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Sunday's Gospel offers us a continuation of John's rendition of Jesus' Feeding of the Five Thousand. The crowds who Jesus fed last week have followed him back to the Western side of the Sea of Galilee. They want, not surprisingly, more food. The conversation that follows is kinda odd. Read it and see if you can figure out what's going on. Why isn't Jesus directly answering the crowd's questions. Why does he continue to re-direct them toward a deeper truth?
Can a person who is physically hungry be full of God's bread of life? Perhaps that question requires some further exploration and questioning. Personally, I would need to sit down with someone who is famished and ask her or him about their relationship with God. Are they content to the point of "fullness" despite their hunger because God is sustaining them with life-giving, nourishing love?
That seems almost incomprehensible to me but I rarely if ever have experienced physical hunger. Dietary and moderated fasting might be a means for me to better understand what it truly feels like to be hungry yet be fully fed by Jesus' the Christ's bread of life.
Each of us who claim to follow Jesus must from time-to-time chose a spiritual discipline such as fasting in order to more truly experience what we're willing to set aside in order to more fully believe in him and trust in God's abundant love. Might I venture to say that fasting in a variety of forms might benefit us as Christians and as a "Christian" nation in a variety of ways?
Here's another question. I've got lots of them today :) Jesus chose to feed people earthly food some of the time. Why isn't he feeding people such food again in this story? What sort(s) of food should we be sharing & receiving, with ourselves and the broader world.
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| Matt Hoile - Bread of Life |
Don't think of that question as having correct or incorrect responses. Think of that question as an opportunity for you, for me, for all of us to contemplate and act upon "for Jesus' sake." The choices we elect to make should lead to means of better understandings Jesus as our "life-giving," "deeply nourishing bread."
Blessings Along The Way, Jim+
