And now on certain mornings, the smell of freshly baked whole wheat bread wafts up and awakens us with its delicious fragrance.

We often forget how important and nutritious bread is.
It is full of B-vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
It has been the staple of diets around the globe, both in leavened and unleavened forms.
At one time, wheat bread was a luxury item for the rich - it was soft and delicious, cut well, and responded better to leaven than other grains.
In the time of Christ, and through most of history, the bread of the poor was made of barley, or rye.
They yielded a dark, tough loaf
- still nutrient rich, but not so easy on the palette.
The bread was so tough that it was necessary to break it apart, rather than cut it.

Hence the necessity of Jesus breaking the loaves in the wilderness.

Nowadays, it is the whole-grain bread that is the food of the rich -
the other day I purchased a delicious loaf of whole-grain sourdough bread at Wegmans’ for 4.50.
I could have bought white bread for 99 cents.

In our society, bread is often maligned.
How many of us have at one time or another been on a low-carb, or no-carb diet,
in which we saw bread as Public enemy number one? We are blessed to have myriad choices in our culinary lives, and eating bread is not a necessity, but a choice. Most of us probably see the line in the Lord’s Prayer metaphorically - when we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," we are asking God to meet our needs, whatever they are. in the time of Christ, however, bread was the basis of their diet. The bread came in small flat loaves, somewhat like Pita bread, only much darker. If the poor were lucky, there would be some pickled fish to go with the bread - small fish similar to sardines or herring. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray,
Give us this day our daily bread,

He was teaching them to depend on God for their very sustenance.

During the middle ages, England passed laws that regulated the cost of bread, so that the poor would have access to something to eat.
For the majority of the world, bread is still the edible substance that stands between life and death.
Last week I was talking with Michael Curley, who had just returned from the orphanage in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
He told us about one of the workers from the orphanage who was in the city and saw a young girl living on the street with her younger brothers. He asked her, "Have you had anything to eat today?"
And she answered, with a smile, "No sir, but I had some coffee yesterday."

Jesus knew hunger intimately.
Perhaps that’s why he insisted on the crowds being fed that day, before he ever started teaching.
He knew that empty stomachs must be filled before spiritual hunger can be addressed.

He also knew that the miracle of feeding 5000 people was only a prelude to what he wanted to teach them. Yet afterward, the people, so excited about his powers to fulfill their physical needs, wanted to make him king on the spot.

Jesus had a much larger agenda than feeding 5000 men -

If one continues to read in chapter 6 of John,
one finds that Jesus, confronted with the crowd again, tells them that what they sought was greater than any loaf of bread he could create.

Though they didn’t know it, the hunger resided in their souls -

They could continue to seek miracles and great wonders their entire lives….

Or they could accept the Living Bread of Jesus Christ, nourishing in ways far beyond their expectations.

What they sought, but failed to recognize, was God himself.

IN our collect today, we read, Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him.

Evermore give us this bread…
So should our cry be,
while we pray for those who hunger physically,
while we work with those who still lack their daily loaf, let our prayer be,
Evermore give us this bread, the bread from heaven,
to feed our souls.
For it is only in the strength of Christ, given to us,
that we can reach out to a hungry world.

What happened in the wilderness that day is a mystery- we don’t know how Jesus turned 5 loaves of barley bread into enough to feed 5000 men -

What happens as we gather around the communion rail is a mystery as well -
For Jesus the living bread told us,
take, eat, this is my body, which is given for you - and so we receive Christ in the bread and the wine-
we receive his strength and nourishment,
that we might become his hands and feet in the world, bringing the living bread to others -
And so that we ourselves might be strengthened, consoled, pardoned, and renewed.
We receive Christ by faith - the bread of angels, given for us.

Last week some members of our Pastoral care committee took freshly baked bread to the houses of people that had recently moved in to the area.

It is an ongoing ministry of hospitality,
a reminder that Jesus cares for both the physical and spiritual needs of each person.
It is another way to invite people into our midst, so that we might share the Bread of Heaven with them.
Today, if this sermon about food has made you wish you’d eaten more for breakfast,
there is a brunch in Macdonald hall to benefit Paul’s Place.
It is another opportunity to feed body and soul, as you help support those that are hungry.
Above all, today you have another opportunity to receive the body and blood of Christ, the nourishment of the soul.
Evermore give us this bread…
That we might become bread for the world - taken blessed, broken, and given,
In his name.

Amen