doing big things

Friday of the

Third Week of Easter

May 1st

READING: John 14: 1-14

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’

Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

~~~

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

REFLECTION

For years of community ministry this passage was my go to for funeral celebrations. Yet as I read or heard the words “No one comes to the Father except through me” I heard echoes of torrid evangelism (so-called): turn or burn, bro. “If you die tonight where will you spend eternity?”

I was told in my first blooms of faith that funerals were an opportunity to proclaim the gospel (no problems there) because otherwise people would be going to hell. Big problems there. Last time I checked these words of Jesus, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” were in a document called “gospel.” Good news, not news of eternal anguish: “sorry your mum/partner/baby has just died and probably gone to eternal torment, but if you’re quick you can escape that fate (and be eternally separated from the one you loved).”

Good news is that there is a Way. That “no Way,” or Jean Paul Sartre’s “no exit,” is not the final word, that “no” is not the final word. I have no idea what the daily programme for this incomprehensible state of “my Father’s house” (a.k.a. heaven, eternity, and a whole heap more inexplicable labels) is. I am very certain it’s not a place where we sit eternally thinking “Praise God but what-ever: I wish grandma were here.” Nor is it a place or state of being where a few celestial brain surgeons quickly rewire our circuitry, so we don’t recall grandma, don’t miss her. Worse: historically some Christian writers have dealt with the pain of eternal separation by suggesting we suddenly see grandma in all her odious, filthy, degenerate sin. That sounds like another circuitry rewiring to me, dark and evil, incompatible with the God who searches for the lost sheep. Divine sleight of hand is so unbecoming of the Creator of the Universe.

Jesus invites Thomas (not for the last time, because love is patient) to believe, to know, to trust. Us, too. Believe, know, trust, and a whole lot of other related verbs. Jesus did a whole heap of things that helped his witnesses, eventually, get it. He was trustworthy. Big call, especially as this included being “obedient, even to death.” Oh, and being resurrected: “In a little while you won’t see me. Then you will” (John 16:16). Jesus’ witnesses went on to do some pretty big things, too, once they were empowered by the Jesus-imparting, belief-engendering Spirit. “If I do not go away, the ‘Paraclete’ will not come” (John 16:7). She makes him present even to Thomas, even to us.

While you and I might not do “bigger things,” Jesus will later suggest (to Thomas, as it happens) that believing is a very big thing indeed. 

I receive. Even when I can’t

Thursday of the

Third Week of Easter

April 30th

READING: John 6: 44-51

‘No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, “And they shall all be taught by God.”  Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’

~~~

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

REFLECTION

So, if I may add to the stunned-mullet expressions on the faces of the crowd (John 6: 6:24), what is this “living bread”? With two thousand years collective insight and a few decades of my own experience I would say there’s some link between this saying and the Eucharistic meal – but what?

So many questions: how does eating this sacrament nurture our spiritual life? What do we do with the command to eat when the government (for good reason) tells us we can’t (do we join those alleged Christians who have decided that gathering in the name of Jesus to spread a fatal virus is a good idea?). How do we eat living bread when we can’t?

In hazarding some ideas I make no claim to wisdom, insight, authority. Some experience, I guess, but experience is so, well, experiential, so subjective. I know of people who for decades have “eaten” in the sacramental act of communion, and for them it remains “meh.” I had a vicar once who made it quite clear that the sermon was the thing, and the silly queuing-and-eating business was a waste of liturgical time.

Whereas I can hear the most bleugh sermon, tolerate the most banal liturgy, sing the most vacuous hymns/songs, but then reach out my hands to receive the elements of communion and, well, whoopy! I hope someone slips me communion when I’m getting ready to die. If I have a “getting ready” phase. And if I don’t die in a lockdown, I guess.

But God and the Living Bread God gives is [sic: not “are”] bigger even than that, as Monseigneur Quixote reminded some of us in the book and film that bear his name. Remember Monseigneur Quixote? Deranged, dying, the old, dying priest wanders off one night, delirious. In a dark chapel, he sleep-celebrates Mass, with no bread, no wine. 

