disclosing new worlds

1Kings 2: 10-12; 3: 3-14 NRSV text
Psalm 111 NRSV text
Ephesians 5: 15-20 NRSV text
John 6: 51-58 NRSV text

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (6:51). This is the culmination of the “Bread of Life” section. It has been a complex section – complex, rather than complicated. John has explored different aspects and implications of the image through a series of misunderstandings. It began in 6:26, with Jesus telling the crowd that they were looking for him only in order to have full bellies, whereas he was offering eternal life. John then uses the question about manna in the wilderness (6:31ff) to emphasise the theme of “bread from heaven”, picking up one of his key themes about Jesus being “from above”.

At this point (6:41), Jesus’ opponents (“the Jews”) appear in the narrative. There’s a certain artificiality about their appearance. Until now, the story has “worked”: there’s a crowd who has been fed miraculously in the wilderness, who has also realised that Jesus performed some sort of “teleporting” miracle from one side of the Lake to the other, and this leads fairly naturally into a discussion about physical vs soul hunger, and comparisons between what has happened to them and what happened to the proto-Israelites in the wilderness. Suddenly, though, “the Jews” appear in the narrative – as though Jesus were in Jerusalem or a synagogue. Their appearance signals something important: there’s a serious theological dispute in progress here!

“The crowd” are the hangers-on and would-be followers of Jesus. Jesus doesn’t “dispute” with them – he teaches. He speaks to them as possible followers. The issue is that they need to see in him much more than the miracle worker who will keep their bellies full: they need to see him as the Living Bread who satisfies the soul-hunger that mirrors starvation of the body. “The Jews”, however, are Jesus’ opponents (see the section on The role of “the Jews” in John’s gospel in last week’s post). They have already decided that the are not going to be followers of Jesus. They are his “persecutors” (5:16) who are seeking actively to kill him (5:18). Their opposition is rooted in their refusal to recognise Jesus’ authority and the truth (grace and truth) he proclaims, and justified by appeal to the established religious norms and traditions. Hence their appearance in the narrative signals that John’s Jesus is about to engage in a theological dispute, centred on the person of Jesus himself.

It is centred on the person of Jesus because this is precisely what Jesus offers: himself! He is the Bread of Life. His flesh is given for the life of the world. He is the true bread that comes down from heaven. And so the dispute is divided into two parts. In last week’s section (6:41ff), the first dispute is over the “came down from heaven” bit. Jesus’ authority is vested in his origin: he knows what he is talking about! So now, in v51, he repeats the claim in order to deal with second part: “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh”. This leads to the second “complaint” of “the Jews”: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (v52).

Bread, flesh and the Eucharist
John’s is not only the most overtly “theological” gospel, it is also the most overtly “churchy”, in the sense that it is a sustained presentation of the Christian Church’s gospel – it’s message of salvation in Jesus Christ. To that extent, it is unapologetically a “post-Easter” gospel: John’s primary intention in presenting a “life of Jesus” is to draw out the meaning of it all – the “grace and truth” to be found in Jesus. It is furthest away from what we would understand as “biography”, and most expressly reflects the context of a post-Easter, established Christian community. We find, then, precisely what we might expect: things which are implicit in the synoptic gospels (eg Christology) are made most explicit in the Fourth Gospel.

We have seen how the Eucharistic shaping of the feeding story (which is present in the synoptic tradition) is deliberately heightened in John’s account. And here, in the dispute about “how can he give us his flesh to eat?” the answer is quite explicitly Eucharistic: we “eat his flesh and drink his blood” (vv54-5) through the Eucharist! This is where it all comes together: Jesus is the Living Bread which has come down from heaven to give Life to the world. How is Jesus “Living Bread”? By giving his life on the cross. But why “Bread”? This is a strange image! Bread is something which is eaten. And that’s the point, isn’t it? We “eat his flesh and drink his blood” (remember: Jesus talks about satisfying hunger and thirst – being food and drink in 6:35) in the Eucharist. This is what gives eternal life! Far from being a passage that makes it apparently easy to distinguish between the so-called “physical” (body hunger) and the so-called “spiritual” (soul hunger), John’s gospel is almost disgustingly “bodily”! It’s not only “the Jews” who recoil from Jesus’ words in vv53-57: just ask any vegetarian how it sounds to them!

In fact, just ask any good low-church memorialist what they think! The high sacramental theology here is a real problem for them. I know – because I was one! It was this passage, in fact, that made me realise a non-sacramental understanding of Communion just wouldn’t do. You’ve got to do an awful lot of insupportable spiritualising gymnastics to avoid the clear sense of what Jesus says here in John’s gospel: there is a direct connection between eating Eucharistic bread and receiving not only bodily nourishment but eternal life; between eating the bread and literally (sorry, sacramentally!) being fed on the body of Jesus, which is life for the world. Put it this way (or at least, I did): whatever the disputes we may have about how the sacrament “works”, the sacrament is more than mere symbolism (“eat this bread and remember what it symbolises: Christ’s sacrifice”). Furthermore, however we may want to argue about “what happens” at the moment of consecration, whatever does happen is what makes it “eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood” as Jesus says we do, here in this passage! What John is playing on here with mischievous delight is the fact that non-Christians – particularly Jews – mistakenly thought of the early Christians as cannibals, who feasted on their saviour’s body and drank his blood. That was the rumour in the local inter-faith meetings – and John lays the blame for its origin squarely on the lips of Jesus himself!

