Did you ever notice how one question
or statement can be so mis-interpreted? Take for instance the question: “What’s
for dinner?” When in a happy mood it is asked in a nonchalant way with a little
pep in the voice; maybe it was a good day and you are topping off a good day
with a good question…waiting in hope and anticipation what that answer is going
to be. OR take that same question, “What’s for dinner?” after a bad day.
Everything that can go wrong is going wrong and you dread the answer, because
you just know that the answer is going to be one more thing that goes
wrong…food that you don’t like that you’re gonna have to eat.
Let’s take our Gospel reading for
today from the Gospel of John. It can be a great story, depending on our mood.
The people were just fed…5000 people fed on the grassy lawn as they followed
Jesus, listened to him, and they wanted to make him their King. They look for
him and find him and can’t get enough of Jesus, wow! That’s a good thing, isn’t
it?
But what if it is meant in another
kind of way. Take that same story that was so uplifting and look at it in this
way: They wanted to take Jesus by force and make him King. Now, this week, they
find him in Capernaum. They weren’t on the sea to watch him walk on water. They
ask about his timing, “When did you get here?” Jesus doesn’t skip a beat, “you
didn’t come looking for me because you saw what I gave you, came looking
because I gave you food (paraphrasing, of course). Jesus is saying “you came
because of what I did for you, not because you have a deeper understanding of
who I am.”
Jesus is telling them that they are
focused on something way different than what he is focused on. HE is telling
them that Jesus gave them what they wanted. They were hungry because they have
been following him around for some time. Bringing people who need healing and
listening to his every word. All that walking and listening and following can
make a person pretty tired and hungry. Jesus is telling them that they are
focused on their bellies, their stomachs. It seems like it would make sense.
How many times do we work or get involved with something and forget to eat? We
go through the day and then our stomachs tell us that it is time to eat something.
I am sure we’ve all been there before at least once in our lives.
But Jesus words go deeper than the
stomach. So let’s go down the cynical road. They are focused on the fact that
he was able to give them exactly what they wanted. Then they ask what they must
do to “perform the works of God?” What sign are you going to do so that we see
and believe (as if feeding them was not enough) and let’s not forget the
healing. These people are even comparing him to Moses; “Moses gave our
ancestors bread from heaven, so what are you going to do? That is basically
what they are saying.
It sounds like these people want
some control. They want to know what they have to do, they want to see a sign,
and “if you show it to me, I will believe!” It sounds like they want a
checklist so they can be told what to do, check it off, and then move on. Last
one on the list is checked off so I can go into heaven; cut and dry.
There is only one little problem
with that thinking. They aren’t listening to what Jesus is telling them! Jesus
is telling them that they are looking for those things that will perish; the
bread from a full belly, it perished when they ate it. “Look for the food that
endures for eternal life.” They are so focused on that meal, on what they want,
that they were not hearing Jesus or recognizing who it really was that was
providing the food when they were hungry. They question what they have to do
perform works of God; not knowing that it is God who enables them with gifts
and talents to do God’s work in the world.
These people have it all wrong! It
is not about what they can do for God to get the reward. It is all about what
God has done and is doing for them. Despite their walking around and listening
to Jesus and witnessing healing by Jesus, they don’t see that when they were
hungry it was God who brought enough food “so that all were filled.” When they
brought people who needed healing; they saw Jesus doing the healing…it may not
have registered but it was God who was doing the healing through Jesus, God’s
Son! It is that plain and simple! God was using Jesus to do God’s work. God was
behind the feeding of the Israelites and now these people.
This
whole story is about God’s action toward the people. Jesus is telling them to
look past their stomachs and look at those things that don’t end, that are
eternal. What is it that is eternal? Maybe the followers can’t see that far or
it is beyond their comprehension. What is eternal? In the case of the
Israelites it was God’s promise of deliverance out of slavery, providing bread
from heaven so they won’t starve on the journey, keeping the people safe so
they can reach the land that God promised.
What
is eternal for the people in our Gospel? Jesus teaching about a God of love who
did deliver…kept his promises with the ancestors; and the God who sent Jesus
with the power to heal, and feed, and forgive. What is eternal is God’s
promise, through Baptism to gather us into God’s care and protection and love.
What is eternal is the pouring out of God’s love in the form of a Son who will
show us exactly what it means to love and care for one another. What is eternal
is the power of the forgiveness of sins; in the form of God’s only Son on the
cross FOR OUR SAKE…YOU AND ME! To say that we all are loved and valued in the
eyes and heart of God.
So,
knowing all that, what do we do with that? We all know about control. Wouldn’t
it be nice if we could have things exactly how we want them? Sometimes, we
think that is possible. Oh sure, we can control some things in our lives; meal
time, setting the alarm, going to bed, what college (sometimes), career (again,
sometimes). But there are times we want more control: I want to make sure this
does/does not happen, a stable job, a steady income, and sometimes “I want to
worship the way I want to worship.” I want church wrapped up in this nice
little bow, never to change.
And
there’s the rub. When we think we are in control or have control over our
worship life or faith life, we are actually trying to put God in some nice
little box. But that is not how it works. God does not work that way. God is
not in that Box because God is always doing something. God is active in the
world and God is not a person or a thing that can be put away on a shelf. God
uses each and every one of us to do God’s work and we don’t do it to check off
a box. The hope is that we do things…use our gifts and blessings to help our
brothers and sisters, and even God’s creation, plants, animals, and oceans as a
response to the love of God, the hope and promise of God shown us in the life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ!
We
can get so caught up in the hunger…using that term metaphorically that we focus
on worldly, temporary things rather than giving praise and responding to God’s
graciousness. We are sitting in a time of anxiety, just based on the news this
morning of our announcement, I can tell you that I know there is anxiety. There
is anxiety in this world about what the future holds – and if you believe the
rhetoric -- if there will even be a future! With all the back and forth going
on about everything it is easy to get consumed and swallowed up into a higher
level of anxiety.
This
is when we need to focus on something bigger than our stomachs…our pains, or
anxieties. Look to the cross. Look to the God who does not fit in a box or a
mold. Look to our God who does the unthinkable, unimaginable by send a Son into
the world. A God who sends Jesus into the world to experience, first hand, the
hurts, pains, and brokenness of this world. Let’s remember God’s promise that
we belong to a loving and caring God who is abundant in mercy and love. Let’s
hand all that anxiety over to God so that we don’t have to be burdened with the
things we don’t necessarily have control over. So that we can be hungry for
God’s presence with and in us through the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus
Christ; so that we can be hungry for God’s continuing promise of love,
forgiveness, and everlasting life: AMEN!
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