Bread of life

 

Reflection 1^st August 2021

 

During 19^th century, missionaries started taking the Gospel into China. Initially there seemed to be a lot of success. Churches offered food as well as the Gospel and people were hungry for – food. Many were converted and baptised and joined the church. They remained active members if their physical needs were met through the generosity of others. But once their prospects improved and their families no longer needed rice, these so called “rice Christians” drifted away from church.

Of course, this isn’t just something seen in 19^th century China. It has been seen throughout church history. For example, I remember my grandmother telling me of when she was what we would call a teenager, during the First World War, the chapels in her South Wales village were full. (This was not long after the great Revival in Wales too.) But once the war was ended people drifted away. They had come to pray for family members but had no use for the church afterwards.

In the Bible passage we are thinking about today – John 6: 24 – 35 – we see the equivalent of rice Christians flocking to hear Jesus in the aftermath of his feeding the five thousand. They come to him for their own wants to be met. They had seen or heard about the miracle Jesus performed with the loaves and fishes, and rather than seeing it as a miracle, or sign pointing them to faith in the living God and God’s Son, they saw it as away of being fed.

‘Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. John 6:26

Jesus points out to them they have got it wrong:

²⁷ Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. John 6: 27

With the phrase “Food that spoils” Jesus is moving the discussion in a different direction. Jesus means the crowd must work towards a true faith rather than faith of convenience. Jesus is reminding those who are hearing him of the story of the Israelites in the wilderness. They received manna from heaven, but it did not keep fresh longer than a day. The manna did not “endure” but “spoiled” overnight.

There is a real danger for us in not seeking or expecting food that endures and instead looking for something that is for here and now or is just for our own needs and wants. We can think of the things of this world in that sense. So many people after all seem to try and satisfy their hunger by materialism or through drink or drug or sex. Mother Teresa in her book Life in the Spirit expressed it well:

 “The spiritual poverty of the Western world is much greater than the physical poverty of [Third World] people. You in the West have millions of people who suffer such terrible loneliness and emptiness. They feel unwanted and unloved ... These people are not hungry in a physical sense, but they are in another way. They know they need something more than money, yet they don't know what it is. What they are missing really is a living relationship with God.”

However, there is that danger that even those of us who think of ourselves as Christians are not much more than “rice Christians”. If we only see being a Christian as being part of friendly club then do we really see Jesus as “the bread of life”? In terms of today we must be 7 day a week Christians rather than just Sunday Christians.

Bread for many cultures around the world is staple. It is an everyday thing. A basic food. Most of us may well have eaten bread sometime over the last week if not every day. And that is the point Jesus is making. He is that staple. He is someone we should be ingesting, consuming every day. Few of us have bread just once a week so why should be thinking of Jesus only on Sunday?

If you’ve ever been on holiday to France then chances are you will have visited a Boulangerie, a bakery. They are special places, for in small towns and villages certainly, the boulangerie is a key part of the community. And on occasions where we’ve come across a village in France where there is no boulangerie then there is something lacking. The French seem to treat bread with reverence, they do not take it for granted. And certainly, at most French meals bread is always present.

Jesus “the bread of life” should not be taken for granted. We should be seeking to include him in everything we do in our daily life. We should be praying with him, reading about him in the Bible, taking more of him in. Jesus the bread of life should be central to us. We should not be leaving him in our spiritual bread bins!

The truth being communicated by Jesus’ saying ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. John 6:35 is difficult for us to understand and comprehend. And despite my exhortation in this Reflection to encourage you to “eat” the “bread of life” so that you won’t be spiritually hungry, it’s hard to really explain. But maybe that is the point.

We are so used nowadays to having an explanation for everything, that we aren’t comfortable with the not knowing. The 16^th century theologian John Calvin was once asked to explain the Eucharist (Communion.) He replied that he would rather experience it than understand it. And I think that is the point. To feed upon the truth of who Jesus is, to find spiritual sustenance in him, is better than trying to understand him.