Sacrament, Incarnation and salvation
It’s a novel position for me to find myself in at this point, banging the drum for a highly sacramental view of Communion. But then, John’s theology (and that of his Christian community) is highly sacramental! The Eucharist is the means by which we (literally) ingest salvation. God – or at least salvation – is present in the bread and wine. Eating and drinking is the means whereby we “abide in Jesus” (v56), “live because of him” (v57) and “live forever” (v58).

That is not the same thing as saying that much high-church Eucharistic theology is right, though – or at least, that it is “biblical” in the sense that John’s community is sacramental! To say that John’s community has a “high” sacramental theology is not the same thing as saying they are “spikey” as we understand high church theology and practice! The Christian Church has struggled over sacraments. Christians have killed each other over how Jesus is present in the Eucharist. The Feast of Life for the world has been the cause of bitter, deadly wrangling. Christian division over Eucharistic theology means that Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians will not share Communion with Christians of other denominations. It means that huge amounts of energy are spent over trying to “solve the differences” between understandings of the feast that expresses our fundamental shared union and identity in Christ. “High-Church” people refuse to recognise the validity of other practices. “Low-Church” Christians accuse their “higher” brothers and sisters of “selling out to superstition”. The Eucharist becomes the outward, visible sign of an inward, invisible refusal to recognise shared Christian faith! We would do well to look more closely at John’s view of the relationship between sacrament, Incarnation and salvation.

Unlike extremely “low” understandings of the Eucharist, John’s community has a real theology of sacraments. They convey grace – the “grace upon grace” that we receive in Jesus, who is the Word made flesh (cf 1:14; 16). John doesn’t buy into a distinction between receiving salvation through faith alone (“belief”) rather than through the sacraments. Look at Jesus’ words in 6:47: “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life”. So salvation comes through faith – but then Jesus goes on immediately to talk about “eating bread” – his flesh! And that is the means of eternal life! On the one hand, then, it appears that salvation is through the person of Jesus (low church), while on the other, it is through the sacraments – ie the Church. This latter position is the reason for the doctrine of extra ecclesiam nulla salus – “there is no salvation outside the Church!”

John doesn’t buy this “either/or” because of Incarnation! Jesus is the Word made flesh – the sacrament! Jesus is heaven come down to earth – the presence of God in earthly, created things. He is “the Bread come down from heaven”. Therefore salvation is nothing other than Jesus. It is Jesus who is the Bread that gives life to the world. But just as Jesus was God’s sacramental, saving presence among us as a human being, so Jesus continues to be God’s sacramental, saving presence among us in bread and wine. To eat and drink, believing, is part of whatever we mean by “saving faith” – or whatever Jesus means when he says “whoever believes has eternal life”. “Believing” is a whole-life-involving matter. It is following. It is believing. It is eating and drinking. The point is that all of these involve and are part of being drawn into the life of Jesus and therefore into the very Life of God. Our encounter with Jesus in the sacraments is no less a saving encounter than is conversion – or daily discipleship of Jesus! To try and make those sorts of distinctions is to do violence (in John’s terms) to the fact that Jesus is God in human flesh, come among us to save us – to transform every aspect of our lives, daily!

This means that there is no place for a theology of the Eucharist that treats it as “the Church’s possession”. When we say, liturgically, “This is the table of the Lord”, we are criticising any church-attempt to “take over” the Eucharist and control it. When we make it some sort of Gnostic mystery, with access controlled by the Church and surrounded with arcane requirements about the ordained status or gender of the president, we have lost the plot – the “salvation plot”. This is the feast of Life for the world – not a celebration of the “in-status” of the Christian community! The Eucharist is no more “ours” than is the cross! And that is no more pronounced than in John’s gospel, where Jesus says, “And I, if I am lifted up [on the cross], will draw all people to myself!” John presents the “lifting up” of the cross as the great, free invitation to all! How dare we do less with the Eucharist! The Eucharist is the anamnesis – the remembrance – of the cross. It symbolises the cross, and ought to do so by virtue of its radically open invitation: “whosoever will may come”.

True bread and false bread (1Kings 2: 10-12; 3: 3-14/Ephesians 5: 15-20)
John presents Jesus as the True Bread. The manna in the wilderness was not the true bread – it merely foreshadowed it. It did not give Life in the sense that Jesus does.

I want to look at our other two readings in terms of this gospel theme of discernment – distinguishing between what is true and what appears to be true. Solomon asks Yahweh for the gift of wisdom in order to be able to discern between good and evil (3:9). Now we often naively suppose that the difference between the two is as clear as black vs white, light vs dark, death vs life. For all the fact that John talks in these terms of absolute opposites, today’s gospel passage should caution us against supposing that he is as dualistic as he is often accused of being! “The Jews” claimed that the manna in the wilderness was “the bread that came down from heaven” – the True Bread. The weren’t saying, “The Golden Calf is the true God”! They had taken something good and used it as a means of resisting the truth about God in Jesus. Solomon knew what John portrays: it is sometimes intensely difficult to distinguish between good and evil, truth and falsehood. And the stakes can be enormously high!

