FINDINGS II
Proper
14- B - August 9, 2009
John 6: 35, 41-51
(I Kings
19: 4-8; Psalm 34: 1-8; Ephesians 4: 25-5:2)
 By Harry T. Cook
8/03/09
RUBRIC
The Revised Common Lectionary is clearly in love with the
sixth chapter of John, which is the RCL's insertion in the Markan narrative, the
otherwise designated gospel course for Year-B. John 6 is the most eucharistic
chapter in the New Testament. It is a major vein from which Christian orthodoxy
mines much of its eucharistic theology and Christology.
Beginning with the 1st Kings reading, continuing with the
responsory psalm and Johannine passage, the emphasis this week is to be on the
benevolent disposition of the biblical deities toward human beings. (I say
"deities" plural, because the Yahweh of the Hebrew haftarah is differently, or
if you follow the trajectory of divine evolution laid out by Robert Wright/1,
less evolved than the deities of Paul and the gospel writers.)
That disposition is to tend to the care and feeding of
mortals, the strophe from Psalm 34 (v. 8) enunciating that idea in lyrical form:
"Taste and see that Yahweh is good; happy are they who trust in him!" Tell that
to the fellow at the top of the freeway ramp carrying a sign saying, "I will work
for food."
WORKSHOP
Elijah's hike into the wilderness occasions a kind of
loaves-and-fishes surprise all of its own, no human mediator being involved. It
is said that "an angel" or intermediary of Yahweh provided "a cake baked on hot
stones" (the kind of stone that might have figured into the touching of the
first Isaiah's lips in Isaiah 6) and a clay jar of water. Twice this is said to
have occurred, giving Elijah the strength to go on in his arduous but necessary
journey away from the murderous Jezebel. It is not without significance that
his next stop was the cave at Horeb in which he encountered the numinous
presence of Yahweh in the "sound of sheer silence" (19: 8-12).
[Food and drink first; conversation with the deity later.
Communion first; sermon later.]
In the aftermath of what we have come to call "the feeding
of the 5000," John's Jesus is attempting to make clear that the bread on the
hillside was not the real thing -- that he himself was the real thing, the
bread of life. There is once again an allusion to the "manna" discovered in the
same kind of wilderness through which Elijah had trekked. While in the Exodus
story we are given to understand that the manna enabled Moses' flock to live
another day in their journey to the promised land, John's Jesus is now saying
that even though they ate the manna they eventually died anyway. John makes his
Jesus say, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of
this bread shall live forever."
If the student of Ancient Philosophy 101 does not hear
distinct echoes of Plato in this, he or she is not paying attention. John is
saying that the actual "manna," the actual "bread" given in the former instance
to the migrating Israelites and in the latter to hungry pilgrims were what
Plato called "shadows" or inadequately misrepresented realities of "forms" that
abided eternally beyond the senses. John's Jesus is claiming, in effect, to be
the actual Platonic "form," the real thing. "Eating" or in some way taking him
in is the key to living beyond the phenomenon, beyond the senses.
Who, to paraphrase Paul, shall deliver us from this body of
airy and insubstantial theology? Maybe the one who, Pauline in spirit, wrote
the epistle to the Ephesians and in particular this verse: "Thieves must give
up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so
as to have something to share with the needy" (4:28).
There is something of an incandescent stroke of light. The
text is saying that one of the ends of honest work is to have "something to
share with the needy." Maybe, regardless of his overarching theological agenda,
John wanted his readers to think that some of the people he depicted following
Jesus to the other side of the Galilean sea made the trek without provisions,
and that some actually thought ahead on that score. Those who didn't were "the
needy" under those circumstances. Those who did obviously shared with them.
HOMILETIC COMMENTARY
Elijah's cake, the lad's five barley loaves and the
"something to share with the needy" were real foods prepared and meant as daily
bread to be eaten by hungry human beings to enable them to get on with their
daily labors. None of that food came from another universe. It came from seeds
planted, crops harvested, grain refined and mixed with water to make dough, and
dough baked into loaves or cakes. Human beings had everything to do with it,
having discerned if not completely understood the process of seed germination.
They planted, cultivated, watered, harvested and otherwise manipulated nature
to make bread to eat . . . and to share.
The homiletic prompts here are promising: A class in bible
might be directed first to the Ephesians verse cited above, then be led back to
the I Kings text and forward to the Johannine reading. In each instance the
need for food and its appearance are the twin themes. The more evangelical the
class and its leader, the more evangelical the preacher, the more the
exposition will deal with the Christ figure as the real bread of life. The more
humanistic will focus on the idea of human beings sharing with other human
beings.
It could be said that "the bread of life" or "living bread"
is bread that is shared rather than hoarded or eaten in private. It could
further be said that, like manna, the elements necessary to the making of bread
occur naturally in the biosphere and that the bread itself, being a product of
the biosphere, belongs not only to its human baker and to the human planter and
harvester but to any and all human beings, just as does water from rivers and
aquifers.
You can just hear the second Isaiah in the background chanting,
"Ho, everyone one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money,
come buy and eat. Come buy . . . without money and without price . . ." (55:1).
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Readers Write:
Margaret Freeman,
Point Loma, CA: Your FINDINGS are pure gold to intellectually starved
church people. Keep it up. Send more.
Harold Atkinson,
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada: I don't know when I've appreciated a bible
reading more than John's feeding of the 5,000 in light of what your wrote about
it. I know that I would have been more attentive all these years sitting in
church if I you had been doing the preaching or the teaching.
Caroline Abernathy,
Harrisburg, PA: Your writing about the feeding of the 5,000 finally did it
for me. I can go back to church with your stuff in hand and mentally correct my
priest as he tells us we have to believe the literal word. I once gave him a
printout of one of your FINDINGS. I asked him the next week if he'd read it.
He told me he used it as kindling for his fireplace. DO you believe that?
Editor's
Note: I hope the discarded FINDINGS did not make a slow or thin
blaze for his comfort.
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� Copyright 2009, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.
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Lecture Schedule
The Thursday Forum
Birmingham Unitarian Church
38651 Woodward Ave. (at Lone Pine)
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304
Admission: $10/students free
September schedule to be announced
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WHAT DO YOU THINK?
I'd like to hear from you. E-mail your comments to me: revharrytcook@aol.com.
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