Posts Tagged ‘Bread’

It is what God does, not what we do

July 31, 2021

Pentecost 10 – 2021
John 6:24-35 (a reflection)
Marian Free

In the name of God, in whom we live and breathe and have our being. Amen.

There are a number of hymns that formed my faith at a time when I was too young and therefore too ill-informed to put words to my thoughts and feelings. The most powerful lyric for my young self was the line from “Hallelujah! Sing to Jesus” which we would have sung today had we not been in lockdown. The second verse begins: “Hallelujah! not as orphans, are we left in sorrow now.” For reasons that I do not understand, I found these words incredibly comforting. I have hummed them to myself over and over and they have sustained me throughout my Christian journey. Another line that struck a chord in my young self comes from the hymn “Immortal, invisible” – “from Christ in the story, to Christ in the heart.” Even in my primary school years, those words made it clear to me that having a relationship with God was so much more than intellectual assent.

The hymn “Dear Lord and Father of mankind” (or its new form “Dear Father, Lord of humankind”) is another that has continued to inform my spiritual life. The entire hymn speaks of allowing ourselves to rest in Jesus, but the words that I find myself humming from time to time – especially when I am stressed or anxious are:

“Drop thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease,
take from our souls the strain and stress
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of thy peace,
the beauty of thy peace.”

When I first began practicing meditation, I took myself very seriously and did all that I could to achieve a state of detachment or at least some sort of mental state that was free from all distractions. In other words I was “striving” to reach some imagined ideal! I now realise that this was an unrealistic goal, and that meditation – like all spiritual practices – is meant to be more a “relaxing into” than a “striving for”. In fact, striving to achieve any sort of goal is counter to the goal of meditation which is more about letting go and letting God.

I think that this may be the point of this morning’s gospel.

If you did not already know, the entirety of chapter six in John is a discourse on bread. (As we read the entire chapter over the course of six weeks, it can be a real challenge for the preacher and for anyone unlucky enough to be choosing hymns!) To recap – Jesus has just fed a crowd of 5,000 with five barley loaves and two small fish. Needless to say, the crowd are impressed by Jesus’ actions, and they begin to murmur among themselves: “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” Jesus, aware of this and that the crowd intend to make him king, withdraws by himself.

Meantime the disciples have returned by sea to Capernaum where Jesus joins them (having walked on the water to do so). It is here that our gospel today begins. The crowd, seeing that a boat is missing, realise that Jesus and the disciples have crossed the lake. They too make their way over the lake in search of Jesus. When they find him, they ask: “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus is suspicious about their motives in seeking him out and the ensuing conversation proves him to be correct. While the crowd have intuited something about Jesus, their understanding is still very basic, and this is the crunch – they ask: “What must we do to perform the works of God?” The crowd don’t get it, they think that they need to do something for God and they don’t yet understand that the important thing is simply to accept what God does for them. They want to be active, not passive, they want to strive, not to rest.

This is often our problem. We too want to do something. We want to have something to show for our efforts, to have something that will affirm our sense of self, something that will demonstrate that we are worthy of God’s attention or something that might just be a basis for a pat on the back. We live in a world in which nothing is for nothing. We are used to an economy of exchange – you do something for me, and I will do something for you. If you want something you will have to pay for it. It is hard to imagine that our relationship with God should be any different.

This is the tension of the spiritual life. It is natural for us to want to strive, to attain a level of perfection, or to have a standard against which to measure ourselves, when all that Jesus wants is for us to trust. The work of God, Jesus says is: “to believe (trust) in him whom God has sent” (6:29). Instead of focussing on what they can do Jesus suggests, the crowd should focus on what God has done for them. They should trust in God’s love for them that has been demonstrated in God’s sending Jesus (God’s only Son) into the world. God’s hope is that through trusting Jesus, the people will come to trust God (John 3:16). The crux of the matter then, is whether or not we trust in God, whether we believe that our salvation depends on what we do or on what God has done.

If we truly believe that God sent Jesus into the world to save the world, we can stop striving, because the hard work has already been done (and not by us).

All that is left for us to do is to trust in God and in God’s unwavering love for us.