Similarly, the Ephesians are enjoined to be wise (Ephesians 4:15), exercising discernment. There was apparently little difference between a good old drunken sing-along and Christian services of worship in Ephesus (Hmm! It would be pretty darn difficult to mistake some of our exquisitely ordered services, solely with hymns written by people who have been dead for at least a hundred years, for anything like a riotous party! Wonder what that says?). Yet Paul says there is a difference, and it isn’t about appearance.

I don’t want to get bogged down in the implications for the types of spiritual freedom that were clearly commonplace in the early Church and which we might do well to discover! The point I want to make is that “living as wise people” is about the spiritual discipline and task of discernment – of distinguishing between true and false claims to truth. The fact is that a lot of stuff – from froth and bubble to dangerously evil things like Apartheid, Nazism and contemporary Israeli nationalism have been “justified” by appeal to Jesus, the Church, the bible, tradition and God! Things which are good in themselves (like manna in the wilderness) can be misused to resist the truth of God in Jesus – the grace which saves. It’s about discerning what is true bread, and what is false. And failure to discern which is which means that people miss out on the True Bread and the Life which is offered in Jesus – the True Bread whose flesh is given for the Life of the world.

Amen.

2 Samuel 18: 5-9, 15, 31-33 NRSV text
Psalm 130 NRSV text
Ephesians 4: 25-5:2 NRSV text
John 6: 35, 41-51 NRSV text

“The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (1:17). Here is John’s programmatic statement about the difference that Jesus makes. John’s Jesus reveals the Father as “full of grace and truth” (1:14). Jesus is the means by which we receive “grace upon grace” (1:16). Outside of Jesus, it is impossible to know that this is what the Father is like, because it is so counter-intuitive. “Law” makes sense to us; grace doesn’t. We can live with a system of “just deserts”, but passionate, forgiving love in the face of face of flagrant rebellion (such as David shows for his son, Absalom in today’s reading from 2 Samuel) flies in the face of everything we know and indeed want to know about God. Nothing in the system of Law (according to John) prepares us for so radical a revolution in our understanding of God. It is totally unacceptable. And if it is the case that we are to believe something so strange about God – something that so fundamentally alters our way of believing, relating and living – then it is a truth that has to come from God alone. Hence John goes on to say, “No-one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (1:18).

I start here – right at the beginning of the gospel – because we need to understand what John is doing in his presentation of Jesus. It matters enormously if we are to understand the role of “the Jews” in the Fourth Gospel. John’s gospel has played a pivotal role in the tragic history of Christian anti-Semitism. It has been the justification for the persecution of Jewish people by Christians as “Christ-killers”. It has been a disgusting and anti-Christian history. We are clouded by its existence – both in terms of deserved guilt and horror at what has been done to Jewish people in the (supposed) name of Christ, but also by the paralysis it exerts right at the moment over our ability to distinguish between anti-Semitism and the effective condemnation of Israeli policies in the Middle East.

Opposition to Jesus: the role of “the Jews” in John’s gospel
It is “the Jews” who are “complaining” (far too soft a translation!) about Jesus’ statement, “I am the Bread of Life – the bread that has come down from heaven and which gives life to the world”. The Jews represent the Law that was given through Moses, and the understanding of God which is unable to see grace and love at the heart of the Divine. John, of course, draws the distinction far more sharply than it should be. To characterise the Old vs New Testament as a “conflict” of Law vs Grace is unsustainable. The Law was understood and experienced as grace (you have only to read Psalm 119 to see that clearly). John is using a narrative device to make a point that is nonetheless true: Jesus effects a decisive break in the understanding of God. There is a genuine novum here – a converting newness which makes it possible to recognise continuity with the past only from the new vantage point.

Just think for a moment about the traditional Nine Lessons and Carols service we have every Christmas. We read the Old Testament as though they presented a “prophetic script” for Jesus. They’re not! We can look back to see “previews” of a suffering Messiah, but we must not imagine that these were understood this way in the past! When Jesus came as the suffering messiah, he stood “messiahship” on its head!

This, in a sense, is precisely what John labours so carefully to tell us via the narrative devise of “the Jews”. This is why John’s Jesus goes on and on about having come “from above”; from “the Father”. The revelation of God as a God of grace and love is the truth about God, but it’s one that is incredibly difficult to accept. The only grounds for accepting such a radical departure from the past is the testimony of Jesus himself: he has come from the Father as a Witness to testify to this truth. And his testimony is trustworthy because he is talking about the Father whom he knows – intimately!

Of course, it is not enough simply to accept what Jesus says – what he claims. The question is, “Is this guy on the level? How can we be sure that he is who he says he is? How can we risk believing him? Because what’s at stake is absolutely fundamental! If this is the Truth, everything alters – who God is, how we relate to God, what God is doing in the world and how we are supposed to live!” This is the significance of the “signs” in John’s gospel – the miracles that make clear who Jesus is (as Jesus explains in the accompanying “I am” sayings). That is why opposition to Jesus is opposition to the God whom Jesus reveals. “The Jews”, in other words, represent resistance to grace and truth. They represent those who have vested interest in a world of just deserts – those for whom the present is “okay” and for whom grace – blessing and inclusion of the “unworthy” and “have-nots” – presents a real threat. We ought not to underestimate the drive to justify reasons for not changing – even by theological means! We saw it in the Afrikaner insistence that Apartheid was God’s will for South Africa, and the blindness to God and the truth of grace and justice that results. It is the same sort of resistance that John evokes through the device of “the Jews”.

