“What Are You Hungry For?”
8 Pentecost B –
John 6:24-35
Brothers and sisters in Christ, Grace and Peace to you from our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
It’s been a long time since lunch. I can hear the tummies grumbling out there already. And here I am asking: What are you hungry for? And you stomach is telling you: The answer’s obvious isn’t it? DINNER! Feed Me!!
But the crowds chasing after Jesus in our gospel today have just been fed. And not just any kind of feeding, but a miraculous feeding of 5,000 people with just a few loaves and fishes. And now many of these same people want more.
Jesus brings them up short and reminds them “you are looking for me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” In other words, the crowds are looking only for a filling of a physical hunger – even though they had just been fed! Which is a pretty good definition of gluttony – eating until you’re full and then wanting more.
The point of the miraculous feeding has been lost on these crowds, if they ever got the point in the first place. They have seen the what of the miracle (the bread and the fish). But they remain blind to see the person and the power at work in the doing of the miracle.
That’s what Jesus is getting at when he says “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” And the crowd replies, “What must we do to perform the works of God?”
Isn’t that our first response, There must be something I can do. All of this hinges on me and my action. Which of course is another way of saying, “I am in control of this thing.” Like God needs our help to perform these works? Hello? He did create this world without our help. He in fact created you and me without the benefit of our effort or supervision. The crowd here continues to remain blind to the person and power really working the miracle.
Pay close attention to Jesus reply to the question “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Notice first of all that Jesus says that there is THE WORK of God, not WORKS. For us there is one work of God, “that you believe in him whom he has sent.” In a word: faith.
Now why didn’t Jesus just say “That you believe in me”? Why “that you believe in him whom he has sent.”? First, it locates the source of Jesus’s not in himself, but in God the Father. Second, it looks forward to Jesus’ own sending of the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit that gives us the grace we need to believe, the power we require to have faith.
But this crowd around Jesus is a tough crowd, tough crowd as Rodney Dangerfield would say tugging at his shirt collar. What are you going to give us? What work are you performing? And they give the example of Moses and the manna in the wilderness. And again they fail to see the who for the what. It wasn’t Moses who gave the manna, it was my father who is giving you the true bread from heaven – which is ME! This bread fills the stomach, yes, but much more – it comes down and gives life to the world. Echoes of John
Then Jesus just comes out and lays it only one: I am the bread of life. Do you see? It is not a sign, not a loaf of bread, BUT ME! I am life! Come to me, believe in me. You will live and be satisfied in body and spirit.
Why is that so difficult for us to accept? Come and believe. Because accepting new life from Christ means accepting the death of our old, sinful life. Of truly turning outward from our personal needs, our empty or over-filled stomachs. Our need to control not only our living but our dying too. Of accepting that in those matters of ultimate concern: life, death, salvation we are not the boss.
The Good News that Jesus proclaims today is that we don’t have to be. You are promised life today and forever through faith in this Bread of Life, the person of Jesus of Christ, which we eat when we receive communion today.
Wendell Berry tells a story about an imaginary yet real man called the Man in the Well. Story here:
Now you notice the Man in the Well has a sandwich and a candy bar with him. Good nourishing, energizing food. But that does not save him. It is faith, belief that Jesus Christ is the bread come down from heaven, even expressed in a simple prayer spoken late, late in life – that is the source of hope.
That is the promise Jesus makes, a promise that shatters all of our most cherished reasons, traditions, or expectations. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Are you hungry for this God in whom you will never be lost, however deep the well, however powerful the pain, however lonely the night? Come, the table is ready for all who believe he is the bread of God which comes down from heaven. Eat and it will be well with you. Amen.
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