FINDINGS III By Harry T. Cook

Proper 13 - B - August 5, 2012      

John 6: 24-35   

(Exodus 16: 2-4, 9-15; Psalm 78: 23-29; Ephesians 4: 1-16)  

Harry T. Cook

By Harry T. Cook
7/30/12 

With this coda to the multiplication-of-the-loaves narrative we find ourselves enmeshed in a ham-fisted interweaving of disparate texts. There exist data to suggest John 6:1-14 -- in essence the feeding story -- was in wide circulation at least from the time of Mark who included two separate versions of it, one with the figure 5,000 with 12 baskets left over and the other with 4,000 with seven baskets left over. In the first version, Mark has Jesus get into a boat following the feeding. In the second, Jesus goes by some means to Bethsaida. In the Matthean version, his disciples depart the scene in boat and Jesus joins them later after a stroll across the waves. In Luke, the crowds are fed and the story ends.
 
What we are to take from the textual mish-mash and the contradictions is the fact that the story, however told and with whatever ending, if any, is a powerful narrative that became central to the early church's understanding of itself.

The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) omits from the narrative vv. 22 and 23 of John 6, which constitute a kind of low-grade mystery about how those of the ever-present crowd thought Jesus got from one side of the lake to the other, their having seen that the disciples had gone alone in the only available boat. The inference is invited to the effect that Jesus made the journey by some supernatural means. That would have meant nothing unusual to John in that he established his theology from the beginning as he, or his editors, were careful to stipulate that the Jesus who lived and moved and had his being in real life was the universal force of intelligence (λογος) in possession of a human being.
 
He or she who struggles with this text should stop and ponder what seems to be a key word in it. It occurs at v. 23, which churchgoers will not hear in the reading of the gospel at liturgies this coming weekend -- unless some scripturally alert celebrant or deacon includes the RCL's omission, which would be appropriate. The word is a Greek one: ευχαριστησαντος -- as in "The Lord had given thanks."
 
Is it an oblique reference to the shape of the early Eucharistic liturgy - and to the shape of the contemporary one as well?
 
John puts Jesus in a de-bunker's role when at v. 26 when he depicts Jesus telling the crowds that they were seeking him only because they had eaten their fill of the bread he had produced. He said they should have been seeking "signs." What signs? Such as those mentioned at 2:1-11 (Cana) and at 5:1-9 (in Jerusalem)?
 
If it is true that people who tended to be attracted to Jesus or figures like him were those among the poor and destitute, one can see why they followed him from place to place perhaps hoping for another free lunch.
 
This is the point at which the theologians show up and spoil everything. John has Jesus admonish his admirers not to "labor for the food which perishes, but for food which endures to eternal life" (6:27).
 
Referenced at this point is the scene depicted in the Exodus reading of this proper, which in a way presages the scene in the gospel: the Israelites are tired, hungry and annoyed. They have been led into the wilderness away from Fat City where they had bread to a place where they do not. Yahweh is depicted as intervening by raining down bread from on high, saving Moses and Aaron from possible lynching. Next morning: a flaky substance. The people say, "Mah-nu" -- as in "What is this?" Hence, manna. It was, in fact, a naturally occurring, tasty and nutritious substance excreted by insects. (Don't miss the connection with the responsory meant to follow the Exodus reading: Psalm 78: 23-29.)
 
The Israelites might have said to Moses the same thing the crowd is depicted as saying to Jesus: "Lord, give us this bread always." John's Jesus is made to say that he himself is that bread or sustenance critical to life.

I accuse John or some later editor of a bait-and-switch in the coupling of the feeding narrative with the post-feeding story. The former by itself lays out a humanist response to human need: people are hungry either through their own poor planning or because they have no regular access to food. The only humanist and humane response is to do all in one's power to give them to eat.
 
In my early retirement, I am keeping a promise made many years ago to a fellow priest -- now deceased -- to become a counselor at a church-based social service agency he founded and of which I have been supportive for many years. In that counselor position I meet people from the central city of Detroit who range from poor in the extreme to destitute beyond belief -- to whom something so simple as a bottle of water and a sandwich means the difference between severe thirst and well-nigh unbearable pangs of hunger.
 
Even though there are a few identifiable Christian symbols displayed, and those in an unobtrusive manner, here and there in our building, the staff and volunteers are composed of persons of different religious affiliations and of none. When people come to us for the simplest of needs -- food, clothing, bus tickets to get them from place to place, help with needed prescriptions or obtaining replacements for stolen identity cards -- we are interested in them only as individuals and meeting those legitimate and legitimated needs. Off the waiting area there is a small apse that, to a religiously oriented person, could appear to be a chapel. People can go in there or not. Stand. Sit. Kneel. Whatever.
 
Our Sunday soup kitchen is open to all between noon and 3 p.m. with no questions asked. The only requirement of those who come is to be considerate of others, to be sober and otherwise not anti-social. No one asks them what they believe or whether they believe. Our concern is to give them bowls of hearty soup, sandwiches and fresh fruit to go with their coffee or tea. Most Sundays of a year, volunteers from individual congregations prepare and serve the food. No sermons given. No commitments asked.
 
Mah-nu? What is it?
 
As a dear friend of mine says, "It's what we do."