Many people overlooked the news story earlier this week about the passing of veteran Pillsbury spokesman Pop N. Fresh.  It was apparently a massive yeast infection that did him in.  He was 71.

Known to his friends as “Brown-n-Serve,” Fresh was an avid gardener and tennis player.  The funeral was the largest anyone had seen in many years and cost a lot of bread.

Dozens of celebrities turned out, including Mrs. Butterworth, the California Raisins, Hungry Jack, Aunt Jemima, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Skippy.  The graveside was piled high with flours as longtime friends, the Kebler Elves, shared in delivering the eulogy.  They pointed out that Fresh was a man who “never knew how much he was kneaded.”

Fresh rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with many turnovers.  He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes; often he would be conned by those who just buttered him up.

Still, even as a crusty old man, he was a roll model for millions.  Fresh is survived by his second wife, Sarah Lee.  They have two children and another bun in the oven.  The funeral was held at 350 for about 20 minutes.

I have shared with you on many occasions that I grew up on a working farm.  Three hot, delicious, high-carb meals were necessary to supply the energy for such hard work.  I doubt that such fare could be classified as “three squares,” but they surely satisfied growing and hungry folks.  Of course, bread was served at every meal.  It was expected.  It was totally homemade and hot from the oven.  Country butter and homemade preserves generally qualified as dessert for us.  After marrying and leaving the farm I continued to eat that way, even after taking a “desk” job.  Thinking does not burn the same number of calories as manual labor, so I began to gain pounds way past my “playing weight.”  Something had to give, so we tried to give up bread.  We have done so from time to time.  I would even say that we have been somewhat successful on occasion.

Bread, in the culture in which Jesus lived, was the staple no matter what else might be included in a meal.   If bread was not offered the family would be considered poor, no matter how wealthy they might have been.  Families would become well-known by the quality and quantity of the bread they offered friends and guests.  Bread was the means by which bonds were established, relationships were sealed, and covenants ratified.  Breaking bread together was a symbol of reconciliation and peace between warring factions was reestablished over bread.  It was the duty of the house to bake not just enough bread for the members of that household, but to have a loaf always available for the traveler and sojourner in the land.  It was a sign of hospitality and protection.  Eating bread together in a home meant that the home was now a sanctuary for that traveler.  The homeowner was expected to defend the stranger, even with their own life.  Bread was that central and that crucial in first-central Israel.

That kind of sets the stage for the Gospel for today.  Out of that background and understanding Jesus says, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.  I am the bread of life.  I am the living bread; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”  What does that mean to those of us who gather in St. John’s Episcopal Church nearly twenty centuries after he first said those words? 

I would suggest that the best thing to do is to remember the origin of this bread.  Those who first heard him say those words saw only what their eyes told them.  They knew his mother and earthly father.  What kind of bread can come from that?  In John’s Gospel Jesus would very often try to move the discussion to a deeper, theological level.  That’s what he tried to do with this lesson.  The townspeople could not understand because the Father had not drawn them to him.  That, too, is difficult to understand and can only make sense in retrospect.  God’s grace always precedes our response to it.  In the final analysis, we do not find God.  God finds us; God woos us, sustains us even when we are not aware of it and gently moves us toward faith.  The source of this bread is the love of God.  Faith always asks that we look beyond appearances to the deeper level where life itself is sustained.  Bread that lasts beyond the next hunger pang requires that we move our thinking from self to God.

We also need to look at what this bread does.  Jesus did not compare himself to manna, even though both are gifts from God.  That manna that the ancestors ate in the wilderness satisfied a momentary hunger.  It was not a fountain of youth.  Those who ate the manna would later die.  Receiving the bread from heaven means also receiving the teachings of the one who incarnates that bread.  Hearing the Father in the gift of such bread means being drawn to him, being taught by him and seeing in Jesus the one true God.  That is what gives assurance of being raised up on the last day.  Partaking of this bread leads to eternal life and is a gift from God.

Finally, we need to look at the material out of which this bread is made.  My mother and grandmother used flour, water, milk, yeast, salt, and a pinch of sugar to make the bread of my childhood and adolescence.  The children of Israel found manna (literally, “what is it?”) during their forty-year wandering toward the Promised Land.  Bedouin people, who live in that area today, still gather manna from time to time.  The flakes come from plant lice that feed on the local tamarisk trees.  Because it is poor in nitrogen, the bugs eat a double portion of the little ball of juice left behind has a high concentration of sugars and carbs.  The stuff spoils very quickly and is difficult to preserve, so gathering must be done every day.  No, it did not, and still doesn’t, come sliced.  It has no resemblance to bread as we would understand it, but it provides nourishment to a nomadic people and was, and still is, considered a gift from God.

The bread that provides eternal nourishment is literally human flesh.  This is the flesh around the bones of Jesus the Christ.  That flesh was broken on the cross to provide bread for all who, in faith, believe in that gift.  Added to that Eucharistic understanding is the teaching he gave about God and God’s Kingdom.  We participate in the deepest meaning of this bread of life when we, too, work for justice, peace, reconciliation, forgiveness, love, and compassion. 

This sacrifice opens the path again into a relationship with God.  That path had been blocked by human rebellion and, no matter how hard one might try the way was blocked.   No human strength, obedience, righteous living, manipulation, nor bribery could open the way back to God.  That it is indeed open should make us stand in awe of the one who did it for us.  This, too, is a precious gift. 

If we remember where the bread came from, what this bread does for those who accept it in faith, and what it is composed of we will stand in awe and wonder and join in the great chorus, “Thanks be to God!”  We will not have to ask, “What is it?”  We will know who it is, who provided it, and what it does.  And, no matter how good homemade bread, country butter, and wild strawberry jelly might be, it is nothing compared to that!  Amen.