The Bread of Life

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33   John 6:35, 41-51

The king, David, ordered Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying, "Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom." And all the people heard when the king gave orders to all the commanders concerning Absalom.

In order to better understand today’s first lesson, it helps to know the back story.  Today’s first reading picks up after a rather sordid and lengthy incident, recorded in 2 Samuel, involving Absalom, his sister Tamar, and their half-brother Amnon.  Amnon has raped Tamar, and after their father King David’s failure to act, Absalom has avenged the disgrace of Tamar by having Amnon murdered.  After this, Absalom has fled.

After some time in exile, through Joab’s mediation, Absalom has returned to David’s court, but David’s refusal to see him for two years has led Absalom to hate his father, to plan a coup d’état, and to march on Jerusalem.  David has fled the city, but has escaped across the Jordan with his standing army. 

In today’s lesson, David begins a military comeback.  David, personally, has been advised to stay away from involvement in Absalom’s fate.  But not being involved and not caring are two very different things.  David suspects that his forces will be victorious, and, like any loving parent, he wants to in some way protect his son.  Everyone has heard David give orders to do just that, to protect Absalom, but something goes terribly wrong.

The king said to the Cushite, “Is it well with the young man Absalom?” The Cushite answered, “May the enemies of my lord the king, and all who rise up to do you harm, be like that young man.”  The king was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; 

It is a heart wrenching moment.  Despite all of Absalom’s failings, despite David having shunned him when he returned to court, David deeply loves his son.  What went wrong?

It isn’t hard for us to relate to the mindset of David’s soldiers.  Whether or not they know the intimate details of Absalom’s family relationships, they know he is the leader of a rebellion, the enemy of their king, the reason they are out there fighting and dying.  Maybe in today’s world there would be an attempt to spare the leader of such a rebellion until he or she could come to trial, and then execute that person, but no one thought that way in David’s time.  Catch the culprit and do away with them.  That was the policy.  It is sound and sensible thinking for that day and age, and it still makes sense to us today. 

But David isn’t thinking like a military man.  He is thinking like a parent, a father. And this is where the conflict has arisen between David’s approach to Absalom’s fate and the approach taken by an army, and specifically, by Joab.

For fighting men, reality is of this world, based on the battle they are involved in and what we might call the “rules of war”.  David has asked for something nearly impossible, for soldiers to refocus their reality, change their priorities, and look – not with the eyes of worldly warriors, but with the eyes of a loving father.  While today’s first reading is the story of a worldly battle, it is also the story of a much deeper conflict - that between our everyday worldly values, and those of the spirit, those based on love.

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Today’s Gospel continues the story we heard last Sunday.   Jesus has fed the 5000, and He has told them that He is the Bread of Life.  People heard Jesus say this, and they didn’t get it!  Our Lord had said something way beyond their life experience, something that centuries later we still consider deeply mystical and in many ways inexplicable. 

For the Jews who heard Jesus say this, a conflict immediately arose in their minds.  For them, the bread that came down from heaven, the bread of life was the Law of Moses, what we call the Ten Commandments.  This was the Law they lived by, that which gave them identity as a people, and their lives purpose and meaning.  To hear a man say, “I am the Bread of Life”, made no sense at all.

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, `I have come down from heaven'?" 

The locals in Jesus’ hometown are both confused and offended by Jesus.  One reason they have trouble believing Him – is because they knew Him before He became a rabbi.  They take offense at His boldness and the audacity of His implication that He has come down from heaven.  They aren’t prepared to stop thinking in worldly terms, and they certainly can’t fathom Jesus as anything but a local boy with ideas of grandeur.  Those ordinary people still know His family, and they know of His life before His ministry.  No one believes what He is saying, and no one cares.  The claim Jesus is making does not fit into their idea of reality.

Jesus understands what is going on and He says to the crowd, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me…”.Using the imagery of hauling in fish in a net, Jesus makes it clear that if those who doubt Him will only stop struggling, God will haul them them in. 

But we do struggle.  Like the soldiers in David’s army and Joab in particular, we have a realty in our minds that defines how we live and what we believe.  Like Jesus’ neighbors, we also have a set idea of our Lord, one formed over years of faithful participation in worship and personal study of our faith.  We live by what we have been taught, what we have reasoned out, by what we know from our life experience, but Jesus calls us to a different reality entirely.

Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.

Believing is much more than just saying that Jesus is Lord.  Believing is being drawn, hauled in by the Holy Spirit – the Spirit that is Love.  We follow the moral teachings of the Church.  We weigh and measure everything through logical means, but Jesus wants us to put that aside for a higher calling.  Jesus wants us to surrender to the Holy Spirit, to that Love which binds Him to the Father and us to Him.  We get confused by this calling, because we look at things in sensible, worldly ways – and Love is seldom sensible. 

 I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.

We who follow Jesus are challenged every day to examine the focus of our lives.  What do we care about most, what do we strive for, what are our values, where is our treasure?  If we have children, they are of ultimate importance, and then there is family security, financial stability, the list goes on.  It is very confusing to live in one world, this material world, the world of manna, and yet be called to focus on and bear allegiance to another, a different reality. 

What the crowds that followed Jesus in life wanted was a meal on the side of a hill, we would probably prefer a good restaurant.  But that isn’t what Jesus offers us.  Reality, Love, isn’t about the fish and the bread. 

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 forever….”

As David did with his troops, Jesus has asked for something nearly impossible.  We are to let go of the worldly standards with which we govern our lives, and to hunger for bread that is different from that to which we are accustomed. 

What sort of people are we?  Are we nonjudgmental and forgiving?  Until we forgive, we cannot love, and until we love we cannot move forward in our spiritual journey and in life.  Are we trying to rush things along, trying to get things to move on our timetable, trying to push our agenda?  When we find we are trying to get things to work as we think they should, pushing against the current quite possibly at the expense of others, we need to ask ourselves why God’s timetable isn’t sufficient for us.  Until we can surrender to God’s Will, we cannot love.  Until we love, all our plans are worth nothing.

It is easy to tell when we have surrendered to the Holy Spirit, because Love always moves us forward.  Love brings with it calm, centeredness, peace and joy.  Love is not about how right we are, how justified we are, or how much force we’re putting into getting our will accomplished.  Love is about caring, giving, listening, forgiving, surrendering. 

The Holy Spirit, the gift of Love, that which binds us to the Father and the Son, was ours at our baptism, and our Lord expects us to make full use of it.  In our life and our work, we are to be loving and kind, for God really is with us.  In every moment, God sees not just what we do but our motivation for doing it.  In the end, God sees, not our stubbornness or our correctness.  God sees only our love.

Let us pray:

Breathe on us, Breath of God, fill us with life anew, that we may love the way You love, and do what You would do.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.