It only takes one 10 p.m. McDonald’s commercial to stoke my appetite. Even with a great dinner just over my shoulder I’m dreaming of a milkshake in my left hand and hot fries in my right. If I’m strong I’ll settle for some of that cardboard stuff known as “Fat Free Popcorn.” Hey, we all crave the wrong things occasionally.
In a world of Little Debbie cakes, fast food on every corner, and grocery stores gaudy with too many choices, we are a culture addicted to food that is bad for us. We are some serious snackers in the spiritual sense, too, having too often settled for a fast-food religion rather than the life sustaining gourmet feast that is really ours. Jesus challenges us in John 6.26 with a word to the throngs following him around after the feeding of the 5,000, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”
The message of the munchies is that we’ve settled – once again – for something less than God’s best for us. We’ve chosen ritual over relationship, sappy over substantial, and flashy over the real nourishment of Christianity. Many a modern minister has used the worship table to dish up stones for bread, but Christians have endorsed it, gobbling down the byte-sized pabulum that passes for preaching like Scooby-Doo and Shaggy tearing into a foot long hero. Long story short, we need to look for a little more substance in our relationship to God.
That’s what we’ll be discussing this Sunday as we look at John 6.24-35. The sermon is called McDiet and I hope you’ll come hungry.
(p)Reaching for a crispy fry,
Pastor Gary
Long Story, Short is an email I send to get you thinking about church on Sunday. You can read similar things at my blog, Life to the Lees. This week’s sermon is part 2 of 5 in the series Hunger. Upcoming titles and texts are:
July 19 – Tastes Great John 6.35; 41-51
July 26 – Stuffed John 6.60-69
August 2 – True Bread John 6.51-58
John 6:24-35
24So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ 26Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.’ 28Then they said to him, ‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’ 29Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’ 30So they said to him, ‘What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? 31Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” ’ 32Then Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God is that which* comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ 34They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’
35 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
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