The Rice of Life

A message by Rob Sack

Crossroads International Fellowship

Pusan, South Korea

August 3, 2003

Text: John 6:24-35

I actually cooked some bread on Friday. I learned this style from my brother, Chris. He and his family make bread regularly, and they always make at least one loaf shaped like a three-strand braid. The three strands represent the trinity: God the Creator, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Fortunately, it was a large enough batch that I could bring some to share with you.

Please, help yourselves. This is not communion, it's just me sharing some bread with you. You don't even have to be a Christian to take this particular bread. I'm sorry I can't offer you anything to drink, and there is definitely no fish involved here.

Bread is something in the Bible that we all have trouble understanding, I think. Koreans and Westerners alike. The last time I gave the sermon, I talked about reading a scripture in the cultural context, and today's is no different.

Probably the easiest word to translate from the original Greek in our passage is "bread". A simple noun, with an easy definition: just point to a loaf of bread. But I think we miss out on a lot of the feelings and implications of bread in the time of Jesus. Bread was the main food of that time and area, and had been for a long, long time. Think back to the exile in Egypt. To prepare to leave Egypt, the Israelites made unleavened bread-bread that would cook quickly, carry easily and last a long time. When they were hungry in the desert, God gave them manna-bread from heaven. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy when he says, "Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." Bread is such a significant food source for these people that they practically consider it to be life itself.

For Westerners, like myself, this is a difficult concept. I tend to get upset if I eat the same food for every meal. I have been asked many times, what kind of food do you like? There is no simple answer: I like rice for one meal, noodles the next, bread here and there, cereal for breakfast (or a snack), or whatever I can get. But if I eat rice for every meal, I'm not happy. Same for bread, same for pasta. So the concept of one food being the basis of my life is lacking.

For Koreans, I think this is easier to understand. I know that not all Koreans eat rice at every meal, but I also know that many do. When we traveled to the Philippines for our honeymoon, we went with a tour group of Koreans. The trip was only for 5 days, but they arranged to eat Korean food for at least one meal every day. I was shocked, because to me eating the food is one of the most interesting things about traveling to a different country, and I never miss a chance to try some different food. But to the Koreans traveling with us, eating all that food that wasn't rice and kimchi was almost like not eating at all. Their daily rice was very important to them.

So I would like to suggest a different translation of some of these verses for Koreans: Instead of saying that Jesus multiplied five loaves of bread, let's translate that as five bowls of rice. Instead of being the Bread of Life, let's make Jesus the Rice of Life. Something we absolutely need to survive, something we need every day.

There. Now that we can better understand the word "bread", let's look at the context of our passage today. Before the verses you have read and heard we have one of Jesus' biggest, most public miracles: feeding the five thousand who came to hear him preach. Five thousand who had followed him because they had heard and seen some of his earlier miracles. Jesus took five small barley loaves and two small fish, and fed around five thousand people. Then the disciples took off in their boat, and Jesus walks off another way, to avoid being made king by the people. Later that night there was a storm, and Jesus walked across the water to the disciples in their boat, and immediately took them to shore.

This is clearly a time of miracles.

The next day the very same crowd manages to track down Jesus and the disciples on the other side of the lake. It would be nice to think that they followed Jesus because they want to hear more of his preaching. I would be nice to think that they were looking for spiritual guidance or enlightenment, that they were hoping to hear a good sermon, or that they just recognized Jesus as the Son of God.

It would be nice, because that crowd is a bunch of regular people. That crowd is you and I. That crowd is looking for the same thing that you and I spend most of our time looking for: our next meal. So when they show up and say, "Hey! Jesus! We were looking for you!" Jesus does the same thing that he does over and over again: He sees right through the small talk and cuts to the heart of the matter.

Jesus says, "You aren't here because of the miracles, you are here because of your stomachs. You want rice. Don't work for food, work for eternal life!"

