St. John’s gospel depicts the disciples and the people that follow Jesus as clueless. They don’t quite get what Jesus means. Usually, they either take the words of Jesus literally or do not carefully listen to him. For example, let’s talk about Nicodemus whose story is told in the third chapter of St. John’s gospel. When Jesus tells Nicodemus, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus quite innocently or uncritically asks, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus’ teaching of changing one’s perspective radically in the form of metanoia (turning away from ways one’s used to go) is taken literally and physiologically. Spiritual transformation may have some positive impact on our bodies but it’s never a matter of biology.
St. John’s gospel consistently manifests how people’s minds are so fixated on their own views of self, others, the world, and God. Unconscious biases are in the way of Jesus getting to their hearts. Much of what Jesus does is to undo their conscious and unconscious biases and help them unlearn. In today’s gospel, St. John shows us the same literary craft in which people just don’t quite get what Jesus is saying. Jesus clearly sees through the intention of the crowd that follows him from the dessert to Capernaum. They’re more interested in his ability to fill their stomach than the signs of God that he wants them to see for themselves. There’s nothing wrong with the crowd’s desire to meet their basic needs in life. The system in which the crowd is positioned doesn't work for them. They have no easy access to food, medicine, and other benefits. Miracles of feeding the hungry and curing the sick are desperately needed because their society wouldn’t provide any of basic human needs. There’s this great necessity, and Jesus may be the only person or system that they can rely on. (In the early twentieth century, the Azusa Street Revival shares a similar social system as the crowd in the gospel lesson where miracles of curing illnesses occurred to the vulnerable to whom the system didn’t and couldn’t reach out.) This phenomenon of looking for a person who can substitute a dysfunctional system still continues. The rise of the former president, Donald Trump can be a recent example. His supporters look for a system that works and speaks for them and projects that alternative system on Trump. Whether this system incarnate actually works or not is a different subject matter. What we want to learn from the gospel lesson this morning is that Jesus seems to know the crowd’s expectation of him. He is to be the system that works for them. He also seems to know that this would fail at the end, which leads him to the crucifixion and death. Let’s not forget that the crowd’s shout for “Hosanna in the highest!” quickly changes to the chant of “Crucify him!” I would like us to further ponder on two questions that the crowd asks: 1) “What must we do to perform the works of God?” and 2) “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?” The first question sounds as if it has nothing to do with what Jesus expects from them. He never asks them to perform the works of God. He says, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.” They may want to ask, “How do we work for the food that endures for eternal life?” and “What is that food?” Jesus’ response to their first question is simple: “...that you believe in him whom he has sent.” The second question is a follow-up question to the first one. The crowd is ready to believe in the one who God has sent but it’s not enough. They need some good reason to believe Jesus and gives him a detailed example: “Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” We can now see what Jesus sees in them, in their intention of following him that they haven’t moved an inch away from their fixated view of the Savior or the Feeder or the Filler of their stomach. The crowd specifically wants Jesus to be the one who gives them bread from heaven to eat. Jesus needs all these seemingly frustrating dialogues with the crowd to let them reveal their true desire. They want a system that can give them bread from heaven to eat in the wilderness. The crowd seems to negotiate with Jesus, “Can you be that system for us so that we may believe you?” What the crowd secretly and probably unconsciously desires is finally exposed in their dialogue with Jesus. (How often do we really know what we honestly desire? We too often deceive and justify ourselves that what we desire is for others or something for good.) Jesus quickly points them to see that the one who gives them food to eat is not Moses but God, which also means he’s not the one either. Moses might give to them food that perishes, but the food that God gives doesn’t. He then directs the crowd to look for this eternal bread that God gives. Now, Jesus and the crowd are back to where they’ve initially started: Work for the food that endures for eternal life. What then is this food? It’s the Great “I am.” Jesus is pointing deep inside himself where the Great I am is. Whoever comes to this place of the Great I am will never be hungry and will never be thirsty. Jesus himself becomes the sign that directs the crowd and all of us to go deep inside our hearts to be united with the Great I am who is our eternal food. The Eucharist is that sign, that reminder for us and the world. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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