In early July, I had the chance to spend a few days camping in California with old friends and their families. I do not excel at camping--I feel like Paul Bunyan himself if I can manage to get a tent upright and run my camp stove without making myself dizzy from the fumes. But luckily for me, several of these friends do excel at camping. In particular they are ambitious camp cooks. One night we enjoyed a peach cobbler baked in a cast-iron oven set among the campfire coals. It was beautiful.

Despite decades of (indoor, decently-equipped) cooking, I have never stopped marveling at what happens to flour when you mix it with water and yeast or baking soda, and apply heat to it. It becomes something entirely different and unexpected: bread. It's a gift of God in the wheat, a marvel of human ingenuity in the making, and a blessing for a community in the eating. Maybe that's part of why I don't share the fear and dismay many pastors experience when they get to August every third year and we hear, for five weeks, Jesus talking about himself as the Bread of Life. If you can find fifteen minutes, I encourage you to read the whole story--it's the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. We get it bit by bit (slice by slice?) in worship, starting with the miracle of feeding the multitude, and ending with Jesus being abandoned by all but his most devoted followers.

In this chapter, over these coming weeks, we hear about the ordinary human need for bodily food and about the extraordinary human need for a world redeemed and life everlasting. Joining these needs is Jesus. Himself an ordinary human being of Nazareth, born under the Law of God and the covenant of God's promises, he is also the Son of God. He feeds the hungry and heals the sick, and at the same time reveals the Kingdom where none will hunger or suffer. Simple needs--like hunger--and simple gifts--like the miracle of bread--make plain the greater things God has in store for those who love him.

We have the chance to learn this every time we share a meal, every time we extend ourselves to help someone eat (as we've been part of doing all summer with the Summer Lunch Program), and every time we experience our hunger for life. Together we'll hear these words in August, and pray that God will open our ears and our hearts (and, yes, our stomachs) to receive them. See you in church!