I. Theme – Living for God includes living for the welfare of others
"The Bread of Life" – Hermel Alejandre
The lectionary readings are here or individually:
Old Testament – Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15
Psalm – Psalm 78:23-29
Epistle –Ephesians 4:1-16
Gospel – John 6:24-35
Today’s readings portray God as our ultimate provider and sustainer of both our physical and spiritual lives. In Exodus God feeds the people of Israel with quail and manna. Paul reminds his community that they must put away their old way of life and be renewed in Christ. In anticipation of his eucharistic gift of himself, Jesus declares that he is the bread of life.
We’ve interrupted our Liturgical Year B trek through Mark’s gospel for a five-week sojourn in the gospel of John, Chapter 6, the extended teaching about Jesus as the Bread of Life.
After the Feeding of the 5,000, Jesus and His disciples cross back to the other side of Galilee. When the crowd sees that Jesus has left, they follow Him again. Jesus takes this moment to teach them a lesson. He accuses the crowd of only following Him for the “free meal.”
Jesus tells them in John 6:27, “Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” The real import of Jesus’ activity isn’t simply to feed those who are hungry but to reveal something vital about Jesus and, in turn, about God. In this case, Jesus is the One who can satisfy every human need. They were so enthralled with the food, they were missing out on the fact that their Messiah had come.
They want proof. So the Jews ask Jesus for a sign that He was sent from God (as if the miraculous feeding and the walking across the water weren’t enough). They tell Jesus that God gave them manna during the desert wandering. Jesus responds by telling them that they need to ask for the true bread from heaven that gives life. When they ask Jesus for this bread, Jesus startles them by saying, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
This is an invitation for those listening to place their faith in Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God as the one who is essential. The concept of bread is expanded from a physical substance of life into that into the spiritual realm. He is spiritual bread that brings eternal life.
A unifying theme in today’s passages is the reminder that living for God includes living for the welfare of others, and not putting our own desires first, for our own desires lead to giving into temptations and lead us away from God. And our response to those in need must be to meet the needs first, not to judge or complain. We are called to help and heal, not blame and condemn. We are called to live out the life of Christ in our own lives, to seek to be last and servant of all rather than first and right. We are called to put aside our own desire to be right to do what is right.
The scripture last week also included the story of Jesus walking on the water, Jesus is the one who transcends limits. In the process we need to allow Jesus to transform us which we more than often than not are unable to accept.
II. Summary
Old Testament – Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15
Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15 shares the story of the first complaining of the people of Israel after they had crossed the Red Sea into freedom, and how God provided bread from heaven for them. How quickly we as human beings forget what God has done for us, and how we complain and are bitter! As their God, Yahweh must demonstrate that he can provide and protect them as a household leader or father was required to do.
As their wilderness trip becomes more extended. The Israelites long for the meat and bread they ate in Egypt. God responds by providing for them both flesh and bread, but on God’s own terms, one day at a time. Thus God provided for them but at the same time tested their faith.
God acts, saying: “You shall know that I am the lord your God.” This statement of recognition occurs in the priestly writings (Exodus 7:5), in Isaiah (45:3, 6) and in Ezekiel (7:27, 11:10). God’s actions disclose, to believer and unbeliever alike, the lord of our world and life. God provides from nature’s bounty for the Israelites, reliably supplying the needs of an unreliable people.
In the latter parts of that long history, the prophets and the more faithful priests often appealed to the Exodus memory in order to rekindle faith in the one true God, and keep the people on course. In their writings they retell the history with their own concerns giving certain biases to the tale. Thus the 5th verse of chapter 16 (absent from the Lectionary selection) says "On the sixth day, however, when they prepare what they bring in, let it be twice as much as they gather on the other days." That and the notion that God’s goal is "to see whether they follow my instructions or not" (verse 4) show that this text is the work of priests. They wanted the people to observe the seventh day of the week as a Sabbath, and believed that the way to maintain healthy nationhood was to promote strict religious observance.
Psalm – Psalm 78:23-29
Psalm 78:23-29 is a song remembering how God provided for the people in the wilderness, how when they complained, God’s first response was to provide, to meet the needs of the people, even though the people’s first response was to grumble and gripe.
