Mark 10.17-31 [Note to congregation on why I hand out the text. Please feel free to take it home with you. It would be wonderful if you chose to reread it, to think it through for yourself. Possibly to learn a verse. To live with it. And the purpose of this talk is not to give you a correct interpretation of the passage (I could not do that: and almost certainly I will have missed what you might think is the most important part of the passage), but to give you a fascination for the passage – and a desire to look at it again. And if you do, then I will have done my job ]. A man comes to Jesus. He seems to have everything He is young (Luke): life is ahead of him He is a ruler (Matthew) and has influence and power He is morally upright: he has kept the commandments (there is no reason to doubt him) He has wealth, and all that it offers: openings, security, comfort and status But he is not satisfied. He knows that something is missing, there is something more. It is bugging him. He runs
John 6.35,41-51 “Our hungers are so deep. We are dying of thirst. We are bundles of seemingly insatiable need, rushing here and there in a vain attempt to assuage our emptiness. Our culture is a vast supermarket of desire.” (William H Willimon, Feasting on the Word) The audio of this talk can be found here And Jesus says “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”. Can it be that this crucified, resurrected Jew who lived 2000 years ago in Palestine is able to meet – not only meet but satisfy - our deepest desires and longings? There are four staggering claims that Jesus makes in our reading. 1. He has come from heaven in a unique way Jesus claims, “I am the bread that came down from heaven”. It is a staggering claim. So much so that the people complain. Not because he said he was bread, but because he claimed that he had come from heaven. “How can he say that. We know his parents. Joseph and Mary. We know where he