Sun Kwak, “Down Memory Lane”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hN547Au36c

TEXT: Mark 6:30-44

[30] The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. [31] And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. [32] And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. [33] Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. [34] When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. [35] And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. [36] Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” [37] But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” [38] And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” [39] Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. [40] So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. [41] And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. [42] And they all ate and were satisfied. [43] And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. [44] And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

SERMON: “Down Memory Lane”

I have a friend who lives in San Francisco. He’s a self-proclaimed foodie, and if you don’t know what those are, they’re food experts. And you might know about me that I enjoy my food, and so, I once told him that I think I could be a foodie. Which elicited an immediate response — that there’s no way I could be a foodie, because I eat way too much to be a foodie. There’s a relationship to the sensitivity of your senses and an assessment to what’s eaten that makes someone a competent judge of food. And so, to be a true foodie, you can’t eat until you’re full. It dulls your senses and incapacitates you from making sound judgments about what you taste. Because as we’re going to find, taste and memory are linked together.

Well, there’s a true foodie — a fictional character but a true foodie nonetheless — in the Disney movie titled Ratatouille. The movie is about an unintended relationship between Remi the Rat and Linguini. The two have a common bond through the legendary Chef Gusteau, who had recently died and who is both an inspiration to Remi and happens to be the biological father of Linguini. The two characters merge paths in this story as they work together to keep Chef Gusteau’s famous restaurant alive against all odds. Because among other opposing factors, there is a certain food critic — the foodie that we’d just mentioned. He goes by the name of Anton Ego. And he’s a tough sell, hard to impress, and he’s doubtful that Chef Gusteau’s restaurant will be able to survive the death of the legendary chef. And throughout the story, it really seems like he doesn’t want this restaurant to succeed and is determined to shut it down. But in one of the final scenes of the film, Remi and Linguini come together to prepare a dish to present to Anton Ego, and it’s a dish called ratatouille. And for the record, I actually had no idea, until I watched the film, that that’s actually where the title of the movie came from. Honest confession — I thought that the title of the film Ratatouille had something to do with some fanciful way of arranging a word with the word rat in it. And I guess that proves to you further that I truly am not a foodie. Anyhow, this stubborn and tough to please food critic gets served this dish. And it’s an unexpected dish to serve a top critic, because there’s a homeyness to the dish — not something you might find for fine dining. But upon taking a bite of this dish, Anton Ego is transported to a memory. He’s in la-la land and remembering his mother’s cooking and of when he was a child, playing and laughing and enjoying life. And the film takes you inside of his thoughts to that happy place. That link between taste and memory took him down memory laneto that special moment in his childhood, eating his mother’s ratatouille. And this experience of that memory changed everything for how he was experiencing the present and how he was to write of the restaurant for its future. Which is the power of remembering the past — it has the power to move you in the present and affect your future. For Anton Ego, it has the power to change the hearts of hard-hearted critics.

And not just for Anton Ego, but humans are said to have special access to our past memories through this link that forms between our taste and our memory. It’s the way we were created and a part of our design. And there are layers to this link. Because while we might remember where we were and what we were doing when we taste a fantastic dish, we benefit from generations of trial and error and research where we don’t have to question what we’re intaking — whether it’s edible or poisonous. For it’s said that the earliest humans needed to develop a special memory of time and placewhen tasting certain things, because eating was often the cause of death and illnesses in ancient times. And so, it wasn’t just for the sake of enjoyment but also for preservation that these would remember what they tasted — where to go and where not to go when it came to gathering certain foods. And it’s through this history of those who sacrificed themselves for the sake of greater knowledge for the future that lives would be spared. To know that eating chicken meat cooked is a better idea than having it uncooked, while tuna belly is much better raw than it is cooked — I used to work at a sushi restaurant for my years as a college student. But you think about how we prepare feasts today for celebratory occasions. How tragic would it be for one to have been poisoned to death from some of the food prepared? We have the luxury of being able to guarantee the health of those eating our foods because of generations of research and trial and error. And the thing is that the Bible says that the new heavens and new earth, our entrance into Paradise, will be a great feast, a great wedding feast. And for us to know and to be certain that there will be no poison, no death, no uncertainties with what we eat, drink, and feast on, it’s because there’s a sacrifice that guarantees our knowledge that the feast that will be prepared for us will not only be safe to eat but eternally filling and satiating.