Note how John constructs his narrative in this regard. Each sign (the wedding at Cana and the healing of the official’s son in Capernaum) is followed by a major Jewish festival (Passover in 2:13; “a festival of the Jews” in 5:1). In each case, Jesus “goes up to Jerusalem”. In other words, the signs bring Jesus into conflict with the established religious traditions. The point is that “the Jews” fail to understand the festivals as pointing towards the God whom Jesus proclaims: rather, they have interpreted them in a way that makes it impossible for them to recognise the truth of what Jesus is saying – the truth of grace.

That is John’s narrative formula. Go back and read chapter 5 for a moment – it’s key to understanding what is happening in John’s account. We’re deep in synoptic territory – this, after all, is John’s take” on the synoptic tradition, rather than a totally different one – and the context is a dispute over Sabbath-keeping. Jesus heals a lame man on the Sabbath, and as a result, “the Jews started persecuting Jesus” (5:16). Jesus immediately raises the stakes: “This isn’t just about me – it’s about what God is doing! This is about the work of my Father! God is at work here – through me!” “The Jews” get the point! The opposition immediately cranks up several notches: now they are actively seeking to kill Jesus (5:18).

This leads to a solemn statement by Jesus (Amen, amen, lego humin”) about the authority of the Son (5: 19-29). Significantly, it is about resurrection. God is the God who wants to give life – even to the dead! It is a question of eternal life – the Life of God that cannot be quenched or thwarted by death. This is what God intends for the world, and God has brought it about through Jesus (cf 5:30-47). And before we are too hasty to accuse John of being radically dualistic about Law and grace, note vv 39-47 particularly! “Moses wrote about me!” What Jesus means is that it is possible to see that the God whom he calls Father – the God of grace – is truly the same God who gave the Law! However, like Paul, John (and Jesus?) appear to believe that the Law’s intention for grace is thwarted by sin, so that we are doomed to “get God wrong” – unless and until we look at Jesus! In other words, unless and until we read the signs correctly. This is the immediate context for the story of the feeding of the five thousand men.

“Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me”
Here in chapter 6 – the feeding miracle – John tells us that “the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near” (6:4). This sign doesn’t take place in Jerusalem, nor does Jesus go up to Jerusalem for a confrontation with “the Jews”. This takes place in the wilderness, because John presents it as the true celebration of the Passover. It is Eucharistic (remember?), because it pulls together both the wilderness feeding in the Exodus narrative and Jesus’ giving of his “flesh for the life of the world”. That is the true meaning of the sign. Jesus is the new and true Passover. He will give his “flesh” in the same manner as the Israelites lived because they were fed by manna from heaven. Jesus is the true manna from heaven! He is God’s gift of Life, just as the manna in the wilderness was.

Let me stress yet again, though: it’s all a matter of being able to read the signs! Have a look at my posts on Pentecost 8 and 9. It is possible to see the signs and misread them – to see Bread of Life as only a perpetually full stomach. Recognising the truth requires discernment and openness to God. John stresses this in 6:42. “The Jews” reckon they’ve got Jesus sussed! They know everything of significance there is to know about him – his family history. Now, of course, there is a very deliberate irony here: Jesus is not Joseph’s son, but God’s son! This is precisely the point Jesus goes on to make. But there is another point here, too: the “we know who he is” is a desire to control Jesus – to make him manageable. It is to slot him into a box that we can cope with and to blunt the threat and challenge of his otherness – particularly, to bunt the threat, challenge and invitation from God that he makes present. There is an integral connection between being unable to read the signs and a refusal to read them.

This is what Jesus is talking about in vv 43-46. It’s akin to the synoptic “Those who have eyes to see will see, otherwise they’ll remain blind” motif. John’s Jesus puts it the other way around: “No-one can come to me unless they are drawn by the Father”. This sounds very predestinarian: God only chooses only certain people, so that he fact that some respond and some don’t can therefore be explained by the choice of God. That isn’t John’s theology. His point is that the Father is seeking to draw all people through Jesus. The fact that some come to Jesus and experience him as the Living Bread is a sign that they are open to God’s revelation and invitation in Jesus. They respond to Jesus because they see in him the character and saving action of God.

“Grace is no way to run a kingdom!” (2Samuel 18)
There are two ways (at least!) to read and preach the story of David and his son, Absalom. It begins in chapter 13 – and it’s quite a read! One way is to see it as part of the “It started out so nice” dynamic of David’s reign (and many thanks, by the way, to those of you who responded to my request for help to find Rodriguez!): David’s reign starts out with huge promise, and quickly falls apart because of the flaws in David’s character. David may have been a great warrior king, but he was a useless administrator! He failed to provide justice at the city gates – in other words, to ensure that grievances and disputes could be settled (which was his job). Absalom was able to exploit this and gather dissent support against David. David is also a pretty poor husband and father! He’s remarkably indulgent of his children (and indeed of all forms of rebellion!): rather than act swiftly and strongly, he vacillates and is reluctant to grasp nettles. And Absalom is the original “spoilt child”. We leave David weeping bitterly for his son at the end of chapter 18. In fact, he’s utterly neglecting his responsibilities to the troops who have fought for him and supported him so faithfully – something that Joab has to take him to task for in the next chapter.

