When I was 26, I happened to have a whole summer free. I was not working, I was not going to school, and I decided to use that time to learn to made bread. I quickly discovered that there is a good deal of art, and skill involved in bread making. It is an all-day process, with times of activity and times of rest. I learned how best to activate yeast; what kinds of flour to use, and when to add the salt. Above all, I learned the art of kneading, which is a patient rhythm of pushing, folding and turning. And the result was, that I also learned to taste the bread I ate, whether I had made it, or purchased it. By the end of the summer I had perfected the process, and was sorry to give it up for graduate school. I imagine that many of you have made bread at some point in your lives?

Good freshly baked bread is one of the simple pleasures of life. When I go to a restaurant that puts good bread on the table, I remember to go back to that restaurant. When I buy a loaf of bread that is especially good, I go back for more. And when we have freshly baked Communion bread at Sunday Eucharist, I really notice it. In the Western world, bread has been the staple of our diet for approximately 8000 years, eveer since the early hunter-gatherers living in Palestine began gathering wild wheat. As they discovered how to turn wheat into bread, they also discovered that wheat is nutricious: it contains from 10 to 14% protein. By 6000 BC, wheat had been domesticated, and the hunter-gatherers had become farmers. This was the beginning of civilization: when people were able to control their food supply, and store it through the winter, they could build permanent homes. They could afford to release some members of their community from food production, to be warriors, religious leaders, and artisans. It all began with wheat, and bread.

These facts about the centrality of bread are important background for understanding our Gospel reading today. Throughout chapter 6 of John's Gospel, the word bread is used 20 times, and it has at least 4 distinct meanings. What makes this chapter difficult to understand, is that each time the word bread is used, 2 or 3 of the meanings are intended, either by Jesus or by St. John. So this chapter has layers upon layers of meaning. Let me see if I can make those layers visible to you.

The first layer of meaning is, of course, physical bread: the barley loaves which the boy brought to Jesus. Poor people made their bread from barley because it was cheaper than wheat in Galilee. There is no doubt that the feeding of the 5000 was a meal consisting of physical bread, and dried fish, which all the people ate, and were satisfied. Bread is nourishment, which gives energy and strength to hungry people. This is the reason Jesus invited us to ask God to give us "our daily bread", the word bread can also mean food in general--the physical nourishment we need to survive. Closely related to bread is the manna given to the Israelites in the wilderness. Although it was neither wheat nor barley, it was physical bread which God mysteriously provided. Another association would be the unleavened bread which the Israelites were told to prepare for the night of Passover. That too was physical bread, baked in a hurry.

The second layer of meaning is the one Jesus used to describe himself: true bread, living bread, bread of life, bread from heaven. All these expressions are meant to convey the same idea, with bread from heaven alluding to manna. This is metaphorical language, which conveys a higher truth: Jesus is spiritual nourishment, which sustains our souls just as physical nourishment sustains our bodies. Jesus is saying here that people need more than food, and something different from manna. In order to have eternal life, living bread must be eaten--that is clear. But what, exactly, does Jesus mean when he refers to himself as bread?

Perhaps we can see this partly by way of contrast with the third layer of meaning. In last Sunday's reading, Jesus said to those who followed him back across the sea, "do not work for the food that perishes"(6:27). In today"s reading he said, "your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness and they died" (6:48). Here we can guess that there is more to the food that perishes than mere physical bread. Although Jesus did not used this phrase, I think he is talking about the bread of death, which stands in stark contrast to the bread of life. I think the clue to the bread of death is right there in verse 28: it is the question, "what must we do to perform the works of God?" In other words, these questioners want to know what further actions, devotions or work they can do, in order to be given eternal life. They are still thinking of salvation as an exchange: if a person gives God the correct offerings, and enough good deeds, he or she will receive eternal life. This is almost an attitude of paying for eternal life, and it is a short step down to the illusion that those who cannot pay the price, those who cannot perform the works, are expendable. Once performance becomes the basis of salvation, it is time to recognize that the bread of death is on the table.

In these last few weeks, the news has been almost entirely about death. It is devastating to see and to hear how eagerly the army of Israel and the forces of Hezbollah are inflicting death. The intention to kill was brought much closer to us on Wednesday by the discovery of a plan to blow up airplanes travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States. Behind these events is a deep seated anger, which is blended with both fear and ignorance of "those other people". We have seen the same thing recently in Darfur, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq. The bread of death is the conviction that other people must die, in order for "us" to live.

The living bread, the bread of life, is just the opposite. Living bread is both Jesus himself, and is also the trust he invites us to have in the love of God. If it is true that God loves us right now, just as we are, BEFORE we bring offerings, and before we do any deed, good or bad, then fear is dissolved, and the spark of anger dies for lack of fuel. Just as King David loved his son Absalom, even though Absalom was leading a rebel force, so God loves us, and gives us living bread to eat, which is both Word and Spirit. That is to say, we take into our very selves, into our souls, something of God--a divine nourishment which is comforting and strengthening. In some places, that something is named "the Word" which means the Incarnate Word, and also means the Torah, the Law. In other places that something, that metaphorical bread, is the enlivening Spirit of God. However it is named or described, it is a new life, eternal life.

The fourth layer of meaning is Eucharistic bread. Remember that St. John was writing at least 60 years after the resurrection. In this passage he is helping his readers to understand the meaning of the Holy Eucharist they celebrate each Sunday. The bread of life is, indeed, the bread brought to the altar, which becomes for us the Body of Christ. In some spiritual manner, as we remember the many meals Jesus shared with his followers, and as we intend today to receive His presence at this altar, the bread we eat and the wine we drink, conveys eternal life to us as well. The crucial condition we must meet is no less, and no more, than the desire to receive Jesus. Or to use the words of Jesus, when we believe that Jesus is the One whom the Creator sent, then this particular physical bread, baked by a member of the church, becomes the bread of life.

Here I want to make an important qualification. It is easy to forget that the creeds were written several hundred years after the Gospels, and that the theology of transubstantiation, which attempts to describe what happens to the bread, came even later than that. Today, I hope you will try to set all that aside, and hear just what the Gospel says, without the overlays of later interpretation. It is not actually important what happens to the bread on the altar: what is important is what happens to the people when we gather around an altar in Jesus' name. What Jesus said is, that he comes from the Father, the Creator, that he calls people to trust him, to believe in him, and that when we believe, we are taking the bread of life into ourselves. That bread of life connects us to Jesus, and it also connects us to all the others who believe in Jesus, and to all those though the ages who have believed. In contrast to the bread of death, the bread of life enables you and me to participate in an eternal community, where we are known and loved.

Now I hope you can see the four layers of meaning: first, physical bread, second, bread of life, spiritual bread, which is in contrast to the third layer, the bread of death. And finally the fourth layer is the bread of our Eucharist, which is physical bread that is offered, blessed, broken and shared, trusting in the promise of Jesus that we will receive living bread, empowering us to enter eternal life, living without fear in communion with the Holy One.