Fast Food vs. Fine Dining

John 6:35, 41-51

Today I want to test your fast food knowledge.  I am going to begin with a few interactive questions.  Yes, that means you have to respond.

What do the golden arches represent? – McDonalds

Where can you buy a blizzard? – Dairy Queen

Which chain restaurant claims to serve the better butter burger? – Culvers

Which restaurant was founded by Colonel Sanders? – Kentucky Fried Chicken

Our world is filled with fast food.  If there is one thing we are good at identifying it is fast food.  The book Fast Food Nation claimed that 88 percent of people could identify the golden arches.  We can recognize the signs and know which fast food joint is ahead.  We can find fast food just about anywhere and we expect that when we pull up to the drive thru at Taco John’s on our road trip that they will serve the same signature items, like our dearly loved potato oles, as the one down the street.  This type of food, while usually un-healthy, is quick.  It provides nourishment in an instant, no waiting required.  It is fast and convenient, but does it really nourish us?

So if that is fast food, then what is fine dining?  I think we get a glimpse of it today in our gospel text.  We hear about another type of food and it isn’t fast.  This is the bread of life.  If we feast on this food, the bread of life, we live forever.  We will be nourished eternally.  This is food that is founded on relationship.  Dare I suggest that I don’t think we can live without this fine dining?  In fact if there is one diet that I don’t think Jesus would recommend it is the Atkins diet.  He wouldn’t want us to ditch those carbohydrates.  He wouldn’t want us to miss out on the bread of life.

Just in case there is any confusion I want to make it clear that Jesus isn’t talking about literal bread here.  Jesus is using a metaphor to make the point that just like one cannot survive without the staple food of bread, one also cannot survive without a relationship with him.  Jesus is the staple of our spiritual diet.

            Bread, although a staple food, is pretty ordinary.  It really doesn’t seem that special.  If the metaphor used filet mignon or lobster, then it might seem more special.  I think that is part of Jesus’ point here though.  He is comparing himself to something ordinary.  In doing so he helps us to recognize that God is present in the ordinary, mundane, and unremarkable things in our life.  I also think this plain Jane metaphor is used to emphasize the ordinary part of Jesus.  Jesus, human flesh, born of a young ordinary woman.  However, some people cannot get over how ordinary Jesus was.  That seems to be the problem that the Jews are having in our text today.  They don’t understand how Jesus can claim that he came down from heaven, when they know that he was the son of Mary and Joseph.  They don’t seem to comprehend that Jesus is out of the ordinary, too.  In fact, Jesus is extraordinary, born from above, as living bread from heaven. 

            In order to be in relationship with Jesus, the bread of life, we must be drawn by the God.  We must be pulled, beckoned, even dragged by God.  In this we do not make the first move.  It is not our decision.  God makes the first move, drawing us in closer.  I think this is where the Holy Spirit comes into play.  What brought us to church today?  Sure maybe it is part of your routine.  You enjoy the fellowship.  Maybe your just can’t survive without donut holes and coffee.  Whatever your reason may be I think there is an even bigger reason.  I think the reason is relational.  There is a spiritual need to come to worship to be refreshed, renewed, and revitalized.  I think there is a God sized hole in our bodies that needs to be filled.  For most of us that God sized hole was discovered before we even walked or talked.  In Holy Baptism our parents and sponsors brought us to the font to have that God sized hole filled.  They promised that they would nourish us with more than fast food.  They promised us relational nourishment with the bread of life.  Like children, we are all in need of nourishment and sometimes we can’t even describe what it might look like.

I remember a story, told as a sermon illustration about a minister who was discouraged to learn that his parishioners were hard pressed to recall any of the sermons he had delivered over all the years he had served in their church.  He lamented to his wife that he felt his work was useless if he had made such a little impression on the people he served.  Fifty two sermons a year for so many years, and hardly anyone could specifically recall more than one or two.  After allowing her husband to feel sorry for himself for a while, his wife asked him to describe in detail all the meals she had prepared and served him over the many years of their marriage.  He was hard pressed to specifically remember more than a few. She said to him, “You don’t remember the food I’ve prepared and served this family with love, and yet it has nourished you and sustained you day in and day out for all our lives.”  Then she added, “So it is with the work you do in the church.  The love and care you put into delivering God’s message, both in sermon and in deed, has nourished and sustained the people you serve, whether they can describe it or not.”

Indeed, here we are nourished and sustained.  From this place where we are fed in communion and washed in the waters of baptism we are sent out into the world.  We are sent to be bread for others, nourishment for their lives.  And we are sent to point others towards the bread of life, Jesus, who provides eternal life.  In doing so we show the world that there is something much better than the convenience of fast food, there is fine dining that will fill the God sized hole within us.  Our nourishment can be found in Jesus, the bread that came down from heaven.  Amen.