C. S. Lewis said about miracles that they’re not so much about the suspension of natural law but for brief instances, moments of restoring our world. That these moments of surprise are just a sneak peek into something that we’re longing for. And so, Jurgen Moltmann says that Jesus’ miracles were the only truly natural thing in the world. That it wasn’t, in fact, natural for the world to be demonized, diseased, and decaying. These were aberrations that aren’t meant to be permanent. And so, Jesus’ reversing of these aberrations was putting things back in order. He’s coming to announce that in his kingdom in this new age, things will be put back to how they were intended to be, how things were created to be. That there will no more things such as sickness and death and paralysis, and even in our passage, hunger. And we actually get this grand vision from the beginning of Mark’s Gospel. This is the ushering of the kingdom of heaven, the already-not yet where God and his kingdom had come. That this was God ushering in this new order of his new kingdom. And as the king who has created all things, he comes to rightfully rule what he had fashioned in accordance to his wisdom and design. And we read of this kingly depiction in verse 39 when we’re told of how Jesuscommanded the disciples and the crowd. Remember, this was the crowd that he deemed to be sheep without a shepherd. It’s this formless mass. And here, he enacts what he had in the first creation story, back in Genesis 1, where God spoke all things into being in that formless mass. And what he did in particular then was to separate and divide — night from day, water from water, land from water, woman from man. And through these complementing pieces, he puts together his creation. And here, we get glimpses of this when he takes this newly formed people to be separated into groups. And we get these words of separating and dividing, even as he divided the bread to bring about flourishing and life. Because the miracles signal the coming of a new age, this new creation. The prophets spoke of this, but it’s the whole telos of how God comes in salvation — to make all things new. And to make all things new is not to say that he will swap out parts but more so renew, restore, and put things in the way they were intended to be — without faults or imperfections. You consider here the phrase great crowd.

And this is something that we’ll circle back to, but did you know that this phrase great crowd is exclusive to Jesus’ministry? Nowhere else in the Bible does it record that a great crowd gathered around anything or anyone else. And it’s not that this was the biggest crowd ever, but it seems to be directing us toward something specific. It’s not just about the size of the crowd but about something that’s coming. That there is a grandness, a greatness that we’re to look forward to. And if you actually look to the very end of the Bible, how is it that it ends? It’s with this grand feast and banquet in the end of times that the people of God are invited to. Here, people from all ages and epochs, people of all diversity and differences will come together, because the single commonality is that they have access to this meal because of the host, the Lamb of God. And so, this great wedding feast, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb is where all people indiscriminately will be gathered with a common fixation and purpose of gathering around the Lamb of God. And with the details of how Jesus takes loaves of bread and fish in verse 38, this details something about his kingdom. That his kingdom is not about hierarchy, and it’s not one where you qualify yourself in. Because the very fact that he makes a feast out of bread and fish informs us that everybody is welcome to this feast. Because the words loaves is misleading here — it’s more like morsels or biscuits. And fish here is not in reference to some generous serving to be shared. We’re not talking about blue fin tuna here. It’s more like sardines — tiny portions. If you’ve ever bought those Costco pack of sardines, they usually come in two of three. So, it’s like one can of those, at most, along with five little biscuits. Not only are these small portions, but these were not foods that you’d associate with feasting. These were food items that common people ate, which again, tells us something about Jesus’ kingdom.

Growing up, I was the beneficiary of free lunches in my elementary and middle school years. I didn’t grow up with a lot of money, and I was raised around others in the city who didn’t have a lot of money. So, we all punched in our own personal codes. But everybody during lunch time essentially ate the same food. Whether it was Sloppy Joes and ice cream sandwiches or square pizzas with fruit cups. Everyone, more or less, got the same exact food and and the same exact portion sizes. Because meal time was not a place for distinguishing. But rather, it was a place where each student sat down with the same quality and quantity of food. But most importantly, the same access to food. That all changed for me when I moved states from middle school to high school and when my dad jumped three income brackets. In this new environment of more financially sufficient families from more opulent neighborhoods, there were no more personal codes for lunches. Everyone had to buy their own lunches. And in fact, you didn’t even have to stay on campus during your off periods. You could drive yourself off campus and go each somewhere else. The average student went to go eat lunch at Chipotle, but the really rich kids went to go eat lunch where you actually had to sit down and order. Lunch was no longer a place of equity and sameness, but rather, a place of distinction and separation. And so, logically speaking, it would seem from a worldly vantage point, that feasting and quality and fine dining would be where you would qualify in— whether it was through your income or some kind of accomplishment where you were given a special invite in. That’s the way it works for Michelin Star restaurants and fancy exclusive meals in our world. And wouldn’t it be the case that the best and greatest meal, the superlative of all superlatives of feasts. Wouldn’t it be that this meal would the most exclusive, the most inaccessible, the most expensive, where you had to qualify yourself by your own merits, offerings, possessions, status that you use to distinguish yourself from the rest?