As with many of Jesus' harsher words, these scald us, too. How much time do you spend putting bread (or rice) on the table? How much of your work day is spent in making sure that you can eat rice? I'm sure that if you do a little math, you will find that you spend at least 40% of your waking time working at your job. Some of you probably score closer to 80%. Of course, now it's summer vacation, so some of us are spending quite a bit less than usual. Still, how does that compare to the percent of the time you spend reading the Bible and praying? If you actually spend an hour a day on spiritual matters, that is only about 6% of your waking time. You can get it up to 7% if you sleep 10 hours a day, but it is not a satisfactory improvement.

And so, once again, we feel guilty. Maybe you think your situation looks hopeless. How are you going to possibly get that spiritual time percentage up on a par with your work time percentage without quitting your job? And if you quit your job, where will you live? How will you pay for your rice? Most of us simply cannot face questions like that. We can't cast off all of our possessions and not work for rice!

Thank God the story doesn't stop at verse 28, because in verse 29 the people ask Jesus, "What should we do to do the works God requires?" And Jesus tells them the Good News. Friends, Brothers and Sisters, this is what the Gospel is all about, when Jesus tells them this:

"The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

You don't have to read the Bible eight hours a day. You don't have to follow all the rules. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to quit your job. All you have to do is believe. Amazing news, and yet the people received it so very poorly. They knew that Jesus meant himself, but they questioned him. They asked him for a miracle! Amazing! "What are you going to do to prove that you are the one? Our forefathers ate manna in the desert, so what will you do?"

I really don't know what the crowd is thinking at this point. Maybe they want him to part the Sea of Galilee for them to walk home. Maybe they want some more bread. Maybe they want rice. Maybe they want a laser show and fireworks display. It is hard to believe that these are really the same people who were fed just the previous day.

But Jesus sees exactly what they want, and he refuses to give it to them. They want another hero. They want a Moses, a David, a Solomon. Someone who will feed them, take care of them, and maybe even crush the Romans. Jesus tells them what they really need by way of destroying an idea that was popular at the time. The idea that Moses provided for the Israelites in the desert. Listen to what Jesus says in verse 32:

"I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

Let's take this one part at a time. In the first part Jesus addresses a widely held misconception at that time: the idea that Moses provided for the exiles in the desert. He shoots it down entirely, doesn't let them hold on to a shred of it. He puts the credit exactly where it is due: in God's hands. God provided for the people in the desert, and God provides for them NOW.

This sentence is striking because it jumps from the time of Moses into now. Some translations say, "it is not Moses who gave," and some say, "has given." Either way, Moses had died a long time before this conversation. What's striking is that the subject seems to be the same: Bread that keeps people alive. In the desert, without the manna from Heaven, the Israelites would have starved. And at the time of this conversation, there was still Bread from Heaven. Bread that was as important for their survival, for OUR survival, as food was in that huge, empty desert, so long ago.

Then comes the big shocker: That bread that they need to survive is a person. When they ask for Jesus to give them the bread, he says, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."

Jesus wasn't just talking to a crowd of people who followed him across the lake to Capernaum. If it were meant to be a private conversation, it wouldn't have been written here in the Bible. No, we are not meant to be listening to this conversation the same way you listen to a TV show. We are part of this conversation. We are that crowd. We are the ones who pray, "Oh God, please make sure I get enough to eat," and "Please convince my boss to take it easy on me." We're focusing on the rice in the bowl, and not on the Heavenly Rice that is Jesus.

When we believe in Jesus, when we trust in Jesus, our rice takes care of itself. When we put our lives in His hands, we are free to be more loving. The work we do at our jobs becomes the work that is pleasing to God, because it is done through belief in Jesus Christ.

Our scripture today stops short of the reaction of the people. What's important is how you react. Who will you depend on for your daily rice? Yourself? Your family? Or will you take The Rice that gives you eternal life? It also does not explain how one man can be that Bread, that Rice. But if you keep reading you will find out.

I want you to pray with me now: Lord, I depend you on for everything. Everything that I have, everything that I am, belongs to you. Please bend my will to your own. Make me hungry for you. Lead me to you. Take me in your arms. In your Son's name I pray, Amen.

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