For Sunday, August 2, 2015 – John 6:24-35
The crowds are so impressed with Jesus that they want to take him by force and make him their king. Isn’t this a hopeful sign, that they are deepening their understanding of who he is and want his leadership and wisdom? Jesus doesn’t think so. After escaping their political scheming by going again to “the other side,” he turns and sees another crowd forming. He confronts those who keep following him wherever he goes, who keep crossing the water when he crosses, climbing the mountain when he climbs. He says, “You are looking for me not because of miraculous signs, but simply because you have eaten all your bread [and don’t want to miss out on getting more?].”
This indeed is food for thought. Why are we following Jesus? Are we wanting to grow into the fullness of our humanity, to be baptized again and again into the muddy river of life’s pain and possibility, or are we just hoping for more of the abundance we’ve heard God is apt to give? Maybe we want a better future, a lighter load, another distribution of bread. So we stay just close enough to grab our share, to say he is our friend, to get whatever benefits might come. Sometimes, sad to say, following Jesus doesn’t necessarily mean we are actually following Jesus.
Jesus warns them: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.” What does this mean, they wonder, to work for the food that endures? “This is the work of God,” Jesus answers, “to believe in me.” Not only to look for benevolent gestures or remarkable signs, but to believe that I am the bread for which you hunger, the drink for which you thirst. Jesus is trying to move us from a grasping mindset that trails after him demanding GIVE US BREAD, to a real relationship in which we recognize that God IS the bread. Is our faithfulness rooted in staying just close enough to Jesus to get him to do for us what we want? Or is it found in the slow work of being in relationship with the eternal God, who eases open our clutched hearts and helps us to receive what can never be measured or bought? Bread of heaven, the only food that satisfies.
