1 Kings 19. 4 – 8
John 6. 35, 41 – 51
Fr Alex
This is the third Sunday in a long series of Gospel passages on Jesus and bread.
Two weeks ago he fed the multitude with just five loaves and two fishes, and the crowd goes into a frenzy, and try to take Jesus by force and make him their king.
So he and his disciples steal away first to the mountain, and then, by dark, across the lake the Capernaum.
When the crowds realise that Jesus and the disciples have scarpered, they also cross the lake to look for him.
Last week we heard what Jesus said when they caught up with him. “You’re only looking for me because you ate your fill of the bread. Don’t work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life. Believe in me.”
“But what sign will you give us to prove it?” they ask. “Moses gave our ancestors manna in the wilderness, the ‘bread from heaven!’”
Jesus says, “That wasn’t the bread from heaven; my Father gives the true bread from heaven, that gives life to the world. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Today we’ve just heard the crowd’s angry reaction to Jesus’ words. Despite the amazing miracle they’ve all witnessed (and not just witnessed, but eaten); despite commandeering boats and crossing a great lake to search for him: they still can’t accept what his words and even their own senses are conveying to them.
“This is Jesus – we know his mum and dad! How can he come down from heaven?” It’s not the only time of course that Jesus has met with such a reaction. Do you remember a month or so ago, we heard of his return to his hometown. “Hang on,” they said, “isn’t this the carpenter? Where did he get this wisdom, and this power?”
They’re quite happy to accept the food, but not what it signifies. They’re impressed by the physical gift; a full stomach. But they don’t realise that their full stomach is merely a sign of the far greater gift that Jesus is offering them.
They’d be more comfortable if he was simply another Moses – the one who gave their ancestors manna in the wilderness, to fill their bellies each day.
A couple of weeks ago Isobel reflected on the miracle of the loaves, and the manna in the wilderness, as being a little like the ‘lembas bread’ in Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings.’
Just one small bite of lembas bread was enough to fill the stomach of a grown man. I thought of it again when I read our first reading from 1 Kings. Elijah, on his long journey, is sustained for forty days and forty nights solely by the little cake that the angel has given him, and a jar of water.
Miraculous food – heavenly food, indeed.
But of course even miraculous food like manna and lembas bread has its limitations.
Well into their journey to Mordor, the two hobbits, Frodo and Sam, collapse in a heap, exhausted from their walking. Frodo asks Sam what food they have left. Sam opens his bag and pulls out something wrapped in a leaf, and says in a sarcastic tone: “Oh yes, lovely. Lembas bread. And look!” (he pulls out another one) “more lembas bread.”
In a similar way, the Israelites, on their seemingly endless journey in the wilderness, were at first delighted with the daily provision of manna. But they eventually get fed up even with the bread from heaven.
In Numbers 11 we hear that the Israelites wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now … there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”
This, perhaps, is part of what Jesus means when he says “don’t work for the food that perishes.” Not just literally food that goes off, and can’t be eaten. And not just food that doesn’t satisfy our physical hunger, because we need to eat it again and again to survive (and even then, won’t keep us alive for ever).
But food that perishes because ultimately it doesn’t satisfy our deepest hunger: for fullness of life, not just fullness of the belly.
Jesus is the bread of life. And he offers us his flesh, his very self, to share that life with the world. “Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever.”
Our own journeys are very different from that of the Israelites in the wilderness, and of course that of Frodo and Sam on the way to Mordor. But our hunger for the fullness of life is just the same: a hunger shared by all humanity (and no doubt hobbits too).
And I think it can all be summed up by the words of the angel to Elijah in our first reading. “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.”
“Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” Jesus gives us all we need in our journey of life. He longs for us to experience the fullness of life that is his with God. And to satisfy his longing—and ours—he gives us his very self, his flesh and blood in bread and wine.
So get up and eat; and in this Mass, may you find in him the fullness and wholeness of life that is the end of all our searching. Amen.