Jesus Is Not All I Need

SPECIAL INSTALLMENT: THANKSGIVING DAY
Bread is really important to our diets, and Jesus did say that he was the “bread” of life. But don’t we need more than bread to live on?

Here we are on Thanksgiving — one of the biggest feast days on America’s calendar — so it’s perhaps not surprising that the lectionary gives us a text where Jesus turns a dietary item into a metaphor about his role in our spiritual quest.

“I am the bread of life,” Jesus said.

Of course, bread itself is not primarily a holiday food. While it has a place on the Thanksgiving table, it’s also a basic staple of meals all year long. In fact, in the prayer Jesus taught us to pray, we’re told to ask, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Typically we talk about bread in connection with Holy Communion. Jesus is the bread broken for us. Hoc est corpus meum.

But the lectionary gives us this text for consideration on this Thanksgiving Day. Having bread to eat, let us be thankful. Having bread, therewith let us be content.

But is bread enough?

Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” So you’d think that he understands bread as...