So one way of reading these texts is to stress David’s failures. For all his promise, and for all that God does for David, David is weak. He’s an example of the sort of Christian leaders who give Christianity such a bad name (as Peter Pay pointed out in his comment on Pentecost 8). And there is no doubt whatsoever that these sorts of failure of leadership are serious! They cause enormous harm and damage, and the scars remain with individuals and congregations for years to come.

But there’s a second emphasis here, which I find myself drawn to by today’s gospel reading. It’s the emphasis on grace. For all his failings, we see David as a father who will not give up on or disown his wayward, rebellious, murderous son. What more does Absalom need to do to provoke David into disowning him utterly? Why should we mourn this beautiful, treacherous, partricidal (is there such a word??) young man, whose capture is such a wonderful example of poetic justice? Aren’t we with Joab and the others, who are so incensed with Absalom’s evil that they ignore David’s weakness and put him to a well-deserved death – a death demanded by justice and law? What an utter waste of love, emotion and human life David’s grief and weakness for Absalom has proved! He’s lost Israel’s support, had to flee his city and go on the run, lost all his dignity, lost the lives of many of his men … it’s been a disaster! If only David had been able to see past his own (unreasonable) love for his son, this whole sorry mess could have been avoided!

Hmm! Can’t help being reminded here about the story of the Lost Son (mistakenly called the parable of the Prodigal). It’s a parable of grace – about the totally unreasonable, undignified, unjust and utterly ridiculous love of the father for a son who wants him dead! Whereas this parable ends happily ever after (from the father’s point of view, not from that of the elder – faithful – brother!) and the son who was dead is now alive, the story of Absalom ends up with the inconsolable grief of a father who has lost his son irretrievably.

In other words, we can see in David’s very weaknesses – his love for his son, his reluctance to punish rebellion and execute his enemies, his refusal to stand on royal dignity – a mirror of God’s own gracious and loving passion for the world. One of the problems about grace is that it seems to demean God. It makes God so soft … so undignified … so … ungodlike! Philip Yancey, in his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, characterises God as “a lovesick Father”. He’s right! There’s something pathetic and distinctly un-admirable about lovesickness. It provokes derision and scorn, however sympathetic we might feel. Our instinct is always to try and talk people out of that sort of love: “It isn’t good for you!” But that’s surely precisely the point about grace! And for those who do have eyes to see, and ears to hear, it’s the most glorious, joyous invitation to Life! It converts. And, says John, however unpalatable that may be, it’s the truth about God!

The grace that makes a difference (Ephesians 4:25-5:2)
If it is truth that converts, says Paul, then its power is seen concretely in changed lives. The Lectionary carefully omits 4:17-24 – presumably because it appears to support and unsupportable characterisation of “us” and “them”. “Us” is the Christians, who are good people; “them” is the non-Christians, who are as bad as it’s possible to be. Now of course, Paul is using “the Gentiles” in much the same way as John uses “the Jews”. He’s no more saying that every Gentile (non-Christian) has “lost all sensitivity and abandoned themselves to licentiousness, being greedy to practise every kind of impurity” (v19) than John is saying that every Jew was fiercely resistant to Jesus and thirsty for his blood! It’s a stereotype – a way of highlighting the difference that faith in and discipleship of Jesus is supposed to make.

Having made it, he then goes on to the verses in today’s readings. Lies, bitter, grudge-holding anger, thieving and evil talk are out. They belong to an old life and an old set of values. These are the “old ways”. They are destructive. They prevent true community. We all know what they bring: bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling and slander, and all sorts of malice” (v31). Paul’s focus is communal. Christianity isn’t about people becoming “nice” – it’s about transformed individuals within transformed communities!

The communal bit is the most important. For Paul, the most unmistakeable and indisputable evidence – “sign” – of the Holy Spirit’s reality was the Church as communities in which Jews and Gentiles could live together as brothers and sisters without tearing each other apart and killing one another! What’s radical about this is that Gentiles just weren’t supposed to be “in”! Everything they ahd ever known about God suggested that they were decidedly “out”. Yet God, in Christ and through the Spirit, was creating a new, radically inclusive community.

Paul isn’t talking here about an appearance of community, but community as a reality. The verdict of Church history is rarely on Paul’s side – at least in glaringly significant cases! Christians have murdered and killed each other over baptismal and communion practices, the owning of slaves, territory, power, forms of church government, politics, food, resources, race, gender, nationality, philosophy … the list is both grim and endless! And today the Church is hell-bent on tearing itself apart over the issue of human sexuality! I remember (with honour and affection) Michael Vasey, an evangelical Anglican who came out as a homosexual and wrote a superb book about homosexuality and the bible. This godly man received death threats from his so-called “brothers and sisters in the Lord”!

We mustn’t read passages like this one as in some sense “gently pastoral injunctions to niceness”! Paul was writing in a context in which divisions and opinions were strongly held and bitterly divisive. And nothing divides like faithfully-held theological convictions! Then the struggle to win an argument takes on apocalyptic proportions: it is the struggle for the very Truth of God! We in the United Reformed Church would do well to heed that as the moratorium on the sexuality issue comes to an end.

