Today, we begin to listen to the words of Jesus in what has been commonly referred to as “The Discourse on the Bread of Life.” This discourse follows two miracles that begin the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel. We heard of the first miracle last Sunday as Jesus fed the multitude with five loaves of bread and two fish. You will remember that because the people were intent on making Jesus their king, he left and went off by himself to pray. Meanwhile, the disciples got in a boat and made their way to Capernaum. A storm stirred up the sea, and the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water. St. John’s Gospel places these two incidents side by side for a reason. Keeping these two stories together ensures that the interpreter will hold in tension, as the evangelist did, the human and divine elements in Jesus. He is as near to us as our physical hunger yet as far beyond us as the eternal Word that was in the beginning with God, through whom all things were created.
These two stories set the stage for Jesus’ interaction with three different groups of people: the crowd who had been fed, the Jews, and his own disciples. Today, we hear that the crowd come looking for Jesus and immediately started asking questions. “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Actually they really want to know “how” he had gotten there. They have just witnessed a great sign when he fed the multitude. They are a little bit concerned that they might have missed another great sign since they didn’t see him get into a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus avoided their question and asked them to forget about the bread that they had eaten. They should focus on a different kind of bread, food that endures for eternal life. In other words, he is asking them to change their attitude, their perspective, and their expectations.
Human beings, especially those of us in the Western World, are prone to try to understand the problem or issue before acting. We call it prudence or logical thinking. It provides us with motive. It answers the question “why,” a question that is often voiced by our children in their youth but which also nags at the back of our heads as adults. Jesus asks us to stop asking the question “why, or “how.” Instead, he told them that they need to believe.
A story about a young woman and her recently hospitalized mother illustrates someone who has to change an attitude or an expectation. Mother had a stroke and is going to need help to get back on her feet. Daughter takes mother into her home and begins to help with her rehabilitation. Nerves begin to fray, and days drag on into weeks and weeks drag on into months. One day in the middle of an argument, mother asks daughter, “Why are you doing all this?” Daughter lists her reasons: she was afraid of her mother, she wanted her mother to get well, she felt as if she had ignored her mother before the stroke, she needed to get her mother ready to go home on her own, her mother was old. The list went on and on. Her mother responded, “Junk.” That really set daughter off. “Junk,” she yelled. Daughter was now angry.
Mother went on in a very quiet voice, “Yes, junk. You don’t need all those reasons. We love each other. That’s enough.” Feeling very much like a little girl again, she looked at her mother and nodded, “You’re right.” Mother had helped daughter change her attitude, her perspective.
Throughout this morning’s Gospel, Jesus endeavors to change the attitude of the crowd. They and we don’t have to accomplish the works of God. It is not about what we do. It isn’t about results. It’s about love which gives birth to faith. Once we place our faith in God, we don’t need reasons. We don’t need to understand. We simply open our hearts to God’s love and believe that God loves us. As St. Paul puts it, we can then “put away the old self of your former way of life . . . and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.” Just adjust your attitude and your expectations. Love God and believe that God loves you, and God will provide food that endures for eternal life.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator