Personal Experience
When I was growing up, we would have family gatherings at the house where my dad grew up in New England. We called it “The Ranch”.
Now, my dad was one of 16 children, and he was one number 14 of 16. So, by the time I came around, those 16 children had had dozens and dozens of children of their own. So, anytime we gathered at the Ranch, whether it was for Christmas, Easter, Summer vacations, there were cousins a plenty running around the house. Think of the movie Home Alone, and the absolute chaos that you see with everyone running around the house the day before they leave for the airport. That was the Ranch for the Krey’s in the 90s and early 2000s.
Now with any family gathering, food is important. But when you have 40-60 people gathered, it becomes all the more important. My Aunt Johanna and Aunt Tirzah would hold court in the kitchen all day, cooking one meal, and then the next, and the next, and people would rotate in and out to talk with them and to eat their meals with them.
Of the meals that we ate, there were frequent and favorites. Potato Soup. The potato soup was always so rich and delicious. After one bowl you could easily be full, but it was so good that you needed get another. I have tried to recreate the recipe many times, and even though I can make a really delicious potato soup, I can’t seem to get it to be quite the same. Then there was French Toast. The French toast was also incredible. It was the perfect brunch French toast. Not too sweet and not too eggy. You could eat it with or without syrup and it would be perfect in every way. I have never been able to find one like it and never been able to make it the same way. And then of course, there were the Donuts. Every time we went to The Ranch, there were these perfect homemade donuts that were covered in sugar. Just out of the oil, they were soft and warm and delicious. But somehow, they got better with age. The next morning, they were just a little stale and had the perfect chewiness. Now, I even made these, multiple times, with my aunt Johanna. And when I made them with her, they turned out perfectly. But I have tried to recreate them on a number of occasions and surprise, surprise, they have never turned out quite right.
No matter how many times I’ve tried to recreate an Aunt Johanna recipe, it has never tasted as good.
My Dad has always said it’s because they baked their own bread and used the stale pieces of that to make the French toast, but my Aunt Johanna said that by the time I came around they were using store bought bread. Some of my cousins have hypothesized that maybe the old pots and pans had extra flavoring in them from decades of use. But I’m not sure that’s it, either.
Perhaps what is most baffling is that none of these theories explain how the one thing we *should* be able to recreate from our days at the ranch can’t be done. Sunkist soda.
For every gathering, my aunts would go out and buy boxes and boxes of Sunkist (the orange soda that comes in those bright orange cans). They would keep it down in the basement fridge and every few minutes, you’d see a young cousin make the trek down into the scary basement to get the most delicious drink in the world, Sunkist. Seriously, it was one of the most refreshing drinks after you’d been playing whiffle ball outside with everyone or upstairs playing Sonic on the Nintendo.
For a while in Philadelphia, you couldn’t find Sunkist in stores. But then one year it arrived! My parents surprised my brothers and I with it at the house. We were SO excited. We got it into the fridge and let it get cold. That night for dinner we all popped our cans open took a sip… and grimaced. It tasted completely different. Maybe they changed the recipe, we asked one another? But sure enough, later that year, we went back up to the Ranch, cracked open a can of Sunkist and it was somehow delicious again.
Is that house in Wilmington, Massachusetts some magical place where all foods and drinks miraculously taste delicious? Probably not.
Maybe it’s that the Ranch and all our meals there, were made better because of the people we were gathered with and the community that was present around us.
Gospel Context
In today’s Gospel, we’re on the heels of the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. The crowd is searching for Jesus, wanting… wanting… something.
They end up finding him across the sea and Jesus sees what they want. They want more food. But not just any food, they want the food that came from a miracle.
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.’ ”
The crowd understands what happened, they knew it was manna from above. They weren’t doubting a miracle, they believed that Jesus did it and now they wanted that manna again. They wanted Jesus to perform another miracle for them to see and they wanted to find that instant gratification from the manna of heaven.
That meal, where Jesus broke the bread and shared the fish for 5,000 people and all were satisfied, was maybe the greatest meal they’d ever had in their lives, and they wanted to recreate again, right here, right now.
But the food was barley loaves and dried fish.
Was it the greatest meal because the food was the best they’d ever had?
Was it the greatest meal because the food came from a miracle?
Jesus answers, “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.” 35Jesus 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.”
The meal in the feeding the 5,000 was the greatest meal they’d ever had because it gave life. 5,000 people were able to eat and be in community together. 5,000 people were not turned away but were welcomed. 5,000 people were able to be in the presence of love, grace, and mercy. 5,000 people were able to eat in the presence of Jesus.
Think about the greatest meals you’ve ever had. Was it about the food that you ate or those you shared it with?
The potato soup, the French toast, the donuts, the Sunkist: All ordinary food, made extraordinary by the family and love that it was shared with.
Barley loaves and dried fish, ordinary food, made extraordinary by the community of God and the grace and love that it was shared with.
Bread and wine, ordinary elements that we share at the table each week, made extraordinary because we eat together in a community and hear the ever-present love and grace of God that is for us.
This Gospel text today, does not discount the necessity of our ministry in caring for those who are hungry and those who don’t have enough to eat. Jesus still fed the 5,000 people that were gathered. And our ministry in the world around is still to feed those who are in need of food. All should have enough to be satisfied and it is the work of the church to help ensure that.
