Gospel Notes by Michael Whelan SM
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.
When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 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. 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.” Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 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? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 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. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
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” (John 6:24-35 – NRSV).
Introduction
General
John’s account of the miracle of the loaves and fishes concludes with the following: “When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (6:15). This is a sure sign that the people have little or no understanding of who Jesus is and what his mission is about. Today’s Gospel text begins with a similar expression of their ignorance: “Rabbi, when did you come here?” (6:24). This ignorance – and, more importantly, disbelief – is a feature of John’s Gospel. Some of Jesus sternest words are directed at “the Jews” who will not believe he is who he says he is – eg John 8:42-47: “Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word. You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God’.”
Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel needs to be studied as a single text. See the commentary on last Sunday’s text (Seventeenth Sunday) – John 6:1-15 – and next three Sunday’s texts – Nineteenth Sunday (John 6:41-51), Twentieth Sunday (6:51-58) and Twenty First Sunday (6:60-69). On the Twenty Second Sunday we return to the Mark’s Gospel.
Specific
“What must we do to perform the works of God?”: This question is also a sign that the people do not understand. They are looking for some strategy or technique or sure-fire process whereby they can be faithful to the Covenant. Francis Moloney writes: “The crowd attempts to bypass the promise of the Son of Man, asking: ‘What must we do to be devoting ourselves to the works of God (hina ergazōmetha ta erga theou)’ (v. 28). The question depends on the Jewish belief that the Law, given through Moses, allows direct access to God. Doing the works of the Law means doing things that please God (cf. CD 2:14–15). Jesus’ response indicates that the way to God by means of the works of the Law is but a shadow of the possibility he offers them. Access to God is only through the Son who makes God known (cf. 1:18). The only way to do the work of God (ton ergon tou theou) is to believe in the one whom God has sent (v. 29)” (Francis J Moloney, The Gospel of John, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1998, 209).
What John Dominic Crossan writes of the parables of Jesus, applies here: “The parables of Jesus seek to draw one into the Kingdom, and they challenge us to act and to live from the gift which is experienced therein. But we do not want parables. We want precepts and we want programs. We want good precepts and we want sensible programs. We are frightened by the lonely silences within the parables.” (John Dominic Crossan, In Parables – The Challenge of the Historical Jesus, Harper and Row, 1973,, 82.)
The lesson “the Jews” had to learn – and we all have to learn – is that “Jesus is the way” (John 14:6). Or, to put it another way, Jesus is “the bread of life” (6:35), the “food” by which we truly live.
More than a moral project
In today’s Gospel – John 6:24-35 – we hear part of a discourse which has a total of forty four verses. “The bread of life” metaphor is its theme. Understanding today’s Gospel, requires some background information. For example, in the Book of Deuteronomy we read: “He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (8:3). When decorating the Temple of Yahweh, Solomon included “the golden table for the bread of the Presence” (1 Kings 7:48). The laws of worship, spelt out in the Book of Leviticus, gave special place to “the twelve loaves”: “Every sabbath day Aaron shall set them in order before the Lord regularly as a commitment of the people of Israel, as a covenant forever. They shall be for Aaron and his descendants, who shall eat them in a holy place, for they are most holy portions for him from the offerings by fire to the Lord, a perpetual due” (Leviticus 24:8-9).
Bread, in the Bible, as elsewhere, is food. But in the Bible bread is also a profound symbol of God’s care and concern for the people with whom he has entered a Covenant. Bread is a communal symbol, representing hospitality and identity. Our English word “companion” – from the Latin com meaning “together” and panis meaning “bread” – reflects something of this tradition. A true companion is someone with whom we share bread.
The people following Jesus have missed the sign value of the bread: “You are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 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.”
The whole of the Christian Scriptures must be read in the context of the Hebrew Scriptures. There are some three hundred and twenty references in the Christian Scriptures to the Hebrew Scriptures. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus is seen as the fulfilment of God’s salvific work revealed through the ages to that point. This is nowhere more the case than in this Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel. Thus, Jesus identifies himself with bread both as spiritual food and sign: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”. These words manifest the Covenant and God’s gracious care of the People, both in the past and in the ages to come.
The intimacy of this sign is remarkable. Sharing bread is a radically human event. Yes, that sharing is structured according to culture, ethnicity and availability. But, if we let it, the sharing of bread becomes the simplest of signs that we are one.