“Moses said to YHWH, “But, never in my life
have I been a man of eloquence,either
before or since you have spoken to your servant.” Ex 4:10
Eighteenth
Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B:
Looking
Beyond the Bread to the Baker!
In our
gospel this Sunday we read the words from John's gospel (6:24-35); “I am the
Bread of Life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes
in me will never be thirsty!” This is what John has been try to tell us. It
is more than just a summary of the miracle feeding of 5,000. The reference to “never
being thirsty” recalls for me the story of Jesus meeting the spiritually
thirsty woman of Samaria at the village well (Jn 4:1-42). John doesn’t present
us with Jesus-the-magician; John presents us with 'Jesus - heaven come down to
earth', or 'eternal life incarnate'. It’s a sign that Jesus is speaking with
divine insight. He’s saying, “Listen to me. Let me tell you the deepest
truth about what’s going on here. Don’t misunderstand who I AM for you! You’re
seeing the sign – but you’re not reading it properly. You look at me and see a
miracle worker. That’s not who I am. I am the stuff of life, sent you from God!
Don’t have your minds on your stomachs but look more deeply and face the hunger
and thirst for Life that is at the very core of you. Then look at me, and
you’ll understand!”
We live in
a world where two thirds of its inhabitants are starving and the other third
has problems associated with overeating. When Jesus speaks of being the "Bread
of Life" in John’s gospel, and criticises his hearers for being
concerned only with full stomachs, he is not spiritualising hunger, nor is he
advocating a focus on the “spiritual” rather than the “physical”. John’s Jesus
is, more explicitly than in any other part of the New Testament, God incarnate.
The 'Incarnation' is about God’s entry into the human condition and not a
flight from it! This gospel can be read to challenge the rich, the well-fed,
the powerful and the “haves". Jesus is the "Living Bread" who
comes down from heaven who gives and is the life to the world! “Ah,” you might
say, “but what sort of life is he giving? Is it the life that comes from giving
bread to the hungry, or is it actually some sort of other-worldly life, meant
to be lived in another place?” The point of the miracle is about feeding hungry
people who have no means of feeding themselves. Provision and salvation Jesus
is saying, belong together. Feeding hungry people and enabling them to continue
living is part of God's idea of salvation! God it seems is interested in the
whole person.
The wonder
of the provision of food from heaven as seen in the Exodus passage (16:2-4,12-15) is about God providing what is needed to sustain the life of God's
chosen people. When the hungry are fed and the naked clothed; when the poor are
given enough and the thirsty given a cup of water, this is A PART of salvation!
It is not some sort of “preparatory spadework” for evangelism. And when Jesus
feeds the crowd, they do not only have enough, they have far more than enough.
There is “something more”. It is this “something more” that Jesus goes on to
stress that is the hunger and thirst of the soul. In a materialistic age, this
is an important point. And for those of us who are aware of the sense in which
the gospel is the Good News of a transformed world order of justice and
provision for all, it is important not to neglect this dimension of human
existence which is about more than eating, being clothed and having clean
water. The Incarnation is about bridging the “gap” between heaven and earth.
Our 1st
world culture has been built so that our lives and culture can exclude God.
Individually and collectively, many people seem to be cut off from God. The
fundamental “gap” manifests itself in injustice, oppression, poverty and
death-dealing power or sin. To talk theologically, sin is both a personal and a
collective structural problem. The “gap” is the absence of the Life of God. In
John’s gospel (10:10) the terms, “eternal life” or “life in abundance” is
something we are meant to experience in the here and now. We are created for
fellowship with God. Jesus - the Word made flesh, does not only show us what
God is like but he shows us what it is like to be truly human. To be human like
Jesus is to live in the awareness of being God’s child and of the constant,
transforming presence of God in our lives. Abundant life in Jesus is a life
that overflows to others. We are made for joy, for love, for hope, for
laughter, for deep relating. Yet these type of experiences of God in Jesus and
through the Spirit are so often ridiculed as emotionalism or unimportant.
We fail
people if we do not recognise the reality of and their spiritual hunger. The
signs of the hunger for the "Bread of Life" are evident
everywhere to whose eyes are open. Look at the current explosion of
spirituality in self-help books, new age psychic fairs, meditation courses and
classes on eastern mysticism. Millions of people who have nothing to do with
the Church are desperate to make connections with spiritual reality. And yet
the Church often fails to help them make a connection between their own deep
sense of spiritual hunger and Jesus, the "Bread of Life!" We
stand by in embarrassed silence, while people who have found something of
significance in the occult, eastern meditation, Buddhism, and yoga. I think the
reason for our failure is that we do not recognise in it a mirror of our own
deep hunger and thirst for God. We should examine ourselves, lest we like the
crowd in the gospel, fail to read the sign of the multiplication of bread
correctly. In reality we need to remember that we are nothing more than beggars
telling other beggars where to find bread.
Often
Christian churches can hold all sorts of strange doctrines and practices that
can keep hungry and thirsty souls from life giving spiritual food. And the
danger is that they distract and prevent needy people coming to experience
Jesus Christ. They sometimes seem to obscure and “lose” Jesus! Our passage from
John's gospel challenges us to do good theology. Good prayerful spirit-directed
theology has to do with life – the life of faith and the life of the world.
Good theology provides answers to our ongoing hunger and thirst for God. It is
interesting that John gets the passionate about faith when he is at his most
“theological” best – which means most deeply aware of God's grace! Because at
the end of the day, grace is what this all about: a God who answers hunger and
thirst with a gift that is far more wonderful and life-giving than we can ever
possibly imagine: the gift of Jesus. This Jesus is not a dry, academic theory
but "Living Bread!" And we are invited to come and eat and
drink … if of course, we are hungry and thirsty in the first place! Amen.
