Nineteenth Sunday of the Year
In John’s Gospel, Jesus confronts his listeners with the stark truth of why he has come, and what is needed to benefit from what he offers them. Today, Jesus is speaking about a personal God, a God among them, a God who can be touched and moved by the sight of people in distress. He claimed that he was the human face of God – God’s mercy and goodness. The ‘I am’ refers to God. Who does ‘this son of Joseph’ think he is? People were not open to his identifying with this God and being sent by God. His, ‘I am the bread that came down from Heaven’ angered them. This had implications for them and for us. Can we be touched and moved by people in distress? His teaching by and large fell on deaf ears because what he was saying seemed too good to be true.
Today we are called to live with grace, integrity and compassion for both friend and enemy. According to Ephesians, a follower of Jesus is called to be honest with others, to speak in edifying ways, avoid aggression, and choose forgiveness and compassion. The challenge is to embrace forgiveness, love and honesty in a radical, counter-cultural way, and allow God’s love to flow through us where our neighbours, our communities and world are touched and healed.
When Jesus talks about being the ‘bread of life,’ he is not referring to exclusive beliefs that demand conformity on threat of ‘hell’, but to see that there is a way to be human where no one is excluded. Believing in Jesus is believing in, and accepting, God’s presence, generosity, and abundance. It is not about putting ourselves and others through the ‘hell’ where God’s love is limited or that love has limits. We are called to recognise that God's love is for everyone. The bread Jesus gives is his flesh which means that God cares about flesh, the body, and so we must care for bodies and minds of others as well as ourselves. Jesus’ flesh embraces, breaks bread, washes feet, heals, liberates and is physically present with the most vulnerable. We experience the fullness of life by remembering that God’s love is all-inclusive, for all whom we may consider excluded from God's love. It means that we are to live as if all people are our siblings, because they are. His sharing of meals with those deemed unworthy by society prompt a question for ourselves, ‘How can I be living bread to my brothers and sisters on the margins just as Jesus was?’
Tradition, laws, convictions would not cloud the way Jesus saw people whether it was a Pharisee, a Samaritan woman, Zacchaeus, or the Roman centurion. Each was offered the gift of proximity and communion. How can we be bread for one another? How we can provide strength to people in need of encouragement, grieving, anxious and fearful? In a world divided, loneliness, loss, great sadness, and a desire to be seen or heard, we are all invited to the table and pull up a chair to be compassion, to be forgiveness, to be love, and to be kindness to others. These signs are about finding God’s presence hidden in plain sight – within our own flesh (as Jesus put it). We have to show up ready to take, give and receive our daily bread and be open to surprise.
Jesus instructed his followers to love their enemies, be compassionate as God is compassionate, receive and welcome children, serve the poor, feed the hungry, and take up the cross, yet it does not happen. Rather than do as Jesus says, we still take up the ‘sword’ [guns, tanks, nuclear weapons, or our tongues]. We still reject calls to welcome the stranger and make life difficult for them as we continue to do to asylum seekers and refugees around the world. We continue to reject the call to care for creation and find excuses not to do so. We have recently participated with other countries in war games which serve to increase tension between neighbours designated as a threat rather than dialogue and understanding. These games are all about war and preparing for war. Last week, we commemorated the 79th anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the threat of a nuclear conflagration is ever present. Jesus’ teachings must take hold as political, scientific, religious, and business discourse becomes more vitriolic and aggressive. We operate from a paradigm of conflict, name-calling, shouting, shaming, dishonesty and emphasising the negative in others. We devalue those with whom we disagree, and aggressively force our agendas on others. Where the Bread of Life is a call to unity (not uniformity) through reconciliation, such posturing promotes disengagement in our religious, political, and social life. There is a growing inability to deal with problems because a lack of collaboration and solidarity where the greater good loses to special interests.
The question we face today is: do we have faith in Jesus? If ‘yes,’ then how does it affect our daily lives? Are we the change we want to see in the world (pace Gandhi)? Are we different because we believe in Jesus? Are we the ‘bread of life’ to others that reveal God in Jesus?
Our faith is not about just us but about justice and right relationships. What we share in the Eucharist opens us to a responsibility – the responsibility to be instruments of God's gracious and peace filled presence in the world as well as a presence that disturbs the status quo. Our faith is how we are present with in solidarity with our sisters and brothers. What ‘bread’ do they need? Is it the bread of compassion, understanding, encouragement and listening? Is it the bread of food, medicine, education, housing, job, protection or security? Is it the bread that challenges them to open their eyes to really see their sisters and brothers in all their dignity? Is it the bread of nonviolent resistance? Is it the bread of wealth redistribution? Is that bread the sharing of resources? If food is such an important sign of God’s goodness, then ensuring that ‘hungry’ people are fed is central to our witness for justice. This is what turns the world upside down which makes for peace.