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Environmental
Stewardship Commission
(MEESC) |
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Environmental
Stewardship Commission
(MEESC) |
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Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota
Lectionary Reflection
Year B, Proper 13, Gospel
John 6: 24-35
The next day, when the people
who remained after the feeding of the five thousand saw that neither Jesus
nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went
to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
When they found him on the other
side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" Jesus
answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because
you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work
for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father
has set his seal." Then they said to him, "What must we do to perform the
works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you
believe in him whom he has sent." So they said to him, "What sign are you
going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work
are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it
is written, `He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Then Jesus said to
them, "Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread
from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life
to the world." They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."
Jesus said to them, "I am the
bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes
in me will never be thirsty."
Reflection on John 6: 24-35
by John G. Gibbs, PhD
Readings in the Gospel according to Mark (Propers 1-12, 17-28) are here
interrupted by 4 readings from John 6 (Propers 13-16). A superb guide
into the sacramental territory of John 6 is William Temple’s Readings
in St. John’s Gospel (London: Macmillan, 1952 reprint of 1945).
According to Temple, the eucharistic teaching of the Fourth Gospel
(which never mentions the Institution of the Eucharist) comes to clearest
expression in the image of the True Vine (John 15), which brings to mind
the wine. On the other hand, for John as for Mark what matters most
in the Bread imagery is our feeding upon Christ, “so receiving and assimilating
Him that He becomes our very life” (Readings, p. 80).
That life, moreover, is not confined to the “Real Presence” in
the Eucharist, for: “The Word of God is everywhere present and active”
(p. 81). What we offer at the Offertory is bread and wine, which
are already full of symbolic meaning as “the gift of God rendered serviceable
by the labour of man…” While deep reverence is due to that means
of grace, the sacrament is not a matter of magic or materialism.
As Temple comments: “…it is very easy to confine our reverence when we
ought to extend it, and to concentrate it only on this focal manifestation
of the divine Presence, instead of seeking that Presence and Activity also
in the Church, which itself is called the Body of Christ, and in all the
world which came to be through Him (i, 3)” (pp. 81-82).
What has most claimed my attention in 6:24-35 is “the bread”
that conjoins heaven and world: “For the bread of God is that which comes
down from heaven and gives life to the world” (v. 33). What turns
bread and wine into the sacrament is the Incarnation, which was a movement
down from heaven that brought into worldly affairs that different quality
of “life” that we call “eternal.” The “food” that really sustains
us and that “endures” in us toward the different quality of life that Jesus
incarnated, is something that comes to us as a gift from God (v. 32).
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