10th Sunday After Trinity
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Readings: Ephesians 4: 1-16 and John 6: 24-35
Today’s gospel story more or less continues from last week’s, in which we heard the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, and the incident of Jesus walking on the water to meet the disciples. After an interval of a couple of verses, the story resumes. For those who didn’t hear last Sunday’s gospel, the story starts with Jesus and his disciples trying to get a break from the attention of the crowds who followed them. Even when they take to the water and cross the Sea of Galilee, they find people already waiting for them. Some in the crowd even get into boats themselves in an attempt to catch up with Jesus.
So the first question from the crowd today, is “Rabbi, when did you come here?” It sounds almost accusatory, as if Jesus had been trying to avoid them. And there follows a series of questions and answers, the questions demonstrating how people often misunderstood what Jesus had said, and indeed who he was. Some people see this simply as a literary device – as John’s way of telling his story. John pictures most people as getting hold of the wrong end of the stick, and Jesus then putting them right. But this surely is not something that John made up, for we find this misunderstanding about Jesus throughout the gospels.
But I wonder who the crowd were? It seems some of them had been following Jesus around for days. They can’t have had what we would think of as steady nine-to-five jobs, and if it was the Sabbath they couldn’t have gone out in droves like crowds to Weston-super-Mare on an August Sunday.
So it could be that they were what we might think of as ‘lost souls’ – people without jobs or security, maybe the casualties of society, prevalent then, as now. Maybe they were people from that strand of society where the source of the next meal is a continual worry.
The first question they ask, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” allows Jesus to discuss the motives of those who seek him. He replies, “You are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” We were saying last week that John, the gospel-writer, views the miracles of Jesus as ‘signs’ of who he is. The crowd were too much caught up with the miracle, but are we any better? People are constantly questioning the miracles of Jesus, but he wishes to move us on, as he wished to move the crowd on, from the excitement of the spectacle to the meaning behind it. To take a line from another miracle account, the disciples ask “Who is this, that even the wind and the seas obey him?” In our story today, Jesus forces the crowd, who have largely been spectators and recipients of the bounty of the miracle, to think and make choices. So, in trying to bring about this change in thinking, Jesus says “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give you.”
We might paraphrase that as “Don’t waste time on things that have no lasting value.” They then ask, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” or, more informally, “Oh, right; we’re on to religion, OK, so tell us about your idea of God then.” They have maybe noticed that Jesus means to ask them about who this ‘Son of Man’ is, but they’re not sure they want to hear the answer, because an answer would demand a commitment from them. And the answer came, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one whom he has sent.” Now the Greek word for ‘believe’ here is far more than an assent to certain ideas about God – more than just something intellectual, it is to have ‘faith’ in him; that is, to have a living relationship. So, if we do not have a relationship with God, we cannot truly perform his works. We are asked to give our heart to God. I discovered this week that the German word ‘belieben’, which is the root of the English word ‘believe’, actually means ‘to belove.’ Now, of course, there is always the argument about ‘faith’ and ‘works’, best explored in the Epistle of James. But the question ‘What do I have to do?’ often misses the point. In modern life, we have come to think that everything must be measurable, that ‘success’, whatever that may be, is to do with results. Sadly, the Church is almost as guilty as other organisations. What are your priorities? What is good practice? What are your numbers in Church? How well are you doing in meeting the Diocesan Quota? How sustainable are you? Those things may be important, but not the priority. You may recall that when St Paul and Silas were miraculously freed from jail in Philippi, the jailer, stunned by what had happened and fearful that his job was on the line, and maybe his head too, asked the disciples, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And the answer came, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” If that German word ‘belieben’ means ‘to belove’, then maybe faith and works are just two sides of the same coin. What we believe defines our faith and how we act.
Getting back to Jesus and the crowd, it seems they still hadn’t grasped the point. “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you?” They recalled the giving of the manna in the wilderness, which came about through Moses, who was right up there, top bloke! Can you do better, Jesus? Again, they hungered for more signs and excitement, and failed to seek the relationship Jesus was offering. But Jesus responds by saying that it was God, not Moses, who gave the manna in the wilderness. Now, God was to give them the true bread from heaven – yes, Jesus himself, who gives life to the world.
And then the crowd respond “Sir, give us this bread always.” So, did they get the point or were they still misunderstanding? The Greek word for ‘always’ here, pantote, means ‘again and again’, which suggests the people were still thinking about bread and feeding. And the arguments which go on in the following verses indicate that few of them accepted Jesus. They knew they didn’t want to go hungry, but they didn’t know if they wanted salvation.
Talking about today’s passages, Jane Williams comments: “It is terribly important to know that, about our deepest needs and desires, we can be remarkably stupid. According to Ephesians – our first reading -she continues – “it is one of the functions of the Church to minimize that stupidity. There is always the hope that if we stick together, we can function fully. The metaphor of the Church as a body is a vivid one in the new testament.”
One does hear of people who believe and practice their faith but don’t belong to a church, but they run the risk of being tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, as St. Paul writes, or being put off track by people’s trickery or craftiness.
So, for all the Church’s perceived failings, it is the place where we believe and belove, working together to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. It is where our faith and works are lived out in gentleness and humility, with patience, bearing with one another in love.
Bishop James Wand, one-time Bishop of London wrote this about the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand : “It is not intended to satisfy idle curiosity or a desire for wonders, but to strengthen us for the battle of life. Above all, it demands that we, having received the heavenly food ourselves, should henceforth continually ‘strengthen our brothers and sisters.’
So what better closing message could there be than to echo St. Paul’s words, that we make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, that we may be a place to welcome those lost in the crowds of today, and those asking ‘What must I do?’