9 Pentecost, Year B

“OPEN OUR EYES, THAT WE MAY SEE”
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on Sunday, August 2, 2009
Proper 13: Exodus 16: 2 – 4, 9 – 15; Psalm 78: 14 – 20, 23 – 25; Ephesians 4: 17 – 25; John 6: 24 – 35

We used to sing a hymn way back in my youth that went like this:

“Open my eyes, that I may see glimpses of truth Thou hast for me….” (For the record, the words and music to this hymn are by Clara H. Scott.)

How appropriate a title for this sermon, “Open our eyes, that we may see”, as we deal with a text today from John, chapter six, which deals with the interchange that ensued between Jesus and the crowd that had been fed by Jesus, a crowd of 5,000 people. Note (because it will be important later on in this sermon) that this is the same crowd in both events, the miracle and today’s discussion.

Perhaps, as we think about the nature of the interchange between Jesus and this crowd, we might change the title to read, “Open their eyes, that they may see glimpses of truth Thou has for them”, as we consider the manifest spiritual blindness that the crowd exhibited!

Today’s gospel account has, at its root, a classic “failure to comprehend”!

Before we look more closely at the text, let’s remind ourselves of the past two Sundays’ gospel readings, which set the context for today’s passage: Two Sundays ago, we heard Mark’s account of the feeding of the 5,000. Then, last Sunday, we heard Mark’s account of Jesus’ walking on the waters of the Sea of Galilee.

John follows the same sequence as Mark does, recounting the feeding of the 5,000 (John 6: 5 – 15), and then John – just as Mark does - follows that event with the walking on the water (6: 16 – 21).

Both Mark and John then recount the crowd’s criss-crossing of the area around the Sea of Galilee, as Jesus is sought out by this large crowd.

That brings us to today’s gospel account, which – as we look at the coming weeks – will form the first of four Sundays in which we consider the interchange between Jesus and this crowd, making our way through John, chapter six, as the importance and the meaning of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes is unpacked.

That brings us to today’s passage, and to the idea of, “Open their eyes, that they may see glimpses of truth Thou hast for them”.

We begin with a look at the passage itself:

Jesus ferrets out the crowd’s true motive for seeking Him out: (Verse 26) Jesus “cuts to the chase” immediately, naming the real reasons why the crowd had continually tried to find Him, saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” This comment is closely connected to the last mention John makes about the miraculous division of the loaves, where we read (John 6: 15) that “Jesus, knowing that they (the crowd) intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again into the hills by himself.”

You see, the crowd seems to be able to see no further than their bellies! They are truly blind, and need to have their eyes opened!

Looking at the crowd’s motivation from a purely human point-of-view, however, it’s easy to understand why they would want to have such a ruler as this: It would be good for economics! No more worries about the necessities of life, like “what are we going to eat?”

Jesus attempts His first attempt to redirect their thinking: Jesus picks up on the crowd’s motivation, attempting to redirect their thinking and seeing to the greater theme that is at work here: He says, “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, for on him God the Father set his seal.”

In other words, “Look at the big picture! See the great things that God has in store for you, and work on those things that will last.”

Maybe we’re getting somewhere…. the crowd responds: Now, it seems as though we might be getting somewhere, for the crowd now asks, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”

But the way the crowd puts the question is telling: Did you catch the word “doing” in their response?

In truth, “doing the works of God” was what the Judaism of 2,000 years ago was all about…In order to be doing God’s work, one followed the dictates of the Torah, the law of Moses, applying its precepts to every conceivable facet of everyday life. Consider with me the controversies that Jesus encountered with the Pharisees over such things as healing sick people on the Sabbath day. In Jesus’ day, every possible action was scrutinized, down to the last little detail. As a result, life was rigorously regulated. But the focus then became on a person’s own actions, which earned merit in the sight of God.

Jesus counters the question: Now, Jesus counters the question, saying, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

Notice this response: Jesus nullifies the human efforts that the crowd has just alluded to….No amount of “work” on a person’s part can correctly and completely constitute the “works of God”.

However, what Jesus says constitutes the major thrust of John’s gospel: simply believe and accept the great work of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father. That’s it, simply believe!