Solemnly he communicates himself, and then his travelling companion, the old, hardened Marxist-atheist mayor, Sancho, who has slipped in to join him. The pair share one of the holiest communions I have witnessed in art or reality. So much holiness, so much living bread, so much comes down from heaven. And of course the atheistic, Marxist mayor receives (because the meal of Jesus should always welcome the stranger), and of course no he doesn’t believe.

But it’s not about us believing – as I’ve said several times now. Human, scarred, fallible, holy Graham Greene saw that, too, when he reworked Cervantes and wrote Monseigneur Quixote. It’s about God believing. Believing in us, within us, despite us. Becoming living bread for us, and offering God-made-flesh to nurture us, despite us. And our job? To reach out our hands and believe: yes, Lord, I receive. Even when I can’t.

surrender, reach, live

Wednesday of the

Third Week of Easter

April 29th

READING: John 6: 35-40

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. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.”

~~~

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

REFLECTION

Occasionally Jesus, as John tells the story, breaks into what might well be called love poetry. There is so much pathos – in the traditional sense of “feeling” – in his gentle accusation “I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.” There’s a funny little equation going on in John’s writing here: gods in the ancient world weren’t meant to feel, yet John wants us to see that Jesus and the Creator are one (John 10:30). Here, as yearning-Jesus calls on his followers to believe, there’s an awful lot of not very (traditionally) godlike feeling going on. John wants us to get that (see John 11:35).

Just believe, guys, girls. And he’ll ache later, too (John 20: 29) for us, for we have not seen. Just believe, folks. I’ve suggested that as we surrender into that work of the Spirit, that means we don’t have to work at belief, we can surrender into belief, despite our doubts and our rationalities.

No, not every day. Dammit: we’re human. There are days when my doubts, or emotions, or bank balance, or the horrible machinations of politics and ecological well-being (or its absence) have me screaming in unbelief. Jesus goes there too (Luke 22:42, Matt. 27:46).  Admittedly in extremis, and very understandably. Most of us don’t go down that far to the depths, though for some who struggle with depression the feeling will be just that, and sometimes the darkness wins. The Third Person of the Trinity becomes critical at that point: “I can no longer believe, so please, please God, believe for me and within me.” For me it has always helped to struggle-reach out with my hands in communion and receive the “for-us-the-body-and-blood” in those times, but as Covid reminds us, even that is not indelible. That was often the case long before Covid-19: ask Terry Waite. Ask divorced people in many communions, and until not so long ago our own. Ask LBTGQI+ people likewise.

So Jesus glances forward to “the last day.” I have no idea what that means. We don’t. No one does. What I do know is that the yearning heart of Jesus will reach out eternally, inviting belief in him, and that whether we feel it right now the Spirit who believes “in” him will believe in us and with us and for us, and whatever “the last day” is we too will be lifted up into the eternities of divine love.

if I pray really hard?

Tuesday of the

Third Week of Easter

April 28th

READING: John 6: 30-35

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

Believe. It’s a huge theme in John’s gospel-account. What does he mean by it?

My previous post reflected on the same question. What does Jesus mean by this? I hinted, though not directly stated, that I believe that “believing” (that’s a complex sentence!) is the great gift of God’s Spirit. Too much Christian speech speaks (complex again!) as if belief, and faith too, where commodities which, if we screwed down our pressure valves really, really tightly, would be sufficient to get us through the day or over the next hurdle. If I believe really, really hard, then my prayers will be answered, Covid-19 will go away, and all shall be most well.

But what if “believing” isn’t our job at all? As soon as we speak of trying really hard to overcome niggling doubts we turn belief and faith into works, jobs. The whole Reformation was fought over that. Mind you, I’m not altogether a fan of Luther and his mates and followers. The Catholic Church of the day had things horribly wrong, but few Reformers did much better. Pope was kicked out of bed, Emperor or King got in, and we continued to believe, however much we denied it, that some sort of work would earn our way to God and God’s gift of redemption. If I believe really hard, if I pray really hard, if I read the scriptures, polish the brass, mow the lawns, endure the meetings …

