Homilies
Bread - How are we to be fed?
Hearing of the crowds following Jesus raised a picture in my head of children running after an ice-cream van as they hear its chimes. It also reminded me of the times I used to go with my parents to visit my Grandparents in Rotherham. They had a bread van that used to travel around the streets as well as an ice-cream van. As a youngster I would get excited as I heard the chimes floating around the area only to remember that I had been told 'they only play the chimes to tell you they've sold out of everything, its stops you getting disappointed when you go out to find them' - hmmm. I know better now, but still, I wonder if Jesus could have done with a system like that.
He seems resigned that they were following him for the wrong reasons, or maybe the right reasons but with a lack of understanding. They want to be fed, they wanted more of what they had already received from him but they didn't understand the difference between bread that perishes and bread that will last for ever and will never allow those that have it to be hungry again.
If you flip back a few chapters in the Bible to John 4, there is a very similar encounter told there. This time to a lone Samaritan woman, fetching water from a well, rather than crowds of people looking for food. But there is the same message. The water in the well, although it was Jacob's well, was still; it quenched thirst for the people and animals who drank from it but their thirst would return again. Jesus offered himself as living water, that would rise up within those who drank of it, to be the water of life, so that they would never be thirsty again.
Last week, I mentioned the parallels to the story of Moses in the desert, providing his people with food - the manna from Heaven and prophesying that God would raise up a great prophet from the house of Israel. The people out there in the wilderness were provided with bread and they asked - what is this? Moses told them that it was 'the bread the Lord has given you to eat.' Can you see where this is going? Moses didn't provide the bread for his people, God did. God also sent his only Son, Jesus, to us - the bread of life, sent from Heaven.
Another important lesson to reflect on from the story of Moses' people, is that they were told not to store up the manna; it was there, provided for them according to their need. It was always there for them. Each morning they would awake to fresh manna. They didn't need to keep it stored up, stashed away for a rainy day, God was with them and he would provide for them. Their faith in this being so, kept it true.
Likewise, we are told here, in the reading today, that we have just one requirement upon us in order to receive this provision. To believe in Jesus, as the One that God has sent! God again has provided all we need, through and in Jesus. Nothing to do with anything we have done or will do but out of love and faith and the relationship between God and Jesus, Jesus and us and us and God.
It is this relationship that is paramount. God is not in relationships, God is relationship! He created us to be in relationship with us, He desires us to choose to be in relationship with Him. Jesus makes this possible with his invitation for us to 'come to him'.
The relationship, the provision, the love, the desire, the sustenance of living water and bread of life on offer, always. And all we have to do is choose to accept it and come to Jesus in faith.