The Works of God

Gospel: John 6: 22-29

Jesus is leery of the crowd.  He realizes they follow him because they see the bread only in material terms.  They had wanted to make Jesus a king, again seeing the world of religion only in terms of power and self-interest.  Confronted with these realities by Jesus, the crowd then asks Jesus what they must do to perform the works of God.  The response they receive through the rest of the chapter, the meaning of the bread, will be too much for them.

For to do the works of God is to follow the way of the Lord Jesus.  It is to extend mercy and loving kindness to others, people we would rather not meet: the sick and lame, the leper, those possessed by demons, the poor, the marginalized, the foreigner, sinners of every stripe.  Such encounters make us uncomfortable and vulnerable.  They reveal our own mortality and weaknesses, the lack of love and compassion we should have for others.  

So very often we create vicarious practices of religion that are much easier to perform, rituals of all sorts that we then declare to be the central focus of religion.  They require little of us, unless we take their deeper meaning seriously and realize they are pointing us to actually perform the deeds of love and mercy Jesus performed, to live as Jesus did in the world.  This is the meaning of the bread, the meaning the crowd could not accept.   

The Traveling Man

Gospel: Luke 24: 13-35

In this journey to Emmaus, Jesus gives the impression that he intends to walk further on, but they invited him to stay with them.  Herein lies the central action of the entire story for two reasons.  The first is that the disciples extended hospitality to a stranger.  In the act of providing this hospitality to someone who was unknown to them, they encounter in the breaking of bread the risen Jesus.  Had they not offered this hospitality to the stranger, they would not have known the risen Lord.  

The second point is that Jesus accepts this hospitality from the disciples.  He could very well have continued on his journey, but he chose to be among his people.  Herein lies the fundamental element of the incarnation - that God choses to be among the people.  God does not choose to be aloof and away from people, but instead is among us, though often we are unaware of that presence until we encounter the stranger, offer hospitality, and break bread with them.  

If we want to encounter the risen Lord among us, we will not do so shut away in an upper room distrustful of the world.  We will encounter the risen Lord in the garden of the empty tomb, in an encounter with a stranger for whom we provide hospitality and bread.  We cannot claim to know the Lord in the Eucharistic elements if we deny him in the stranger whom we distrust, despise, and denigrate.  The Lord calls us to be among his people in the world where he is.   

The Giver

Gospel: John 6: 16-21

Jesus walks across the sea to the other shore while the disciples traverse the sea in their boat.  In crossing from one shore to the other we are placed in a transition stage.  We are going to be moving from one understanding of the loaves and fishes to another.  On the first shore Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes in order to feed a hungry crowd.  The bread is literal bread and the hunger it satisfies is physical, and everyone receives this bread to eat without exception.

In the new understanding to come, the bread is now the life and body of Jesus given for us to share, providing us with spiritual nourishment.  However, that is not all.  We are not merely to receive this food as we did with the loaves.  We are to become the body of Christ, to become the bread shared for others in a life of mercy and compassion.  To receive this bread, the body of Christ, is to be in communion with Christ and to pledge to become him in our lives.

It is for this reason that many will not accept this new understanding.  Everyone likes receiving food and being nourished by it.  Everyone likes having their needs met.  However, we are not all so keen on becoming the bread, in going out to give our lives for others, in providing mercy and care to the world.  We are fine with the false theology of Jesus doing it all for us so we don't have to bear it.  We are less keen on the authentic theology that communion calls us to become Christ ourselves in the lives we live, in being mercy and loving kindness in the world.