What though if it’s not our job but the job of the Spirit of God to “believe really hard”? What if our job is simply to immerse ourselves in the belief, joy, love, hope that the Spirit-of-Grace wraps around us when we surrender to God? Maybe that’s why Jesus gave us “bread-as-Body” and “wine-as-Blood” as our sacred encounter with resurrection life.

As kai goes the Eucharist is pretty flimsy. Even more so now we can’t share it – and will possibly never share the “wine-as-Blood” again. But maybe it’s just an anamnesis (an incredibly important Greek word conveying a Hebrew concept that means a whole universe more than “remember”[1]) a tiny little action with which the Spirit, the “Comforter” predicted by Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, wraps us up in divine grace, love, joy, hope …?

Then indeed we will never be thirsty – even if we die of thirst.

---

[1] As I’ve noted elsewhere, “anamnesis,” normally translated as “remember” when it appears in liturgy, means so much more than what we normally mean when we remember. I remember when David Kirk lifted the first Rugby World Cup … but that event sure ain’t present in my living room when I do so. But anamnesis? Events are made present. ANZAC Day comes close to that, and did so especially this poignant, broken year, but still falls a million miles short. “Re-member” … “member-together-again,” as one day all life will be membered together again in the New Heavens and Earth (Rev. 21:1). And for that matter, when I use the word “remind” as I did above, it becomes “re-mind” in much the same way that the poet did when he wrote “reclothe us in our rightful mind” (though the original Whittier poem had something more colourful than Eucharist in mind!).

squiggly line continuum

Monday of the

Third Week of Easter

April 27th

READING: John 6: 22-29

 On the next day the people who remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. However, boats from Tiberias came near the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the people saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking 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, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”[1]

REFLECTION

Believe. It’s a huge theme in John’s gospel-account. But what is it? Or what does he mean by it?

Philosophers get very excited about this one. They refer to it as the epistemological question. Epistemology: from the Greek for “knowledge.” I am no philosopher: philosophy ends up in a basket in my mind, alongside algebra (actually all maths and all sciences, and anything containing numbers, really). I hear ““Kazi anayotaka Mungu muifanye ni hii: mumwamini yeye aliyenituma,”[2] I’m afraid. I feel for anyone who feels that way about biblical theology – I really hope I can break it down a little better in these reflections.

Believe? I can only suggest it’s not the same as “know.” While I love Handel’s Messiah I’m not even sure I can sing along to “I know that my Redeemer Liveth” (well I can’t sing anyway but that’s another story) if by “believe” we mean the same as “I know that water is wet.” But I do believe, at least in the sense of this passage, and my fingers are not crossed when I say the Creed.

Actually I think there’s a whole series of gradations of belief. I believe that if I jump up I will come down again. I believe Vladivostok is still there. I believe I went to Massey University. I believe my ute runs on diesel. These all pan out different ways. If I put petrol in my ute it’s going to cost me a lot of money to have it drained. If I put diesel in Anne’s car it’ll cost me a lot more. There’s a kind of squiggly line continuum from “know” to “hope” to “guess” to “meh.” And “believe” is there somewhere.

So what did John want us to do – what did Jesus, “behind” John as it were – want us to do? Note that the little word “in” is there again (in the Greek, too): Jesus as the “subject” or “focus” of our belief, but maybe Jesus as the “presence” or “space” in whom we believe as well? Jesus by the Spirit aiding our belief (remember Mark 9:24). Jesus calls this “work,”[3] but I don’t think he means that if we screw up our minds really, really tight or do the maths then we’ll get it. Perhaps then “believe” is closer to “trust,” or perhaps it’s “trust” informed by another word John uses often, “dwell,” “remain.” Perhaps it’s something like “take it on trust, and practice, practice, practice, and it’ll keep surprising you with blinding, humbling moments of ‘aha’.”

---

