Proper 14 :: I Kings 19:4 – 9 / Psalm 130 / Ephesians 4:25 – 5:2 / John 6:35, 41 – 51
This
is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, PA, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday,
August 8, 2021.
“DO WE HAVE
ENOUGH TO GO ON?”
(Homily text: John 6:35, 41 – 51)
Let’s ask ourselves these
two questions this morning: “Do we have enough to go on? Do we have enough of a
foundation to believe the things of God?”
After all, nearly
everything in life demands some sort of a foundation upon which to build. We
know this from our houses and other structures: They all require a good, solid
foundation. The same is true of whatever we accept as scientific or another
sort of truth: They, too, demand some foundation upon which to rest. I could
name many other such examples.
As we look at this
morning’s Gospel text (our continuation of an exploration of our Lord’s feeding
of the crowd of five thousand, as we find it in chapter six of John’s account),
we can see that the Lord is building a foundation for faith. But it’s not yet
complete. In fact, that foundation won’t be complete until the events of Good
Friday, Easter Sunday morning and Pentecost are all accomplished. Then, in
retrospect, those who’d been exposed the truths of God as Jesus Christ has made
them known will begin to understand just what the Lord was saying about His
being the “bread of life”.
But I risk getting ahead
of the story by looking forward into the events that will take place at the end
of Jesus’ earthly journey and into the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost,
at which time the Church will be born.
Let’s back up a bit, into
today’s text, to see how the Lord is constructing the foundation for faith, one
block at a time.
We’ve been privileged to
spend time in John’s account for the past few weeks, looking at the unfolding
account of Jesus’ miraculous feeding of a large crowd with just five loaves of
bread and two fish. As that event comes to a close, some in the crowd who’d
been fed follow Jesus around the northern side of the Sea of Galilee, where a
back-and-forth conversation ensues between members of the crowd and the Lord.
Little bit by little bit,
the Lord unfolds the greater and deeper truth about His nature, as He attempts
to get the crowd to see beyond the immediate, that is, the provision of food,
into the deeper truths that it is that bread which is the true and eternal
bread for which they ought to be longing. In response, the crowd says, “Sir,
give us this bread always.” (See John 6:34.)
Now, in today’s passage,
the crowd wonders how it is that Jesus can be the One who has come down from
heaven. After all, they say, “Don’t we know this man’s father and mother?”
(Verse 42) In response, Jesus affirms the truth that, unless the Father has
drawn someone, they won’t be drawn to God, or to the things of God.
Finally, Jesus advances
His listeners’ understanding by saying that the bread that He will give is His
“flesh”.
Now, all the ingredients
are in place for Jesus to make the statement that, “Unless you eat of my flesh
and drink of my blood,” that person will have no life in them. (Verse 52) We
will consider the implications of that statement in next week’s homily, for the
statement leads us directly to the Eucharist.
We’ll sidestep
consideration of the Eucharist for the moment, and reserve that topic for next
Sunday. Instead, let’s look at the matter of the foundation that our Lord is
forming for those original hearers, and for us.
Before we begin our
consideration, we ought to remind ourselves that, at this point in Jesus’
earthly ministry, the complete account of what He has been doing, and will do,
hasn’t unfolded yet. It would be unfair for us to judge those first witnesses
and hearers too harshly for their failure to understand just what God was up to
in the sending of Jesus Christ. (Frankly, I often think that if I was among
that first group of witnesses, I’m not so sure I’d understand and grasp what
God was doing, either.)
As I think about the
nature of the foundation that God is providing, it has two aspects: A physical
and tangible aspect and a spiritual and unseen aspect.
The physical and tangible
aspect of the event before us is the multiplication of the five loaves and the
two fish. This sign, as well as all the
miracles that Jesus did, are meant to show to us that it is God working in each
of these events. After all, one of the aspects of God’s nature is His ability
to create and to recreate. Here we see the ability to create in action: The
multiplication of the loaves and the fishes. So, in this instance, the
spiritual and unseen truth is God’s presence in the act of creating.
If we believe the
scriptural witness about this (and other) events, then we are being provided
with the proof we need in order to come to faith. God is providing us, in the
accounts we read in the sacred pages of the Bible, a record of His mighty acts,
done in days gone by, as He works among ordinary, fallible people.
The biblical witness is
the foundation we require, the platform upon which to come to mature faith in
God and in God’s provision of a tangible and visible proof of His presence
among us. Jesus Christ’s coming, taking up our humanity to the full, provides
us with what we need.
Thanks be to God!
AMEN.
