Anglican Communion News Service

Of Christ, wonder bread and a frog!

Given by The Right Reverend Dr James Tengatenga Bishop of Southern Malawi
The Church of the Province of Central Africa

It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you true bread from heaven. For the bread that God gives is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

What’s with signs? In this case we have a case of the provision of food being a sign. But these people have had some bread a few hours earlier but somehow that was not sign enough. Are they suggesting that the multiplication of food was a fluke and they now needed to see another one to prove that it was not? Or is the question the pedigree of the person giving and doing the sign that is in question? “Is he anything like Moses?” they ask. Moses the wonder worker, the liberator! Can Jesus match that? The Bread sign is O.K. but no match to the Manna miracle. Straight from heaven, nothing earthly like local bread. It has to be Wonder Bread with no earthly brand name for it to be the kind of sign they want! As you may know manna means “What’s this?” Put bluntly the challenge to Jesus is, “Who are you to make such big claims? Are you what’s it, what-you-ma-call-it”?

In his response Jesus diverts the question from himself to the Father: basically saying that you cannot know me unless you know the Father. Once you do, you will understand what this is all about. Not only this, but you will also understand that Moses is nothing but that the God Father is at work there. The same one who was with Moses is the one with me. The bread a sign is of the same type as the Wonder Bread in the Moses’ story and therefore no fluke! In fact all this has nothing to do with the bread or whatever sign. It has to do with your knowing and participating in the father’s business: and the father’s business is knowing and accepting the one the father has sent to you. “In fact I am the sign”, says he. “I am the Wonder Bread, the giver of life. Come to me and you will have life: all of you without exception”.

What sign are we looking for? In fact it is not a “what” you are looking for but a “whom”! It is, therefore, to do with where you are looking and what you are looking for. We tend to be obsessed with spectacle and wonder, the visible and tactile, the concrete. Unfortunately all that is ephemeral and only a shadow of the reality we seek. It is not in the signs, the miracles we perform, the transformation of society, and the end of hunger and poverty… It is not even in the works of mercy or reconciliation that we perform but in the Lord whom we present to the world. No other sign but that of the Son of Man will be given and so we have none other but to present the one who presents himself through us to the world. He is the Wonder Bread, the unlikely food and drink or dare I say it the unpalatable food and drink. He gives the bread and is himself the Wonder Bread: the wonder worker is the wonder itself! The mix of the symbols here is mind-blowing but such is the mystery of our salvation!

The world is looking for sign. Is it possible that that sign is in us and is us? For the body of Christ we are. Are we, can we be the Wonder Bread, not that which has the leaven of malice but that of sincerity and truth and salvation in our wings truly reflecting the Christ we serve? Dare I say to the world about us, “Kiss this frog for it is the Prince Charming you are looking for”?