John 6:35,41-51
We do not save anyone-only God does. We who have been drawn to and choose to believe can abide in the healing, life-giving waters offered by our eternal life in Christ. We can bear witness to what we have come to see. Seeing is believing. We speak what we witness, not to achieve grace but to share Christ’s abundant life with the hearts and lives of believers. Recall John 10:10, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” The abundance is of the Spirit, not of earthly things.
John often repeats himself in his text. Recall last week the number of times John uses “I Am …” statements. Today’s reading may be the only time in the Lectionary that the previous line from last week’s reading is repeated verbatim as the first line of this week’s reading. Jesus promises that “anyone who comes to me I will never drive away.” In these verses, he states that he will “lose nothing” God has given him (v. 39). We hear the repetition of John’s theme followed by the feeding of the 5000, in which Jesus tells the disciples to gather all the crumbs from those who ate so “nothing may be lost” (v. 12). Life in Christ will be eternal. Life and Spirit will no longer be closed upon a believer’s death.
Jesus has distinguished the “manna” offered to the wandering Jews, which fed them for days. He contrasts that to his life, his body, which is “the bread of life” and will sustain the Spirit for eternity. Love and mercy, the center of the new Covenant Christ offers, will bring grace. Moses and the Jews, who wandered in the wilderness, died. Those who follow Christ will never perish. Their souls will live within Jesus, and he will live in us.
Historically, we know that John wrote his Gospel when the Dead Sea Scrolls were created in the late First Century CE. Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed by Rome in 70 CE. The Jews of Jesus’ time had been dispersed throughout the world. Scholars have recently asserted it is likely both Peter and James were lost during the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome, which also took the lives of as many as 1,000,000 Jews. John likely sought refuge and hid in the barren wilderness among many survivors in a new exile and diaspora.
Like those who escaped the sword of Roman Peace, the followers of Jesus experienced a mirrored story of the Israelites who wandered with Moses. I recall that those Israelites “complained” to Moses and some fomented rebellion against him. We hear those same complaints arise from the Jews in Capernaum. The complaints against Moses and Jesus arise after miraculous feedings in the wilderness. But Jesus, through John, marks a critical difference. Those who escaped from Egypt complained that Moses led them from secure slavery to the dangers of freedom in a harsh land that presented the insecurity of freedom. Those who question Jesus complain that he has made impossible and even blasphemous claims about himself. As a result, Jesus and his followers are now threatened to be exiled from their synagogues. The complainers echo Jesus’ preaching in Luke at the temple of Nazareth. In Luke, Jesus is chased out by the crowd after reading Isaiah.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, returned it to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He said to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:14-21).
In John, the complainers say, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven?” (v. 42).
In our society, we evaluate people based on what we recall from their childhood. We note where they are from and even what part of a state or town they live in by status or location. We associate people by ethnicity, schools, and places and then establish who is in and out. I see this even within our denomination. For example, in the East, churches favor candidates from Yale. In the Midwest, the United Church of Christ churches prefer pastors from Eden Seminary. On the West Coast, churches prefer Pacific School of Religion graduates. In the Rockies, churches favor those educated at the Iliff School of Theology. These preferences prevail even though all seeking ordination in the United Church of Christ are considered equals.
Let’s admit it. Humans prefer those who share geographical familiarity. But if they are too familiar to us, we often disregard them. “That’s just Norman being Norman.” Dr. Martin Luther King became the victim of those who saw his sins as worse than the vision and inclusiveness he promoted. We have failings in our lives, yet we desire that someone leads our thoughts and actions. We want to construct idols, and our idolatry often disappoints us because of human fallibility. We want religion to be something spiritual rather than something incarnate. In John, we hear God-in-the-flesh saying, “I’m your bread; feed on me!”
Our pangs of hunger are so deep. We are dying of thirst. We have seemingly insatiable needs. We rush here and there in a vain attempt to assuage our emptiness. Our culture is a vast supermarket of desire stalked with commodities beyond our imagination. Can it be that our bread, the fruit of the vine, and our fulfillment come from a crucified, resurrected Jew? Is Christ indeed the bread we need, even though he is the bread we often fail to seek? Is it true that God has come to us, living in us and for us, like the manna that is dropped into the wildernesses of our lives?
Are we drawn to Jesus or not? Jesus returned to the story of the manna. There is no problem knowing the story about feeding the wandering Jews through ancient Scripture. However, each person must decide to open themselves to God’s new action and covenant in the world presented by the living Christ. The generation who ate the manna still died before entering the land of promise (v. 49). Those who eat “the bread that comes down from heaven” now “will live forever.” And, to test our understanding and faith, Jesus says, “The bread … is my flesh” (v. 51). The scene is set for the debate in next Sunday’s Gospel lesson by alluding to the story of Moses’ care for the Israelites in the wilderness (cf. Exod. 16:8; Num. 11:18). Pay attention and draw closer to God with us and within us.