This psalm is a long recital of the story of Israel’s relationship with God. After the introduction (vv. 1-11), the psalmist recounts the wilderness experience (vv. 12-39) and the journey from Egypt to the land. The pattern of history involves God’s gracious action (vv. 12-16), the people’s rebellion (vv. 17-20), God’s punishment (21-31) and forgiveness (vv.32-39). It encourages the audience to learn the lessons from their history and respond more appropriately to God’s choice of them as covenant partners.
Epistle – Ephesians 4:1-16
On the Fifteenth Sunday and Sixteenth Sunday of this season, the second readings from Ephesians established the new unity of God’s once separated peoples, the Jews and the Gentiles (the latter including the Ephesian addressees of this letter).
In previous passages we recalled the diversity of the body in terms of ethnicity, gender, economic status, and all other categories that might be used to separate and oppress—in Christ the walls are broken. In this passage, we celebrate the diversity of gifts, and that within the church, the diversity of gifts are to be celebrated and expressed, not used to divide. All gifts are used to build up the church.
In the reading on the Seventeenth Sunday, Paul encouraged them to live out the consequences of their unification, (we paraphrase liberally) "You have only one religion, so live like one family."We are reminded that we are united in Christ, one body, one Spirit, and that in our unity we also celebrate our diversity.
The writers warns against those who are easily persuaded by “every wind of doctrine”—in other words, those who are persuaded to lift up one gift or one way of following Jesus over another. We are first and foremost within the church to remember that we are one body, for the body only grows when we grow together.
Don’t continue to behave like you did before your conversion, "You must no longer live as the Gentiles [in a clearer, older translation, the pagans] do." And how might the unconverted pagans be living? Here are verses 18 and 19, absent from the Lectionary: "darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, because of their hardness of heart, they have become callous and have handed themselves over to licentiousness for the practice of every kind of impurity to excess." .
Gospel – John 6:24-35
Today’s passage is the preface to the bread of life discourse. It illustrates John’s favorite ways of shaping a dialogue. One is the use of misunderstanding; another is that a question asked on one level is answered on a higher level. Set in the synagogue at Capernaum (6:59), this discourse relies on concepts and structures common to rabbinic sermons at the time.
Jesus charges the crowd with having responded only to the material meaning of the feeding, not to its spiritual significance. They answer by picking up the theme of works, asking what the works are that God desires them to do (3:21). The reply is that there is only one work that God desires to accomplish in them, obedient trust in Jesus. This is John’s contribution to the faith/works issue: faith is itself a work, the acceptance of God’s work in Jesus.
The crowd requests a sign from him to validate his teaching so that they may “believe” (rather than “believe in”) him. They challenge the prophet-like-Moses (6:14; Deuteronomy 18:15) to produce manna. Jesus answers that their desire has already been fulfilled. Bread was, in rabbinic writings, a symbol of the Torah given to Moses. Jesus’ teaching is the bread they should crave. The bread God gives in the present is “that which comes down from heaven” (v. 33), the revelation of God made personal in the incarnation of Jesus.
The bread from heaven that the people ate in the wilderness met the people’s needs daily, but Jesus meets the needs of our whole lives. Jesus spoke with the metaphors of eating and drinking, of bread and water, in the Gospel of John. We are reminded that it is Jesus who gives us life—so our daily needs are already met when we live for Jesus. We are reminded in Matthew’s Gospel not to worry about what we will eat or drink—not to be consumed with survival, but instead be focused on living out the Gospel, loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Verse 35 is the first of the many “I am” statements in the Gospel of John. Jesus uses the “I am” statements (bread of life, 6:35; light of the world, 8:12; door, 10:7; good shepherd, 10:11; resurrection and life, 11:25; way, truth and life, 14:6; true vine, 15:1) to reveal the dimensions of his relationship to humankind.
III. Articles for this week in WorkingPreacher:
Old Testament – Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15
Psalm – Psalm 78:23-29
Epistle – Ephesians 4:1-16
Gospel – John 6:24-35