[1] Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE). The Revised Standard Version of the Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1965, 1966 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

[2] Neno: Bibilia Takatifu (SNT) Copyright © 1989 by Biblica.

[3] Ergos, from which we get “ergonomics” and, for the rowers and/or gym junkies amongst you, “ergometer.”

scales, covid, and the wrath of God

SERMON PREACHED IN AN UPPER ROOM           

TO A COMPUTER AND TO AN INTERNET

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER (April 26^th) 2020    

READINGS

Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Psalm 116: 1-4, 12-19

1 Pet 1: 17-23

Luke 24: 13-35

Two dejected travellers turn into proclaimers of hope as the result of an encounter with a stranger. That stranger expounds facts and scriptures in tandem, carries out some sort of sacramental act, then leaves them empowered to make their way out into the world. They go back to Jerusalem with the good news they have experienced and digested.

There is a conversion here, though the passage is not always touted as a conversion passage. Paul will have a similar experience, especially as told by Luke, when “something like scales fell from his eyes.” Something like scales fall from the eyes of Cleopas and his companion (as you may have seen me mention several days back, I like to think of the companion as Cleopas’ wife, Mary[1]). A new dawn awakened not only within them but around them and through them. So, awakened, they proclaimed; as Luke tells the story, the gospel spread out exponentially from the Jerusalem to which they return.

Recent events across the globe are cataclysmic. How large a cataclysm we may not know for some time. Waves and potential second waves of a virus are exploding across the globe, and lifestyle changes are forced on every aspect of our existence. Many have pointed out that nature – (for now we’ll see her as God’s shepherd like Cyrus in Isaiah 44) – nature is imposing a sabbatical on our destruction of her resources. Prophetic Old Testament theologian, Walter Brueggemann, is speaking of this pandemic as “a summons to faith.”[2] On this occasion I am less optimistic than Brueggemann; I fear the idiot fringes that play games with distortions of the good news have done, are doing too much damage, deafening Christians and others so the gospel cannot be heard over their cacophony. Yet history will prove me wrong: the gospel has, as Luke indicated and as Brueggemann knows, burst out from our myopia ever since those first, bewildering resurrection experiences of the initial witnesses.

Space is too short to discuss in depth the way in which the orgē, the wrath of God works. Suffice it to say God’s wrath will ultimately be directed against perpetration of God’s wrath, not against perpetrators. But we who have let the gospel down will be caught up in what we might call the birth-pangs of God’s judgement. We are not immune: the history and current behaviour of many who claim to profess the name of Christ is far from a glowing witness, and God’s word of judgement will be spoken. Papatuanuku is stirring because God is permitting her to stir.

Some scientists are reminding us that human negligence is amongst the primary factors accelerating the spread of Covid-19. Obviously I allude to the chronic incompetence of figures such as Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, but there were dark forces at work long before they buried their collective heads in the sand. Deforestation, enforced interaction between humans and other previously far-removed species, negligent management of wild and domestic animals, all these and more have contributed to the breakdown of Earth’s healing resources. We have so far escaped the horrors of nuclear winter but have unleashed alternative toxins on ourselves and our world.

Perhaps this can be a moment in which scales fall from the eyes of humanity. Brueggemann, I suspect (and I will know when the book arrives) hopes so. I am as I said, less optimistic than he might be, certainly in the short term. Earth must suffer this travail, this tribulation as some biblical readers prefer to call it. It may or may not be the death throes of our planet, or at least humanity’s role on this spinning sphere. Many scientists are reminding us that, no matter where Covid-19 takes us, this will not be the last threat to humanity’s existence, any more than the Bay of Pigs or DDT were. Perhaps we will learn to listen to the prophets, perhaps we won’t.