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Food for the soul

August 1, 2015

Pentecost 10 – 2015

John 6:26-35 (Some thoughts)

Marian Free

In the name of God who feeds our hearts, minds and souls with words of life. Amen.

Bread comes in many forms

Bread comes in many forms

In our Western society in which we have access to supermarkets twenty four hours a day it is difficult to imagine being totally dependent on what we are able to grow for ourselves and, except for the inconvenience of increased prices, we have no real idea how vulnerable food producers are to changes in the weather patterns, to drought and flood. Except in times of natural disaster – when people strip the supermarket shelves of bread, milk and other staples – we have no shortage of bread. Even then, most Australian suburbs boast more than one bakery that even in times of crisis can usually produce fresh bread each morning.

Today, in the West, we have a huge range of foods available to us and we know far more about nutrition than any generation before us, yet we still speak of bread as the “staff of life”. When we stock up on basics we still include quantities of bread because bread is filling and can be used in a variety of ways. Sandwiches can be built on simple spreads or extravagant fillings. Bread comes in a huge variety of forms, shapes and sizes. It fills lunch boxes, accompanies hearty soups, it is eaten on its own or as a accompaniment to a meal, it can be dipped in oil or smeared with honey, it can be toasted or fresh and used to make deserts as well as savoury dishes. The possibilities that a simple loaf of bread provides are seemingly endless.

The ability to grow rather than gather one’s food changed society from one that was always on the move to one that could settle down. Settling down in turn meant not only a need for more social controls but also to the stratification of society. Generally speaking, the vast majority of people existed at a subsistence level in order to feed the rich and powerful who made up a very small percentage of the population. Land was appropriated to feed the growing populations of the cities. This in turn, created a group of people who lacked the means to grow food for themselves and who were forced to hire themselves out as day-labourers, entirely dependent on others for their “daily bread”.

In the Palestine of Jesus’ day most people, including those with a trade, barely earned enough to keep starvation from the door. Their diet would have been limited to what they could grow, the animals they could afford to keep and the fish they were able to catch. Those whom Jesus has just fed with five barley loaves and two small fish, know only too well how dependent they are on the vagaries of the weather and how vulnerable they are should the harvest fail. Full stomachs and food for which they have not had to struggle is a miracle in itself, let alone the fact that Jesus has fed so many with so little.

It is no wonder that they seek Jesus. But Jesus is not impressed. He understands that they see only the superficial and that in seeking him, they are after physical, not spiritual sustenance. In other words, they have not understood the deeper meaning of the miracle that reveals who Jesus is and what he represents. No matter how much bread they have to eat today, they will still need to find bread to eat tomorrow and the following day. Jesus urges them to see beyond the external sign of the multiplication of the loaves to what the miracle is trying to tell them. He is trying to open their eyes to the presence of God in their midst. He wants to direct them away from their physical needs and encourage them to focus not only on their spiritual needs, but also on their eternal salvation.

Jesus points out that like bread the things of this world will perish. It is only those things that are not of this world that will endure forever. The things that are required to meet physical needs constantly have to be replenished, but the food for the soul – that which is required for spiritual well being, in the present and in the future – will be so satisfying that it will never have to be refilled or restocked. Jesus claims to be that bread, that source of nourishment and life that will so completely meet their need for fulfillment and meaning that they will never again hunger or thirst for peace and contentment.

For us, as for Jesus’ listeners, the pressures and demands of our day-to-day life can crowd out our need for spiritual refreshment and rest. The expectations placed on us by family, work and even church can claim our full attention and make us forget the needs of our soul. It is so easy for us to be distracted by the world around us – the world that we can see and feel and touch – that we can forget that for all the pleasure it gives us, this material world is limited in time and space. When it comes to an end or when our time in this world is over, what will we have?

While we are in this world, we will of course be caught up in it. Our physical bodies will require nourishment; our families and other commitments will make claims on our time, as indeed they should.

Today’s gospel reminds us that however much we gain from the things of this world, however much pleasure they give us and however much they meet our needs for achievement and pleasure – there will always be something wanting, we will continue to hunger and thirst for something more.

Jesus claims to be that something more, the source of a deep and lasting sense of fullness and satisfaction that will bring an end to all our striving and discontent in the present and assure us of life forever in the world to come.

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