24 So when the crowd saw that neither
Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went
to Capernaum looking for Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the
sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" 26 Jesus
answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not
because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not
work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal
life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father
has set his seal." 28 Then they said to him, "What must we do to
perform the works of God?" 29 Jesus answered them, "This is the work
of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." 30 So they said to him,
"What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and
believe you? What work are you performing? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in
the wilderness; as it is written, "He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'
" 32 Then Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, it was not
Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the
true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from
heaven and gives life to the world." 34 They said to him, "Sir, give
us this bread always." 35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of
life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will
never be thirsty.
His name was Stoopid.
Now, I don’t mean he had a ridiculous name, no. His name was actually Stoopid
(spelled, STOOPID because I took him to the vet after a fight with another dog
and decided that if it was spelled a little different the vet wouldn’t think I
was stupid!). He was a red Chow mix who had come up in our yard one day with
our German Shepherd named Alex (obviously I didn’t name him; he came with the
trailer). For several days after school, I’d get off the bus and there was this
crazy, overzealous, shaggy dog who just sort of took up with our dog, running
up and down the road where we lived. Until one day, when I did what every
parent tells every kid not to do when a stray dog wanders up in the yard: I
went in the house, got an old Cool Whip container, and filled it with a couple
handfuls of Gravy Train and some warm water. That dog’s tongue nearly knocked
his teeth out trying to get to the bottom of that food bowl! As you can
imagine, from that day on, that dog was mine. He’d wait for me at the back door
in the morning before I caught the bus, and he was waiting in the driveway when
I got off the bus in the afternoon. When I could drive, he’d run alongside my
truck, nearly jumping through the driver’s side window once (hence the name I
gave him). I believe that dog would have followed me off the edge of a cliff.
Now, I’d like to think that that dog had some sort of affectionate connection
with me, some loyalty that seems to exist between a boy and his dog, but if I
were to be honest with you, I think the real reason Stoopid waited for me every
day after school, wasn’t because he missed me during the day—it was because he
knew there was a bowl of Gravy Train just a few minutes away! You might say,
from his point of view anyhow, that what we had was a relationship of
convenience.
I think there are a lot of
folks in such relationships, especially when it comes to relationships with
God. Folks like those five thousand or so who had gathered on the other side of
the Sea of Galilee, waiting, wanting to hear Jesus speak, those five thousand
or so, whom Jesus fed with just a few pieces of bread and some dried fish.
Folks who continued to look for Jesus after he slipped away, because bread and
fish only stay in one’s stomach for so long before the emptiness and hunger
return. So, “they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for
Jesus.” Now, why did they take it upon themselves to go looking for
Jesus? I mean, wouldn’t you want to take the experience you just had—witnessing
this radical rabbi divide five loaves and two fishes into enough to feed
thousands—and tell people about it? Wouldn’t you want to run home and tell
people you had just witnessed the inbreaking of the kingdom of God, the arrival
of God’s prophet? Remember, back in verse 14 they were all saying, “This is
indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” Why are they trying to find
Jesus? Hadn’t they already seen enough evidence? Hadn’t they already
experienced enough to take what they have witnessed and tell the world about
it? Maybe.
But then again, they seem
to be a lot like those other folks, those other people, who were following a
prophet through the wilderness of Sinai. They had been liberated from 400 years
of slavery after witnessing ten timely plagues, led through the Red Sea on dry
ground to watch the chariots of Egypt be swallowed whole by the collapsing
waters, and they witnessed the very presence of God in a cloud by day and a
pillar of fire by night. Still, these folks were always looking for more,
looking for something else. They were grumbling about the next thing on their
list as if they had so quickly forgotten the ways God had already been faithful
in providing liberation and safe passage, and in perhaps the most obvious sign
of God’s provision, those wandering people were giving bread from heaven every
day; the called it manna.
You’d think they would
have been satisfied with the signs from God they witnessed in Egypt. You’d
think they would have been content in knowing God’s presence went before them,
dividing seas, clearing a path for them. You’d think those folks would have
been satisfied in knowing God would provide for them, even in the midst of the
desert, but no, they still grumbled, even after God gave them bread and meat
every day.
Perhaps it was that same
drive that brought the people in boats across the sea of Galilee, looking for
Jesus. I mean, Jesus does say in verse
26: “Very truly, I tell you, you are
looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the
loaves.” These people weren’t coming to find Jesus because they were
curious about what all the kingdom of God held in store for them. They didn’t
come looking for Jesus to gain some deep insight into the very being of God,
they came for the same reason that shaggy, red dog kept showing up in my
driveway: Jesus fed them once, so they figured he could feed them again!
After Jesus uncovers
their motives, he says to them in verse
27: “Do not work for the food that
perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man
will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal."
Jesus, despite the crowd’s culinary motivations, takes advantage of this
teachable moment to guide them away from their intestinal incentives towards a
deeper understanding of the divine. They clearly miss the point: “What
must we do to perform the works of God?" That’s what they ask
after Jesus tells them about food that endures for eternal life. What do we
have to do? I mean, isn’t that the most cliché, religious question? I think it
has to be at least number three behind “Where did we come from?” and “Why are
we here?”