Yet we have been looking at John’s gospel, where we are confronted head-on with precisely such a struggle for the Truth of God! And the greatest truth, we are told in Jesus, is that God is a God of grace. Enough “evil talk” and slander. Enough of making out that people who see things differently over these issues in church life are somehow less Christian, or blinded to truth, than we are! This is to grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

How might we find our compass bearings, then, when the issues seem far from clear-cut and faithful people are so faithfully divided over them? How do we proceed, if there is a sense in which truth matters? The guidance we see in Jesus is this: people matter! We human beings are quick to draw boundaries that God refuses to draw. We like to draw them and patrol them – faithfully and fiercely! Yet, if we are to be led by the Spirit, we ought to concentrate on nearness. “Put away the things that exacerbate division!” says Paul. Instead, “be kind to one another, tender-hearted, and forgiving one another! After all, that is how God in Christ treats us!” Let’s have our debates. Let’s strive to find agreement, and to discover more of the truth of God in it all. But let’s refuse the old stereotypes! Let’s refuse the safety of old arguments with their well-defended walls that keep us apart form one another and reinforce our sense of “us” and “them”. Instead, let’s draw near to one another, with eyes to see and ears to hear, in the scary and fragile faith that God in Jesus will turn out to be different and far more gracious than we ever imagined possible.

Amen.

2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a NRSV text
Exodus 16: 2-4, 9-16 NRSV text
Psalm 51:1-12 NRSV text
Ephesians 4: 1-16 NRSV text
John 6: 24-35 NRSV text

“I am the Bread of Life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty!” This is what John has been working towards telling us. This is why John has picked the feeding miracle out of all the synoptic miracle stories to relate. Yet it is more than just a summary of the feeding miracle: it also includes the story of the woman of Samaria in 4: 1-42. If you re-read that story, you’ll see some obvious markers. Most notably, the conversation between Jesus and the woman and Jesus and the crowd follows a similar track. Both the woman and the crowd ask the wrong question, and Jesus ignores it, going instead to the heart of what they need to learn. Both are looking for the wrong sort of provision from Jesus: the woman wants water daily to save her going to the well (4:15) and the crowd asks, “Sir, give us this bread always” (6:34). Both their expectations are too low. The gift that Jesus offers is himself – salvation (cf 6:51).

Despite what many commentators seem to think, it isn’t because this is a particularly spectacular miracle. John doesn’t present us with “Jesus-the-super-magician”; John presents us with “Jesus: heaven come down to earth”, or “eternal life incarnate”. For all the apparent heightened emphasis on the miraculous in John, there is a corresponding de-emphasis happening at the same time. Look at Jesus’ statement in 6:26. It’s prefaced by the solemn “Amen, amen, lego humin” – “Truly, truly, I tell you …” This isn’t just a colloquialism of Jesus’, or of John’s writing either (as though he has his Jesus always begin statements like that!). It’s a sign that Jesus is cutting to the chase – speaking with divine insight. He’s saying, “Listen to me. Let me tell you the deepest truth about what’s actually going on here. Don’t misunderstand me or yourselves! You’re seeing the sign – but you’re not reading it properly. You look at me and see a miracle worker. That’s not who I am. I am the stuff of life, sent you from God! Don’t have your minds on your stomachs – look more deeply and face the hunger and thirst for Life that is there at the core of you. Then look at me, and you’ll understand!”

Bread and manna: salvation and provision (cf Exodus 16: 2-4; 9-16)
I made the point last week (and assume the content), but it’s one that bears repetition in a world where two thirds of its inhabitants are starving and the remaining third has problems associated with overeating: when Jesus speaks of being the Bread of Life in John’s gospel, and criticises his hearers for being concerned with full stomachs, he is not spiritualising hunger, nor is he advocating some sort of aesthetic focus on the “spiritual” rather than the “physical”. John’s Jesus is, more explicitly than in any other part of the New Testament, God incarnate. Incarnation is about God’s entry into the human condition, not some sort of flight from it! John has had bad press as a “theological gospel” – by which is meant a “pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die” sort of understanding of God and salvation that leaves human misery and need largely untouched, or so de-emphasised at the expense of “eternal life” that it may as well be untouched! It is the gospel that can be read (illegitimately!) as the least challenging gospel to the rich, the well-fed, the powerful and the “haves”. If Mark’s Jesus can be read as the Liberator of the world, John’s can be read as the Saviour from the world, with Jesus’ constant emphasis “on above”. It’s a bourgeois-friendly gospel, in other words.

That this is illegitimate is clear from v33: Jesus is the Living Bread who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world! “Ah,” you might respond, “but what sort of life? Is it the life that comes from giving bread to the hungry?” Duh! Isn’t that to miss the point that this is a miracle about feeding hungry people – people who have no means of feeding themselves? There is no way in which John presents the feeding as the “stunt from the front” – the trick to hook people in order to get to the really important bit (ie the sermon)! Provision and salvation belong together.

Now, while John clearly sets up the reference to eating manna in the wilderness as “bread from heaven” in order to allow Jesus to make his point, the point Jesus makes is that the true Bread from Heaven is more than temporary alleviation of hunger, not less! In today’s reading from Exodus, we see a parallel: the Israelites are complaining because they are hungry. Note their complaint: “It would have been better to have died in Egypt, where at least we ate our fill of bread!” (Exodus 16:9) It appears to them as though Yahweh has “brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger”!

We ought not to be too quick to condemn the Israelites. Behind their complaint is the experience and terror of a slow, lingering death by starvation. We need to have in our heads the pictures we see of malnourished people in Ethiopia and other places: stick-thin bodies, swollen bellies, and hands too weak with hunger to brush the flies from the eyes and sores. Famine was something real and never far away. This isn’t some sort of pathetic whinge by a group of malcontents: an “I’m sick of this! I want to go home!” It’s a hard calculation: “Exodus is all well and good, and slavery killed. But at least we died with full bellies! And given a choice between salvation (with death by starvation) and slavery with whips, brutality and bread, we opt for slavery!”

Nor ought we to condemn them for hoarding the manna against instruction (16:20). It is hard for people on the brink of extinction to trust that, if they ate today at Yahweh’s hand, they will eat tomorrow too. The hard fact of human life in many parts of the world is that we may bless God for the harvest, but that doesn’t stop God sometimes failing spectacularly to ensure that a harvest happens regularly enough to prevent widespread and terrible suffering and starvation.

The wonder of the provision of quails and manna is seen in 16:18b: “They gathered as much as each of them needed”. Here’s the point, then: Exodus (salvation) includes the provision of what is needed to sustain life. When the hungry are fed and the naked clothed; when the poor are given enough and the thirsty given a cup of cold water, this is part of salvation! It is not some sort of “preparatory spadework” for evangelism. And when Jesus feeds the crowd, they do not only have enough, but far, far more than enough. There is “something more”.

It is this “something more” that Jesus goes on to stress. Pay attention to the hunger and thirst of the soul. In a materialistic age, this is an important point. And for those of us who are exquisitely alive to the sense in which the gospel is the Good News of a transformed world order of justice and provision for all, it is important not to neglect the dimension of human existence that is about more than eating, being clothed and having clean water.

Incarnation is about bridging the “gap” between heaven and earth. The spatial metaphor (and it is only a metaphor, as Yuri Gagarin discovered when he went into space!) serves to emphasise the way in which we human beings have built our lives and created our world to exclude God. Individually and collectively, we are cut off from God. That fundamental “gap” manifests itself in injustice, oppression, poverty and death. To talk theologically, sin is both a personal and a structural problem. The “gap” is the absence of the Life of God – in John’s terms, “eternal life” or “life in all its abundance”. That is something we experience here and now – it is not only or even primarily a question about “what happens to us when we die”. We are created for fellowship with God, as children of God. Jesus, as the Word made flesh, does not only show us what God is like: he shows us what it is to be truly human! And to be human as Jesus was is to live in the same relationship to God as he did. It is to live in the awareness of being God’s child and of the constant, immediate and transforming presence of God in our lives. In Paul’s words from last week’s reading: it is “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, and be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 4:19). That is “eternal life” – in other words, a dimension of life, rather than only a question of duration.

Hungering and thirsting for God
Why is evangelism apparently the exclusive preserve of so-called “evangelicals”? There ought to be no such thing as a “non-evangelical” Christian! I frequently hear evangelicals described as “born again Christians”. What they are wonderfully alive to is the startling difference that a relationship to God in Jesus Christ makes to life. God in Jesus is personal – however embarrassing some of us might find that! Abundant life in Jesus is a life that overflows. We are made for joy, for love, for hope, for laughter, for deep relating. Yet these depth experiences of God in Jesus and through the Spirit are pooh-poohed as “emotionalism” or something equally unimportant and ephemeral. Not so! No wonder so many Christians are uncomfortable with notions of evangelism! Yet if knowing and following Jesus – being “born again” – is genuinely a new birth and transformation of personal life, then evangelism is nothing more sinister than passing on good news. DT Niles said (in a way that is marvellously appropriate to today’s readings) that, in evangelism, “We are nothing more than beggars telling other beggars where to find bread”.

We fail people if we do not recognise the reality of spiritual hunger. Yet the signs of the hunger for the Bread of Life are evident everywhere to any eyes that are open. Look at the current explosion of spirituality. The bookshops are full of self-help books on the subject. Magazines carry stories and accounts. Psychic fairs, seminars on spirituality, meditation centres and classes on eastern mysticism are all flourishing growth industries. Millions of people who have nothing to do with the Church are desperate to make connections with spiritual reality. And yet the Church is failing singularly to help them make any connection between their own deep sense of spiritual hunger and Jesus, the Bread of Life! We stand by in embarrassed silence, while people who have found something of significance in witchcraft, meditation, Buddhism, wicca, yoga, astral travel and reincarnation share their experiences eagerly and find them equally eagerly received. If the reason for our failure is that we do not recognise in it a mirror of our own deep hunger and thirst for God, we ought to examine ourselves, lest we, like the crowd, fail to read the sign correctly.

“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice” (2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a)
Jesus told his hearers (in that Sermon) that the yearning for justice is like a gnawing hunger and parching thirst. It is something that consumes one – fills the horizon. The drive to be filled and to slake one’s thirst becomes the most and only important thing worth doing.