By “prophets” I do not mean sensationalist charlatans, the likes of Hal Lindsey, New Zealand’s own late Barry Smith, or the current theological deceiver Paula White. I speak rather of those who see the damage humanity is doing to God’s creation and to all who are made in God’s image. They see, and pronounce God’s stern word of impending crisis, judgement (the Greek word is the same). I mean prophets like Walter Brueggemann, like Rachel Carson, like David Quammen, whose findings I allude to here. I am speaking of those shepherd-prophets who genuinely read the signs, and warn. They do so not necessarily with reference to our God – the shepherd Cyrus certainly did not. Nevertheless they message God’s stern will.

Have we come a long way from a road to Emmaus? Not so much. I will never reduce the gospel of Jesus Christ to an ecological, economic or sociological programme. Nevertheless, we need to hear whispers of both judgement and resurrection in our every circumstance. Despite the resurrection appearances, Cleopas and Mary were heading away from Jerusalem. Jerusalem for Luke is the place of encounter with the Risen Lord. But the Risen Lord, or perhaps his messenger or angel (again the Greek word is the same) brought them up sharply, opened their eyes, turned them around.

The judgements of God have rarely been pretty, and none of us are immune from suffering. But we are called to hold to resurrection faith. Ironically we are living in a time when those most powerful dimensions of our faith have been stripped from us: fellowship and communion, including Holy Communion, have been taken from us, and rightly so. Sometimes as God’s judgement of King David warns us, our loved ones too are stripped from our sight. Sometimes our lives are stripped from us. No one is immune. Our task is to speak a word of truth and of hope into this calamitous time – as indeed we were being called to speak a word of judgement in the complacent times that preceded it (perhaps we might learn from Jonah?).

We will speak a word of resurrection hope, like that proclaimed by the stranger on the road, for we discard that at great peril. We are not just a bundle of cells, indistinguishable from the cells of every other living being, perhaps even viruses (though their status as living or not is disputed). We bear the image of God, whatever that might mean. But we will not be so other worldly that we remove ourselves from meaningful participation in a virus-shocked world. We will speak a word of resurrection hope and we will speak a word of judgement: humanity and we within it must change our ways before we strangle the planet God has given us. Cleopas and Mary went back to Jerusalem and there awaited the coming of the Spirit. Thus empowered they began the proclamation of good news.

Their times too were pretty darned apocalyptic, as the Roman Empire, like the current US empire and probably Western civilization, crumbled around them. Into that crumbling world exploded a gospel of resurrection-hope. It has been corrupted and renewed many times since. Let us offer our lives as a channel of God’s grace and hope in this time too. Let us await and welcome the Spirit who renews us in strength and hope.

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[1] Some say it may have been his wife, Mary, and some heart-warming art depicts this gender re-balancing view: see https://artandtheology.org/2017/04/28/the-unnamed-emmaus-disciple-mary-wife-of-cleopas/

[2] See Brueggemann’s forthcoming work Virus as a Summons to Faith: Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief, and Anxiety, to be published by Wipf and Stock on May 20th. 

[3] For further references see Rachel Carson, Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962, and David Quammen, Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. New York: Norton, 2013. 

sighting Elvis?

Saturday

in the

Second Week of Easter

April 25th

With apologies if you wanted a refection on either ANZAC Day[1] or The Feast of St Mark. I am however keen to maintain continuity with the weekday Eucharistic readings.

READING: John 6: 16-21

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I [In Greek: I am] do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

REFLECTION

I noted early in this series that I take a more or less “literary critical” and “reader-response” approach to scripture. This possibly needs expansion at some stage, but I may have pushed a friendship far enough already! When it comes to the “nature miracles” such as that of this passage my meaning will become a little more apparent: I believe that the critical issue here is not the “thinginess” of what happened, but the deeper truth that John is seeking to convey to his faith-community, and in the purposes of God, to us.

