Au Bon Pain

Au Bon Pain

 

John 6:35, 41-51

Christ, the bread of life

6:35 Jesus 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.

6:41 Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven."

6:42 They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?"

6:43 Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves.

6:44 No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me, and I will raise that person up on the last day.

6:45 It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.

6:46 Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.

6:47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.

6:48 I am the bread of life.

6:49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.

6:50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.

6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

I really like bread. There is nothing like a piece of freshly-baked bread, lathered up with a thin coat of butter, to get your tastebuds doing a little dance! It really doesn’t matter what kind of bread it is, either, although I am most partial to “savory” breads vs. things like banana bread or zucchini bread. I also tend to like the multi-grain breads and “sourdough” breads best, too. How about you? What kind of breads do you like? Where do you get them? Do you make any yourself? What is your favorite bakery? Many Pittsburghers would most likely flag “Mancini’s” in McKees Rocks as their favorite overall bread, as their Italian loaf is almost universally toasted and served in great “breakfast” restaurants all over the region. Having lived in neighboring Coraopolis for six years, I can tell you that there is NOTHING like picking up a loaf of Mancini’s Italian Bread at their McKees Rocks bakery JUST taken out of the oven (about 5:00AM?) and taking it home to have warm with real butter! My salivary glands are going NUTS just thinking about it!

My grandmother made good bread. She didn’t deviate from her time-honored recipe for chewy, yeasty white bread, raised and baked in one of those “loaf” pans. Once cooled and cut, it resembled white bread from a commercial bakery, although it had a higher “muffin top.” Even as a very young child, I liked my grandmother Sterling’s bread WARM, with loads of butter. And in the mornings, she would toast it, butter it, and allow me to “dunk” it in a cup of strong coffee with milk in it. Then, later, she would wonder why I was ripping around like a crazed chimpanzee. Go figure…

My wife, Dara, grew up just up the street from one of the Oil City area’s commercial bread baking companies, “Hays.” Their “Soft-Twist” bread was quite famous, regionally.” It was a basic white bread. “Radical” bread-lovers in that day in a small town only had “whole wheat” bread as their alternative. I remember how rare it was to find “cracked-wheat” bread in a supermarket, which was my Dad’s favorite. Me? At this point, I was just into the toasted white bread dunked in coffee, unless we were talking about my Gram’s homemade stuff.

As many of you know, I’ve taking to doing a lot of cooking, as part of my “bucket list” activities, while retired. Bread has become a specialty. Dara never liked to bake bread, but is now quite happy that I’m learning the “art,” including those really crusty, chewy round loaves. Just recently, I got enthused watching an Olympic Games inspired documentary on the making of French baguettes, and baked my first three of these long, slender, VERY crusty breads. They were such a hit that I’ve now ordered a special “baguette” baking pan to keep them from flattening out too much as they bake. Baguettes cook at a very high temperature, and require a pan of boiling water to be placed under them for the first 10 minutes of the baking process. This is what gives them a deep brown, firm, and very chewy crust. 

I am personally convinced that bread is an almost perfect food. Baguettes, for example, are quite simple: flour, yeast, salt, and water. But they are so tasty and fairly low in calories, even if coated with a reasonable (one-half-tablespoon) amount of natural butter. I know that modern, nutritional science tells us we need a much greater variety of foods to be “healthy,” including proteins, but if I had to live on any one thing for a long period of time, give me bread! It’s no wonder that EVERY culture has their “versions” of bread. I’ve made it my mission to try to sample every culture’s bread, just because I LOVE bread! (I’m sure I will never come close to accomplishing this goal, but as they say, “If you don’t play, you can’t win!”) There may be a reason Jesus proclaimed himself the “Bread of Life.”

When the Pittsburgh International Airport first opened, it had a noshing place called “Au Bon Pain” just inside the landside terminal. I LOVED their breads and rolls! Since the 2024 Olympics were still WAY off in the historical distance, I knew absolutely NO French back then, so I had to ask three of the Au Bon Pain employees what the store’s name meant (at least I recognized that it was French—give me SOME credit!). I had to ask three, because the first two had no idea. The third girl said it meant “a good bread.” There is nothing like a good bread! Which brings us to this weekend’s scripture passage from the Gospel of John.

Jesus pronounces himself “the Bread of Life.” It’s brilliant. To those of us privileged middle class Americans (and classes above it, too), bread is a kind of gourmet food. I’ve already detailed how I “enjoy” fresh bread with good, natural butter, if not a fine jam, of some sort. “Au Bon Pain” was not a cheap place to be “treated” by “a good bread.” Gourmet bakers do amazing things with “good breads.” When I envision Jesus as the “Bread of Life,” this is where I go—Jesus is the very, very best God could have sent. Jesus is a “treat.” Jesus is a “warm,” savory “comfort food” for the hungry soul. What Jesus modeled for us and taught us through his sermons, stories, parables, and miracles, is worth pondering and “tasting slowly,” like a very good bread. Likewise, for people way beyond my paygrade, savoring the Savior is a gourmet meal. Early in my ministry, on World Communion Sunday, I made it my practice to have a broad sampling of “international” loaves of bread adorning the altar—a couple different types and colors of rye, a boule of some variety, usually a French baguette, and some culture’s pan-fried flatbread like Naan or a tortilla. Again, “I am the Bread of Life” was preached as a statement of Jesus’ international “appeal.” But all of this, while stimulating and edifying for us “bread lovers,” we are missing something extremely important.

The crowd Jesus was originally speaking to LIVED by “bread alone,” in many cases. Jesus used the “Man does not live by bread alone” line on the devil during their wilderness “debate,” but he well knew that most of the poor people who flocked out to hear him DID live by bread alone. By equating himself with bread, Jesus was telling the gathered that he had come for them. He was here to feed their famished spirits and offer a full belly for their souls. This “bread” was not a savory snack, it was the essential survival food in the Kingdom of God! Brilliant, indeed.

It is still true today that a great majority of the world survives on some sort of bread. Those of us who only eat bread as an accompaniment to a “meat and potatoes” (in in some households, with truffles and Foie gras), often take Jesus as a dinner roll or a “good bread” from a fancy bakery. However, Jesus is just as essential to our spirit and soul as he is for the poor. If we follow the rest of the narrative, this becomes quite clear. Eternal life is the ultimate “survival” made possible by the “bread of life.” 

One interesting little “twist” Jesus puts on the metaphor is the contrast with the Manna Israel ate in the wilderness. His largely Jewish audience knew this tradition, and the “griping” that resulted when they tired of it as a means of sustenance. Is Jesus cautioning them against comparing HIM to the Manna? He reminds them that Israel ate the Manna and yet died. He is the “good bread” that offers eternal life! Both breads “came down from heaven,” but only one would feed the world—the whole world—exactly what it needs.

On Saturday, I joined several dedicated volunteers from Faith Community United Methodist Church as they opened their doors as a monthly “clothes closet” called “NU2U” for people in need. Over 75 persons came to pick up good, donated clothing to help them live their lives with dignity. One man picked up three sport coats that fit him perfectly (and he was tall and slender), jackets he was excited to find, because he would wear them to church. He shared his story with us, and it was quite a privilege to be “let in” on what God was doing in his life. This ministry, and the volunteers who are doing it in the name of Jesus, is indeed “a good bread.”

After his “I am the Bread of Life” statement, Jesus will later break bread as a symbol of his pending sacrifice on the cross. He wants us to not just remember him when WE break bread together, but to eat heartily as a reminder that he is, today, tomorrow, and forever, the “good bread” for our souls! And he sends us out to be “bread for the world” in his name. Amen.