October 12, 2025
Thanksgiving
John 6:24-35
Epiphany, Winnipeg
Back when I was a twenty one year old I stood on a platform at the train station in Munich, getting ready for a thirty-six hour trip through Austria and Yugoslavia on my way to the Northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. I had stopped at a market on the street outside the station and picked a small block of farmer’s cheese and a big fresh beautiful loaf of sourdough. Big, round, crusty and chewy. I tore a piece off and sliced a bit of cheese just as the train arrived, and then stashed the cheese and bread into the top of my backpack. I climbed on board and found myself one of those rooms they used to have on those trains – a little compartment, big enough for six people, three seats aside and a door between them going into the corridor.
We rolled through Austria as I gawked at the scenery and nibbled on my bread. It was a peaceful, idyllic trip until I arrived at the Yugoslavian border. Five Yugoslavian men stepped into the compartment and made themselves at home. They had cans and cans of coffee with them, a few brand new radios and bags and bags of jeans, and more bags and bags of who know what else. They started hiding theses things in nooks and crannies and under the seats and behind suitcases, and I soon gathered that for some reason they were not supposed to be taking these things across the border. It seemed like trouble, so I decided to look for another compartment. I stood up to leave, and as I did that one of the men casually stuck his leg out across the doorway, blocking my way, and as he grinned an unfriendly grin one of his friends stuffed a bag or two of something behind my backpack with its cheese and bread. So I sat down. That’s when the fear began.
A few minutes later the conductor and a passport control person, came through to check our tickets and passports and one of them told me that I was on the wrong car. Mine was the next one towards the front of the train, so I happily grabbed my pack and my bread and moved to a new place where I was supposed to be, and I pulled out the bread and enjoyed a little snack.
The trip got weirder after that, though. For the next twenty four hours it seemed as though everyone in Yugoslavia was getting on the train and nobody was getting off. It just kept on filling up. They were loud and boisterous and there was always a raucous Eastern European commotion going on. There were eight or nine people jammed into my compartment that was supposed to hold six, and none of them spoke English and I didn’t even know the names of all their languages that I couldn’t speak. By two in the morning the corridors were packed with people with nowhere to sit, and I saw a few people sleeping in the luggage racks overhead. It was loud, nobody slept, and I felt so alone as I realized that I was hundreds or thousands of kilometres from anybody I knew or who knew me.
Every now and then I’d dig around in my backpack under the seat, pull out some bread and cheese, and have a comforting bite to eat. That crusty chewy Munich bread was such a good companion during that trip; one little familiar something that saved me.
The train emptied out as we came closer to Greece. We crossed the border and I stretched out my legs and finished off the last piece of that beautiful loaf that had sustained me for the last thirty six hours. I stepped off the train, and as so often happens on trips like that I stumbled into the company of new friends I’d never met, a guy named Dave and another named Jim, and we went off to find a place to eat. Three strangers far from home, meeting up and going off to find some more bread.
I remember how that bread on that train was such a comfort to me. I couldn’t just get off the train. But the bread was always there. It didn’t get me out of a place that I found scary, and it didn’t suddenly take away my loneliness. I was still there, but there was bread that helped carry me along.
Jesus says “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” He’s talking to a whole crowd of people who had been there just a day ago when he and his disciples and a small child shared five loaves and two fish with a crowd of thousands. But now last night’s supper is gone, and they’re hungry again, because that’s the way it works with food. These are just regular people like us, who live with all the kinds of pains and struggles and joys that we do too. They know about love and joy, but they also know what it’s like when bread runs out or hope runs dry or fear takes over. They know that life is short and sometimes brutal, and that they can’t just step off the train, and that one day they will draw their last breath. Then Jesus calls himself Bread of Life that will never leave you hungry. Bread of Life given for the life of the world, Bread of Life who goes with us and gives life while we and the world live on this train that seems so crazy sometimes.
Jesus is Bread of Life that will last longer than the bread of last night’s supper; this Bread of Life that will outlast any empire and tyrant who keeps people under its thumb - where is the Roman Empire now; where will today’s empires and tyrants be fifty years from now? Jesus the Bread of Life will outlast politics and economics that take peoples’ bread away; Jesus the bread of life will outlast your deepest fear and mine, and will celebrate with us all in our greatest joys, and this Bread of Life will keep giving life even after we have drawn out last breath.
There’s one thing I didn’t learn about the Bread of Life on that trip though. I had that Bread tucked away in the top of my pack that I always kept close by. When I needed it I pulled it out, pulled off a piece and comforted my body and soul for a time. But Jesus, the Bread of Life, isn’t a bread that I keep for myself in a safe place, to take out when I need it to get me through the day.
You see, there were people on that train who offered me bread. Quite literally – they held out a slice of bread for me, and someone once offered me a sandwich, and I’m pretty sure that what that guy over by the window handed my way was some kind of nice warm apple strudel. One offered me a sip from their bottle of water, and one handed me a flask that had something in it that would probably have settled me down and helped me relax a bit. Grain can be used for many things other than bread.
But I turned down every offer. I turned down every offer. Fear and loneliness and suspicion of these people who seemed so different kept me from receiving their hospitality and kindness. I just couldn’t see that Bread is meant to be shared, so I couldn’t receive the food and drink that they offered. And they kind of gave up on me after awhile.
Who knows what would have happened if I’d said yes? Maybe we would have shared satisfied smiles about that strudel that tasted so good. Maybe we would have gotten a kick out of trying to say something about ourselves to each other with awkward sign language and charades. We probably would have laughed while they tried to teach me how to say words like strudel or bread or thank you, in Croatian or Serbian or Slovene. And I could have done the same when I tried to get them to get their tongues around words like Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
It’s just that bread, the bread on the table and Jesus the Bread of Life, draws people together. Jesus the Bread of Life doesn’t just come to me to get me through the day. Jesus the Bread of Life makes community that cares for the weakest and rallies around the ones who are afraid or alone. Jesus the Bread of Life makes community, where people who seem so different can live side-by-side, where people who can’t understand each other can learn to be together. Jesus the Bread of Life makes communities that seek to stay together when the powers that be try to drive people apart. And yes, Jesus the Bread of Life makes community where comfort is given to those who grieve. The Bread of life just keeps on giving life, even when death has done what death does.
Jesus the Bread will not leave us, will not leave the world, hungry.
Jesus is and ever will be Bread of Life, given for the life of the world.