Last week we heard
the story of the feeding of the 5000, and this week we find a group of
followers tracking down Jesus in the aftermath of that miracle. And when they find him they want more. They are not satisfied. They want more of the bread, and they want
more of the signs. They’re
not concerned with the fact that Jesus, by the grace of God, managed to feed
all of them. No, they can only think of
their own stomachs, of their own physical desires. They want more and more and more. Never satisfied.
What the crowd
doesn’t seem to realize, however, is that
their desire is so much deeper than the physical hunger that they experienced
earlier. All they know is that they aren’t satisfied, and so they try to fill
that void inside them by demanding that Jesus give them more bread, that he
provide more signs. The one who can
satisfy them is standing right in front of them, but they are so overcome with
this hunger that they cannot even see him for what he really is.
Have you ever felt
hunger? I don’t
mean physical hunger. I mean a deeper
hunger, the kind of hunger that leaves
you feeling like there is a great void in your soul and makes you feel alone, misunderstood,
and even hopeless? I’ve
felt that hunger, that spiritual and emotional hunger, and I suspect many of
you have as well. So what do we do to
satisfy that hunger? More of often than not we turn to the things of this world
to provide us with sustenance.
Sometimes, like those folks who tracked down Jesus, we turn to physical
food in the hopes of some momentary satisfaction. Some of us may have changed
jobs or locations or relationships, thinking that a new start will fill the void. Some of us try to fill it with toys, with
cars, with fancy houses, with money.
Sometimes the void gets so big, the hunger so strong, that we turn to
drugs or alcohol to try and fill it and satisfy the hunger pangs, even for a
little while. But those things don’t
work, do they?
So why do we turn
to them? Maybe because John Chrysostem
was right when he said that people are nailed to the things of this life. Too often we make idols out of “things”,
thinking that they will somehow save us, that they will somehow fill us. But we forget that the most important things
in life are not things at all--love, acceptance, forgiveness, hope. We forget
that physical objects cannot ever satisfy the deep longing that we have.
This is what the
crowd did not understand. There was a
void in them that they felt when they realized Jesus had gone away to the other
side of the sea, and so they followed after him, not really knowing why. And when they found him all they could think
of was the bread. Give us more of this
bread, they demand. That will satisfy
us. That will fill the void inside of
us. Reign down manna from heaven, like
Moses did, that will do the trick. But
no amount of physical bread, no amount of signs from heaven, will ever do the
trick. Not for them. And not for us.
There is a void
inside all of us. We sometimes think
that it’s shaped like a car, or a house, or
surgery, or a bottle of booze. But St. Augustine got it right when he noted that there is a Christ-shaped void at our core. None of those
other things can ever truly satisfy that longing that is deep inside us because
they are of this world and they perish. We
work so hard for the food that perishes, don’t we?
We work ourselves to the bone to make money that we then spend on stuff,
stuff that we can't take with us, stuff that ultimately rots away and doesn’t bring us the satisfaction we desire
and doesn’t fill the void inside of us. Only Jesus can do that and deep down we know
it.
We know it because
we know that this is not all that there is.
These clothes, these bodies, this building, it’s
not all that there is. We were made with
the spark of God inside us, made for heavenly purposes. Master Yoda said, “luminous
beings are we, not this crude matter.” We know that the material possessions of this world will
ultimately fail us. That the bread that
we eat daily may satisfy our physical hunger but it can never satisfy our
spiritual hunger.
This little guy is full of wisdom, picking up where Chrysostem & Augustine left off.
The only bread that
can do that is the bread of life. And
the bread of life is Jesus. Bread
sustains life. And life is something far
more than our physical existence, more than our stuff. Real life is relationship with God, with the
very spark from which we all came and to which we will all return. And in Jesus, in this regular human being is
the Incarnate God, and in him that relationship is made accessible to us. Without that relationship we may have “existence” but
not “life.” Jesus’ unconditional
love, the freedom that he offers us from the tyranny of our “stuff”,
the reassurance that he provides in reminding us that this life is not all that
there is. Jesus is the essential of
life, that which satisfies our deepest spiritual hunger. That is the bread of life.
So what is your
deepest spiritual hunger? What is it
that you are longing for so much, that which the stuff of this world cannot
satisfy? Love? Acceptance? Hope?
Peace? Forgiveness? You will find
them all at the altar of God. You will find them at the
place where heaven and earth collide, where Jesus bids us welcome as the host
of the meal, and sustains us as the meal itself. You will find it in Jesus. You will find it Christ's table, where mortals eat the
bread of angels.
They said, “Sir,
give us this bread always.” They
didn’t know. They didn’t know that the bread was standing in
front of them, that it wasn't about physical bread at all, but instead it was about relationship. Well, we know. And as you make your way to God's altar with your hands
outstretched know that the very bread that will be placed in your hands is
nothing less than the bread of angels, the bread life. And you will be filled. We partake in the bread of life so that we
may offer the bread of life to others, that bread that is found in relationship with God in Jesus--a relationship of love, acceptance, hope, peace, and forgiveness. Jesus, we pray, give us this bread….always!