The crowd begins to see (a little): The crowd, quite correctly, now identifies belief with the person and work of Jesus. For they say, in response, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see, and believe you? What work do you perform?”

If I were writing a commentary on this passage, I’d say, at this point, “What?!!!!!”

Then I’d go on to ask, “Is this crowd suffering from widespread amnesia? Can’t they remember back to the miraculous sign of the division of the loaves and the fishes?”

“Why do they have the audacity to ask for a sign?”

The crowd relies on hindsight: They go on to say, “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread to from heaven to eat.’”

Here again, Jesus has to redirect the crowd’s thinking. Knowing what they are thinking, He has to remind these sight-impaired folk that it wasn’t Moses who gave their forefathers the manna in the wilderness, but God!

(A side comment: Don’t you get the distinct impression that these folk are all wrapped up in what human beings can do to achieve God’s approval, and in the deposit of faith that Moses, the great lawgiver, had given them in the Torah? They don’t seem to remember that God is behind all the great events they remembered so dearly, events that included the call, sending, and empowering of Moses.)

The crowd begins to see a little (again): “Lord, give us this bread always!” These are the words of the crowd, which responds positively to Jesus’ comment about the bread of God, which is that “Which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world.”

The entire conversation is drawn into sharp focus: Jesus now draws the entire conversation into sharp focus, saying, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.”

We will hear the phase, “I am the bread of life,” again in our consideration of chapter six in succeeding weeks.

As for the reference to “never thirsting,” it is a clear reference to the conversation Jesus had had with the woman at the well in Samaria, recorded in John 4: 14.


“Open our eyes, that we may see glimpses of truth Thou hast for us….”

What should we make of this interchange between Jesus and the crowd who’d experienced one of Jesus’ greatest miracles firsthand, but who couldn’t see the truth of God beyond what they had seen, nor beyond the truth of God as they knew it in the law of Moses?

As I ponder that question, I offer the following suggestions to guide and prompt your own reflection, remembering that this crowd is composed of earnest, God-seeking human beings. In that sense, they are just like we are.

Here are my thoughts:

Don’t be too harsh: Frankly, if I’d been one of the crowd that day, sitting on the grass, getting my fill of bread and fish for which I did not have to labor, I’m not sure I would have grasped the bigger issues and the bigger picture of what God was doing in the person of Jesus Christ, His work and the signs that He did.

I think the hymn could easily apply to me: “Open my eyes, that I may see glimpses of truth Thou hast for me!”

So, isn’t it true that we are often blind to God’s truth as we see it in Jesus Christ? And, aren’t we blind to the full revelation of God in Jesus Christ because we think we know enough not to have to learn more? That’s surely the case with me, I confess.

We cannot pull ourselves up by our own “spiritual bootstraps”: The crowd seems stuck in the best revelation of God that they knew. That revelation consisted of the law of Moses, the Torah. Doing the work of Torah, applying its precepts to every facet of life, performing it, was key. For the Torah was seen to be the bread of God, by which God’s chosen people, the Jews, were fed.

But the focus here is entirely on human achievement by human sweat, toil and diligence.

Some early Christians would fall into this same trap: The Pelagians, a fifth century heresy, believed that human beings could improve their standing with God by their own efforts.

Truly, we are so easily fooled, aren’t we?

Don’t we want to think that, if we just kept our spiritual disciplines a little better, we’d gain favor with God somehow?

But doing the works of God involves simply believing. Following acceptance of God’s work in Jesus Christ by faith, we then respond to God’s moving and acting, remembering all the while that God is in control, God is the actor, and we are the responders to God’s action. That’s the key point the crowd missed in today’s interchange.

See the big picture: Essentially, this is the “bottom line” in today’s account: Look at the big picture of God’s acting and working. Time and again, as we’ve examined this conversation in detail, we’ve seen how the crowd seems to be stuck, seems to be blind, to the work that God is doing in Jesus Christ.

But we don’t have that luxury! For we know things that the crowd didn’t, by virtue of the witness of Holy Scripture, by the witness of faithful believers down through the ages, and by the perspective that time can bring.

Lord, open our eyes, that we may see glimpses of truth Thou hast for us!

AMEN.