But Jesus’ words today remind us of an additional lesson. We cannot mistake basic, physical sustenance for life. We need food to physically live and survive. We need clean water to quench our thirst and to live healthily. But just consuming sustenance does not give us abundant Life.
Life, true Life, is found in moments of community, where love is shining around us, where God is present with us, and where all find welcome and invitation.
Comparing the Wedding at Cana
At the wedding at Cana in chapter 2 of John’s Gospel, we hear a similar type of miracle. Jesus takes mere water and turns it into a staggering amount of wine (at a time when the wine has run out). Now, what we hear in that story is that it turns into the best wine. Jesus offers a remarkable tasting wine that blows the steward away (even though you are supposed to use the good wine first).
In this week’s Gospel, the NRSV does something interesting. In verse 12 it says, “When they were satisfied (ἐνεπλήσθησαν)…” This word more literally would be “When they were filled.” And maybe that’s what we should expect from barley loaves and fish. It could certainly be filling but may not be all that satisfying.
But the NRSV translates this as “satisfied.” Variations of ἐνεπλήσθησαν only come up 5 times in the Greek Testament but one of those instances is Luke 1:53, “he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” Of course, this is from the Magnificat which holds closely to Hannah’s Song in 1 Sam 2:5, “Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those were hungry are fat with spoil.”
Bread, especially barely, is something that those with nothing rely on to be filled. It is the filler of the meal. Something to make sure that at the end you are not hungry. We clearly hear that in Hannah’s Song. It’s what the ‘full’ will then have to rely on when they are stripped of their wealth and spoils.
But Jesus gives this crowd bread (barley loaves at that), and they are filled. But are they satisfied?
Well from the Magnificat and from the wedding at Cana, we know that the answer is a resounding, ‘Yes!’ Maybe we can explore why and find some possibilities for preaching there.
Preaching Possibilities
The Satisfying Meals
Truthfully, I’ve been to a number of high-quality (read “expensive”) restaurants, and I’ll order the fancy dish just to try it. And truthfully, it’s not always great. It will try to do too much, or the flavors will be too bland or too scattered in flavor. Other times I’ll go to a small hole in the wall, and I’ll order the simplest thing on the menu, and it will be the best meal I’ve had in a long while.
What makes a meal satisfying?
Chef David Chang (owner and Chef of Momofuku) has thoughts on this and has developed a “Theory of Deliciousness.” Some of this is more technical but he highlights something that I’ve always thought about.
“To me this is what separates the good dishes from the truly slap-yourself-on-the-forehead ones. When you eat something amazing, you don’t just respond to the dish in front of you; you are almost always transported back to another moment in your life. It’s like that scene in Ratatouille when the critic eats a fancy version of the titular dish and gets whisked back to the elemental version of his childhood. The easiest way to accomplish this is just to cook something that people have eaten a million times. But it’s much more powerful to evoke those taste memories while cooking something that seems unfamiliar—to hold those base patterns constant while completely changing the context. The best restaurant roast chicken is going to be the one that, in some way, evokes the best roast chicken my mother ever made; but it’s more powerful if I’m reminded of my mother’s roast chicken while eating a dish that isn’t roast chicken. (Actually, people don’t realize this, but that’s exactly what happens in Ratatouille. That final dish is not in fact ratatouille, but the great chef Thomas Keller’s version of the great chef Michel Guerard’s version of a Turkish dish, Imam bayildi, that has the same flavors.) The dish isn’t just a great meal in and of itself, but it’s referencing the underlying formal system—the relationship of flavors and textures—that makes it so delicious.”[1]
He goes on to explain ways of subverting expectations with food, “breaking down barriers the prevent people from understanding the delicious food from other cultures.”
Of course, he is more in tune with how to make the different aspects of food and culture work to blow people away. And yet, I think he is naming something that is a universal experience for so many of us. When we taste, feel, or smell an experience of our past or home, we can experience a satisfaction unlike any other.
For some reason, the only place in the world where I love Sunkist is when I’m up at my grandparents’ house in New England. For some reason it tastes perfect there but is unsatisfying everywhere else. It’s terrible pizza (by New York or brick oven standards), but sometimes I long for the very specific flavor of Golden Crust pizza on Germantown Ave in Philadelphia because that’s what I grew up on. Or at times when I’m feeling ravenous, even though I can make pretty darn good handmade pasta, sometimes I just want spaghetti from a box with butter, cheap parmesan, salt and pepper because that’s I would crave in stressful times as a teen and my mom or dad would make it for me.
Were all these things the perfect meal? No. But they all connect me to family or friends. They connect me to movie nights or after baseball game meals. They are nostalgic.
When you have a satisfying meal, it could be the food, but it could also be so much more. When you’re out at a restaurant it can be the food, the service, the company. When you’re at home it can be your favorite meal that your spouse or loved one makes. When you go to your childhood home, it could be unique flavor of your parents’ or grandparents’ cooking.
So, what if all of that is going on in our text today. It’s familiar food. Probably something the people would be eating almost every day. But it’s also surrounded by people they’re connected to. And it’s in the presence of Jesus. The one who’s presence gives us more than we could ever imagine.
[1]David Chang, https://www.wired.com/2016/07/chef-david-chang-on-deliciousness/
Micah Krey 