Again, there was a school of thought, particularly in the 1950s, that “de-miraculized” this passage altogether: Jesus was walking on stepping stones beneath the water’s surface, not visible in the dark to the frightened disciples (Peter and his net-fishing mates were smarter than that I think?). William Barclay, beloved of many, has Jesus walking “by the seashore,”[2] drawing in the author’s use of the same words at John 21:1. (Sadly at this point I cannot reach for more credible commentaries, currently under lock-down in Peter Mann house … another time, maybe). I am unconvinced.

There is anyway something here much more important than the mechanics of Jesus’ shortcut. The shortcut’s miraculous element has to be consistent with the first Christians’ experience of the risen Lord – remembering that John was writing decades later. While there have been a few sightings of Elvis, not many have been consistent with the experiences of those who knew him, especially Priscilla and Lisa Marie Presley. Claims were made about Hitler, too, with equal credibility. Perhaps standards of proof were less rigorous in John’s day, but for the gospel message that John treasured to seize hearts and minds, his story had to resonate with the expectations and experiences of the faithful. The experience John’s people had of the presence of the Risen Lord was powerful enough for them to be certain he was capable of subduing nature to his will, that his stakes on the divinity register, revealed in his life, death, teachings and above all their experience of his resurrection, was sufficiently powerful to give this most outrageous claim sufficient credibility to live and die for.

It is worth noting, too that the scene follows the feeding miracle I wrote about yesterday: social justice and mystical experience all rolled into one, and again consistent with the experience of John’s audience. It happens, too, after a powerful moment of prayer in Jesus’ journey; is John flagging the importance of connection with the energies of God in the times of trial (such as we are now experiencing)? Above all, John records Jesus’ powerful words to the (understandably) frightened disciples: “I am”. This is one of many “I am” sayings by Jesus (and there’s a few “I am not” by John the Baptist), The most remarkable is John 8:58, “before Abraham was, I am." For John to float that daring claim it had to be consistent with his audience’s experience of the Risen Lord.

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[1] My thoughts on the ANZAC tradition can be seen at https://pivotalpokes.blogspot.com/2017/04/ and https://pivotalpokes.blogspot.com/2018/04/.

[2] Barclay, The Gospel of John (1975), 243.

the other side of the lake

Friday 

in the 

Second Week of Easter

April 24th

READING: John 6: 1-16

Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’  He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. 

Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

REFLECTION

Scholars have at various times flirted with, amongst others, two keys to this passage. Some, persuaded by a social justice worldview, have seen in this scene, a challenge to the Christian community to generate a milieu of compassionate sharing. It has some merit in today’s world – even without factoring medical supplies, PPE, and Covid-19 into the equation, it is no secret that there are vast proportions of the planet’s population with insufficient food, even though there is more than enough food produced to go around. One seventh of the world’s population are undernourished, while globally one third of all food produces is trashed. The young lad who spoke with Jesus, didn’t have much kai, but I the hands of the right people, one third of the world could do an awful lot towards sharing a bit with the one seventh who are going without.

But was the author of the Fourth Gospel really thinking about tucker? Other scholars have suggest that a eucharistic motif underlies this scene. The eucharist – from which for good epidemiological reasons we are all currently barred, has often become a meal of exclusion. Don’t eat if you don’t understand, don’t eat if you’re not saved enough. Eucharist: kai for the holy? I don’t think so. Kai for the broken, hungry, desperate or just puzzled, this passage suggests.

The two interpretations of this scene must never be separated. If we feed on the body and blood of Christ, then we must feed the world. No ifs, no buts. And the love that fills the stomachs of the hungry will overflow and overflow, even to the impossibilities of twelve baskets of overflow thousands of people later. We must also medicine the world: covid-19 is flattening in the Global North, even the USA: it is about to explode across the have-nots, the Global South. “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” That boy is me and that boy is you. Those loaves and fishes are food and they are medicine and they are PPE.

And yes, I preach to myself as well.