There is a deep connection between justice and spirituality. It’s what Nathan exploits to bring home to David the seriousness of what he has done over the murder of Uriah. David is blind to the corruption of his own power, yet still alive to the issue of justice, so that Nathan is able to tell him a story of injustice that has David filled with godly rage – precisely the point that Nathan is trying to make about Uriah and Bathsheba. Yawheh is displeased with David because of David’s abuse of power, and Nathan uses the story of the lamb as a device to get David to feel about his actions in the way that Yahweh does.

Nathan’s parable is actually a strange “fit”, isn’t it? Yes, it’s about greed and the abuse of power to steal something important to someone else. But apart from the instinctive unease we ought to feel today about the implication of women being men’s “property”, it’s difficult to see an obvious correspondence with David’s conduct – other than the fact that this is an example of blatant abuse of power. And that is enough. When Nathan says, “Thou art the man!”, David’s understanding is immediate. He recognises in himself Yahweh’s righteous anger at injustice.

The hunger for justice, in other words, has converting power. Part of what Jesus means when he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice” is that it is a hunger that puts us in touch with the heart of God. It gives energy and power in the struggle for a new world. But here, in this story, we see something unusual: the hunger for justice can be the vehicle for the conversion of those whose power is that from which the world needs saving! David is part of “The System”. He is “The System”! While God’s chief concern is for those who are the victims of injustice, God is nevertheless concerned too for those who wield power and who are trapped (albeit differently!) in the cycles of injustice, oppression, despair and death. Here is the story of a powerful tyrant who is converted – because Nathan is able to appeal to a hunger and thirst for justice! And the blessing for David, as the man who wields power abusively, is that he recognises the problem, is repentant, and is restored.

Beyond bread (Ephesians 4: 1-16)
This is a rich passage! There is the theme of unity, which could be followed. Yet, in the context of this week’s readings, I want to make only one point: Paul here talks about the Church as a body which needs “feeding”. In v7, he writes, “To each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift”. That evokes strong echoes of the Exodus passage, where each Israelite gathered manna which, when measured, was exactly enough (even though some gathered much, and some little).

Whether we are talking about bread, manna or spiritual gifts, the point is that they are all gifts of grace. Grace is a measure of God’s love. It is also God’s provision. Grace means that God provides life and that which is necessary to sustain life. Grace further means that God provides the means of growth. Bodies are not just meant to exist: they are meant also to grow and develop.

Grace, in other words, is purposive. God’s intention is to make us Christ-like, just as God’s intention is to make the whole of created reality Christ’s. The gifts of the Spirit are given, not to individuals for their own glory, enjoyment or ownership, but to the whole Church. They are manifested in individuals precisely in order to make us interdependent (hence the image of the body).

Christian life is essentially communal. We make a great deal of “I don’t have to go to Church to be a Christian! I can worship God on a golf-course or up a mountain just as well as at Church!” Well, not according to Paul! This isn’t a point about church membership or attendance: it’s a point about growing. We are all given gifts for the common good. Unless we take an active part in the life of the Christian body of which we are a part, we are amputating part of the body and failing others. Similarly, unless we are part of the body – of the flow of the life-blood of the Spirit (4:16) – we will remain stunted in our own growth. The image of a body growing by means of the grace given through gifts stands as a strong critical counter to the excessive individualism of our present age. One of our challenges is to restore the Church’s “body image” – to discover and make it work.

A rich diet
“Don’t be children, blown about by every wind of doctrine. Grow up, for Christ’s sake!” says Paul. I am astonished at how determinedly and deliberately so many people remain in a state of Christian infancy! Having been “born again”, it’s as though they are content to remain babies. A new baby is a beautiful thing: a 10-year old baby is a tragedy! Yet churches are full of babies.

What Paul is telling the Ephesians is that they need to be theologically sophisticated. Despite the popular anti-theological perception one frequently encounters, theology matters – or good theology does! This isn’t about some sort of “theological league table for churches”! It’s not about a middle-class drive for an educated church population. It’s about discernment and faithful discipleship.

The point is that there is an awful amount of absolute c*^p doing the rounds in church circles. Churches can be hotbeds of all sorts of dodgy practices, emphases and rank superstitions. And the danger is that they distract and prevent proper discipleship of Jesus Christ. They even obscure and “lose” Jesus! Paul’s “corrective recipe” is a sound theology, deeply rooted in the scriptures.

Of course, this begs the question of what theology is! If it is a tick-box list of hard philosophical concepts, people can hardly be blamed for not being remotely interested. Yet if theology has to do with life – the life of faith and the life of the world – then theology and the bible should rightfully be part of the answer to our ongoing hunger and thirst for God. It is interesting – but by no means accidental – that both Paul and John get the most passionate about faith when they are at their most “theological” – which in their cases, means most deeply aware of grace! Because that, at the end of the day, is what this all about: a God who answers hunger and thirst with a gift that is far, far more wonderful and life-giving than we can possibly imagine: the gift of Jesus. This is not dead, dry, academic puzzles: this is Living Bread! And we are invited to come and eat and drink … if, of course, we are hungry and thirsty in the first place!

Amen.