Well, when you look at the wording of verse 41, we read there that [Jesus] took the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And what starts giving us hints toward the grandness and the greatness of this meal is not just that it filled people abundantly. But there are details that will repeat later in Jesus’ ministry. And specifically, the wording here finds parallels to another meal offered by Jesus. When you look over at Mark 14:22, we find there Jesus instituting what we refer to today as the Lord’s Supper or Communion. And there, we see the same ordering of words. That Jesus (1) took, he (2) blessed, he (3) broke, and he (4) gave. And there, he takes the bread that’s on the table, and he announces — This is my body broken for you. And he takes the cup that’s on the table, and he announces — This is my blood shed for you. For we’d noted that what would logically make sense to the meals of this world is that the better and more sustaining and memorable the meal, the more costly, the more expensive, the less accessible it would be. And in looking forward to this moment of Jesus with his disciples here in what’s come to be known as the Last Supper, Johnin his Gospel records Jesus’ explanation of feeding the 5,000 in his parallel account. And what Jesus says in John 6:35 is one of the first I AM statements — I AM the bread of life. What he doesn’t say is that he provides the bread. But rather, that he is the bread. That he doesn’t just give us food, but he is our food.

And this was the reason some people in the early church accused Christians of cannibalism. Because you don’t eat people, especially if they’re alive. And at this point in time, Jesus is very much alive. But that wasn’t what this moment was pointing to, because the Old Testament is filled with commandments and laws that forbid us from eating anything that is alive, not just people but even with animals. So, what is Jesus doing here? And what’s the whole point of this meal? When Jesus pronounces words that will be fulfilled later in Mark 14, and when he calls himself the bread of life in John 6:35, what he’s doing is showing us why this meal is so sustaining, so satiating, so costly, so expensive. Because for him to say that the bread is his body and that he is the bread of life, it meant that he had to die. And so, when we eat of him in the Lord’s Supper, we taste and remember his death and his sacrifice for us — our union with him in death and in life. That indeed, this is the costliest of meals and it is eternally sustaining. And that’s what Jesus teaches us with the Lord’s Supper — Do this in remembrance of me. That what we taste might bring us down memory lane. Just like our earliest ancestors — our taste leading us to thoughts of survival. Remembering when and where and what. That without Jesus, we have no life. That we need him for our hearts and our souls to be nourished.

So, here’s how we’ll begin closing our time. Because all of us come with a past. But we come to the Table trusting that what’s presented for us has the transformative power to affect our presents and our futures. Because this meal postures us toward the new creation. When we read in verse 42 that all ate until they were satisfied, that’s literally to be filled, to be stuffed. Or, as Sally Lloyd-Jones titles this story in her Jesus Storybook Bible, to be filled full. And what’s the opposite of being filled full? It’s to be emptied, as the apostle Paul describes in Philippians 2:7-8 — that [Jesus] emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. The costliness of this meal provided for us week by week and every time we preach the gospel was the life of the Son of God, where he provides for us by being deprived himself on the dark Friday afternoon. And it took every ounce of sweat, blood, and tears in order to give us unmitigated access to this, though we in and of ourselves have disqualified ourselves from it. We come by the merit of Jesus. And we remember him more than we remember us. And that transport down memory lane, we trust, will transform us. That if a hard-hearted critic like Anton Ego can be changed with the memory of something stronger, what can this meal do for us? It changes us with sinful histories, with addictive patterns, with regrettable choices. This is the meal for disobedient daughters and sons to come and to find our worth and access in by the only obedient son. We come trusting in what Jesus has done for us once and for all. And so, come to this table, church. It’s for you and for me. Because all it requires is empty hands. Every person comes to the Table saying — I need this just as much as everyone else around this Table, expressing the same need of hunger, of thirst, of forgiveness and grace. For in Christ, we are a new creation. And we’re postured toward where we’re going. Come to this new creation meal, where forgiveness is offered, where grace is deep.