Faith, Grace, and Hope

John 6:35-59 Many of us have restricted diets. Jesus’ words about salt or bread bounce off us as we think about low sodium, paleo, gluten-free, heart-healthy, or the many different ways our diets are different from the diet of a first century Palestinian. However, for Jesus, his followers, and for most people around the world, bread is the stuff of life. Separate bread in your mind from what it takes to make bread. Flour, salt, water, maybe yeast. What do you need to have those things? What’s required for flour? Wheat or some other grain. So you need stability to grow, tend, and harvest that. You need strength and maybe tools for the threshing and grinding. Water needs to be clean. You need a well or a clean water source. You need a vessel to carry it in and a place for safe storage. Salt requires drying or discovery. You need time and space for this. It requires patience and expectation. All of these are gifts that God gives us in Jesus- stability, growth, strength, c...

1 Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:25-5:2; John 6:35, 41-51             My best friend and I are what you might call “eating friends”. She lives in Pennsylvania, but when we know we are going to get together- we immediately start making a list of restaurants in the area in which we will be. We make choices about which days to eat the big breakfast, lunch, OR dinner. We also have foods we both buy or bring, only on trips, because they are our vacation foods and because we enjoy eating them together. For us, the experience of eating together is a fun part of our relationship and our memories of things we have done together. (For the record, we do things other than eat. I think.)             What are some of the reasons we eat? We eat for pleasure. We eat because it’s time. We eat because we’re hungry. Anyone who has worked at losing weight knows that it’s easy to...