superior. Again, guides in period dress showed us tools, artifacts, told legends, and generally showed us what life was like in the late 17th century in the Thunder Bay area. The kids, of course, called it “the olden days,” but they enjoyed the lectures, especially the demonstration of medical tools and practices around 1815.
These experiences, when combined with our readings from Exodus & John this morning, reminded me of our trip to Disneyland last summer. Not because Disney does such a wonderful job of period reconstruction. I was reminded of our short visit to the sourdough bread factory on the Disneyland property. Many of you know that Kristin is a fiend for sourdough bread, so we HAD to stop. But what we learned there was incredible.
This sourdough bread factory has been in continual operation for over 150 years. That’s not such an incredible thing, until you consider that they’ve moved three times in those 150 years. For most types of bread, that’s no big deal, but for sourdough bread, that’s a BIG deal. Sourdough requires a starter: a mixture of flour and other ingredients that ferments for about a day and then provides its own yeasting action. When it’s ready, you combine the starter with some other ingredients to make sourdough bread, but you also pull a bit of the starter out to ferment another day before doing the same thing all over again. Lose the starter, damage the starter, you lose the ability to make bread.
The sourdough bread factory at Disneyland is using the same starter for its entire existence. The chain is unbroken back to its original building in San Francisco in the late 1800s. The sourdough starter survived earthquakes, fires, floods, and the move from San Francisco to Anaheim to continue making sourdough loaves in Disneyland today. As we watched bakers shape, spray, slice and stack those gorgeous golden loaves, we could see a chain of history going back to a company feeding prospectors during the gold rushes. Seeing history unfold before your eyes is pretty special. We saw it in Disneyland. Our mission trip kids saw it in Thunder Bay at Fort William and the Founders’ Museum. I’m fairly certain most of you have seen something similar in your own lives as well.
Living history is a great tourist attraction. It can even be a wonderful educational experience if it is done correctly. But when I hear Jesus talking about the Bread of Life, it isn’t living history that comes to mind. It’s that starter – that small ball of flour and sugar and milk and other stuff that gets the whole process going.
We read this week that many of the 5,000 people Jesus fed in the wilderness continued to follow him. Why? Not because Jesus was a great teacher, or because Jesus was a great healer, or because Jesus was the Son of God. Jesus was, of course, all those things, but the people followed Jesus because he fed them. When Jesus came, their bellies got filled, and so they followed him. It may be that there ain’t any such thing as a free lunch, but Jesus came close, and so the crowds followed him.
What followed was a conversation for all of us. “Why did you come?” Jesus asked. “I’ll tell you: you came because you got fed for nothing. You didn’t come because of who I am – you came because your stomach told you to come. You came for the loaves – when I could be giving you the Bread of Life itself.”
The people were shocked, and so they defended themselves by reminding Jesus that they had experience with miracle bread: “Our ancestors ate manna in the wilderness – what more could we ask for?” Jesus replied, “I’ll give you the true bread from heaven, the bread that gives life to the world. I’ll give you myself – and if you come to me, you’ll never hunger or thirst for anything again.”
Now, as one who particularly enjoys filling his stomach, I can understand why the people would have followed Jesus to keep their bellies full. Reading the Exodus passage and thinking how the people of Israel were starving in the wilderness, I can sympathize with people who might starve because they have trusted God. Watching all the crying kids at Disneyland around dinnertime, I know that sometimes getting your belly filled is the only thing you’re considering. But consider what Jesus is offering: something more than just bread. And consider well what it is that you are asking of God this morning, also.
Jesus would have given the loaves again if that was all the people needed. Life continues because we feed the body, after all, and the bread of life is a bread that does, in fact, give life to those who eat it. But what would you do if someone offered you something more? What would you do if, on your visit to Disneyland, the folks at the sourdough bread factory offered you a bit of the starter loaf for yourself? How would that change your life?
The bread of life that Jesus offers isn’t just another bit of spiritual nourishment to be sliced, toasted, buttered and consumed. What Jesus offers us in himself is the yeast that fills our entire lives with his presence. What Jesus offers is a transformation that makes us all into bakers, feeding the world through the spreading of the gospel. We are not merely consumers here, people who have come to pay our money, grab a hunk of bread and a sip of wine, and go on our merry way – we are called to nourish the world around us with the very same bread of life we receive here this morning. Your life is a testimony to the bread of life that fills you, and so your call is to tend that fermenting, transforming presence of Christ within you so that the world may be fed through your life.
Keeping the sourdough starter for those 150 years is a remarkable thing, but the sheer number of loaves the factory has produced is, in my mind, the greater achievement. We are not practitioners of living history here – we are living, breathing administrators of the good news of Jesus Christ. We don’t tend the fire so that others will understand what God did in the past – we tend the fire so that others will know what God is doing NOW. Feel the transforming presence of the bread of life within you – and tend it well, so that through you God may continue to nourish the world. Amen.
Welcome back.
ReplyDeleteWell done.
I love the story about the sourdough starter.
Didn't know Disneyland had gotten some of it.
Wow