“What must we do to perform the
works of God?" It’s an intriguing question, because if Jesus gives
them a straight answer, we’ve all got it figured out, right? If Jesus gives
them a list—no matter how long—then we’ve got an answer to that enormous
question. I have to believe this crowd in John 6 asks this question of Jesus
because they believe the answer might lead to a lifetime supply of loaves and
fishes, a guarantee that hunger will never again be an issue, and while the
situation isn’t exactly the same, I have to believe that most of us who ask
such questions do so because we believe the answer might lead to a lifetime of
happiness, a sense of relief when thinking about the hereafter; we believe the
answer to such a question will ultimately help us parse our lives into
easy-to-handle sections, allowing us to check off our list of “God works” while
carrying on with the other parts of our lives that we seem to enjoy more.
But Jesus doesn’t give
them a particularly straight answer; he doesn’t give us a list of “God-works.”
Instead, Jesus answers, “This is the work of God, that you believe in
him whom he has sent." Now, I know, to folks raised up in church,
this may sound like familiar language: “believe…” But have you ever stopped to
really think about what that means? “Believe in him who he has sent;” believe
in Jesus. Now, for a lot of folks, that simply means some sort of cognitive
agreement that Jesus was alive at some point in history and did (at least most)
of the stuff the Bible says he did. In other words, for a lot of people,
believing in Jesus is about agreeing to some factual existence of Jesus. But
that’s not what this means. What’s more, it’s not just some baptized passcode
for getting into heaven: “believing in Jesus” is about more than a religious
claim of identity. Believing in Jesus is about trusting Jesus; it’s about
trusting Jesus to do more than just serve as some “genie in the Bible,”
granting wishes, answering prayers, and making food out of thin air. Believing
in Jesus is about having faith enough to believe that Jesus will do so much
more than just quiet our growling stomachs—he’ll heal our hurting hearts and
mend our wounded souls.
Of course, we’re too
often and too easily distracted by that which is right in front of us, aren’t
we? We’re so regularly confronted with today’s troubles that to think too
deeply about the needs of our souls, those things which are eternal, can be
lost on us. It was lost on this crowd in Capernaum, for after Jesus tells them
about believing in him, they respond, “"What sign are you going to give us
then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our
ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them
bread from heaven to eat.' " They want to know why they should
believe in Jesus, what sign is he going to give them to prove he’s worth
believing in. Moses, after all, gave the Israelites manna in the desert to eat.
What will Jesus do to prove himself to them?
Do you catch the
absurdity of what’s happening here? Jesus has just fed five thousand or more
people with five pieces of bread and a couple of fish, and now these same five
thousand want a sign from Jesus to prove to them that he’s worth believing. Are
you kidding me?! Seriously, were they ignorant to what was going on when they
were on the other side of the lake? Did they think that was a fluke, a lucky
shot, an example of Jesus’ catering expertise and nothing else? You know what’s
really going on here, don’t you? They want more bread! I mean, they bring to
Jesus this example of Moses, who apparently made a way for them to have bread
every day, not just once on a hillside. Why can’t Jesus just do what Moses did?
Give them bread every day, and then they’d buy whatever religion Jesus was
selling. But Jesus corrects their understanding just a bit when he says,
"Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from
heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the
bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the
world."
See what Jesus does
(again)? They’re thinking with their stomachs, seeing with their eyes, but
Jesus is trying to get them to open their hearts to the reality of what’s going
on. This isn’t about bread and fish; this is about the “true bread of heaven.”
But of course, they miss what Jesus is saying and just come right out and ask
for the very thing that brought them across the lake: "Sir, give us this bread
always.” Jesus gave them bread once, and now they want it always, to
never have to need bread again, to never know hunger again, to always have
plenty to each. But that is such a small part of what God is up to in Jesus.
That’s why Jesus responds with words fitting Jesus in the fourth gospel: "I
am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever
believes in me will never be thirsty.”
This isn’t about bread
and fish. This isn’t about food at all. If it was, then what Jesus offers us is
little more than a religion of convenience, a religion in which God is nothing
more than an owner scooping out the Gray Train for us. This isn’t about just
asking for the rules to follow, the right things to do and the wrong things not
to do. If it was, then what Jesus offers us is nothing more than what every
other religion and self-help philosophy offers, garnished with his unnecessary
death. This isn’t about just checking a box, agreeing to some historical facts.
If it was, then why all of this? Why not just publish pamphlets and leave them
people’s doorsteps? Why not just put out an annual documentary outlining all
the important plot points and end it with some sort of number to call or
website to visit in order to log the number of those convinced of what they’ve
heard? Because this isn’t about any of that stuff. This life of faith is about
believing in Jesus, the one who makes more than enough out of barely any. This
is about believing in Jesus, the one who calms the waves and walks out on the
water but refuses to be made king. This is about believing in Jesus enough to
say whether he does it again or not isn’t what matters, but that what he’s done
already is more than enough, because what Jesus offers to us is not a religion
of convenience, but a life of faith—a long, winding journey through dark,
desolate valleys, up high, lofty mountains, though times of abundance and
scarcity, across a diverse landscape, dotted with people and places pregnant
with the presence of God. What Christ offers to us is not a religion of
convenience, one in which we are promised bread every day. No, what Christ
offers to us is a way, a journey, and what Jesus gives us is just enough bread
for the road so that we cannot help but trust him, believe in him, to see us
along the way. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment