08/04/2024

‘Sir, give us this bread always.’ John 6.34 In our gospel - our good news – today, the crowd go looking for Jesus and they find him. It is the stuff our dreams are made of is it not? Oh, that the crowds would go looking for Jesus and find him today. How joyous that would be. And yet the conversation quickly becomes quite serious. It feels like something of a struggle. Jesus and the crowd are wrestling for understanding. This exchange seems surprisingly deep for a chance encounter on a seaside street corner. It is only later in John’s account, beyond the scope of today’s reading, that we discover why. John, like Luke, has learnt how to shape his readers’ experience of an incident by keeping back crucial information and delaying sharing it. In this case John only tells us at the end of the conversation that it took place in the synagogue. Suddenly we can reread the passage in a different light. Perhaps the Ner Tamid – the light of the eternal presence – shines in the synagogue of our imagination just as it shines in our church while we picture this scene in our minds. This is a place where the presence of God eternal is made visible. Certainly, the crowd are gathered around a bimah – a platform from which the Holy Scriptures are read and expounded. And there stands the teacher, Rabbi Jesus, ready to preach. What question would you ask him? The crowd ask him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’. It is a curious question borne of excitement and hope. They have just seen five thousand people miraculously fed by Jesus as a few loaves were shared. And they know that, somehow, he has got to the other side of the sea of Galilee ahead of them and without the aid of a boat. Is the answer to their question going to uncover another miracle by this prophet they want to make king? They are hungry for a champion with the power to challenge Ceasar. Jesus has indeed been walking on water. But he doesn’t share this. Standing in his sovereign freedom, Jesus quietly challenges them with the truth of their own hearts. He turns their attention to their deeper desire. It isn’t war they really hunger for, but peace. Jesus reminds them that they are looking for him not because they saw others fed but because they personally ‘ate their fill’ of the loaves. The Greek wording indicates that these five thousand fed by Jesus were not just filled, they were fulfilled. Like the Holy Communion which it prefigures, this feeding is more than bread alone. This is bread together, and it is lifegiving. Such experiences of life’s fullness are salvation moments, moments in which we know Shalom - the wholeness and peace which only God can give. This is the reality that we pray will part of a person’s life as we say ‘The peace of God be with you.’ I wonder, where do you find this prayer answered in your life? Where have you found yourself embraced in a salvation moment – one of those moments in which you know Shalom -the wholeness and peace which only God can give? If we allow them to, such moments draw us in. We know ourselves to be part of God’s beloved creation, held in being by God’s generosity and love. And, if we allow them to, such moments also energise us to go forward. We are inspired to contribute our part in God’s work. This is the cry of the people. ‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’. And the answer of Jesus is deceptively simple. ‘This is the work of God, to believe in the one whom God has sent.’ All of God’s work is one, an unfragmented whole. And God calls us to participate in it. It is the work of wholehearted allegiance, of loving trust, of faith that believes in. It is the divine communion, the dance of the Trinity which expands to make space for us all. This is nothing less than the stuff of God. Yet see how the crowd struggles. How easily we humans distort the work of God. Each of the distortions reflected in the crowd’s words are distortions that we can fall into. Sometimes our prayer is distorted as we try to avoid being shaped by God, and instead we demand that God fits in with our agenda. ‘What sign are you going to give us then?’ Sometimes our compassion is distorted by uncontrolled anger, so we ignore what God is doing and focus on blame. ‘What are you doing?’ Sometimes we exchange thankfulness for pride, rebadging the gifts of God as our own group’s achievements. ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Jesus is unfazed. He affirms that the work of God continues unabated – eternally generous, eternally self-giving, eternally life-giving – true bread from heaven. He draws the crowd back to remember the fulfilment that they experienced at the feeding of the five thousand. And draws them on to recognise that this Shalom moment comes from the eternal God. This is an eternal inexhaustible offer, not a momentary high that is here today and gone tomorrow. The crowd responds, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’ And Jesus teaches us his followers to respond likewise. We pray as Jesus taught us, ‘Give us today our daily bread.’