Give Us this Bread Always
Homily for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
Homily for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst” (Jn 6:35)
Following the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fish which we read about last week, the crowds return the next day, looking for Jesus once more. They are not there because of the signs. That is, they are not there for the miracles Christ performed as demonstrations of his divinity. They are not there looking for their God to give food for their souls, but looking for this man to give food for their bellies. Jesus knows their motives.
Still, even though their motives are less than spiritual, they are seeking Jesus all the same. That is something. And Jesus does not turn them away. He accepts them, despite the smallness of their longings, and begins to direct their minds and hearts to higher things. Pay attention to the exchange between Jesus and the crowd. “Do not work for food that perishes,” he says. That is, do not work for the food of this world that only fills your stomachs. Work instead for “the food that endures for eternal life” (Jn 6:27). He aims their sights higher. And they follow him in this line of thought. “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” they ask (Jn 6:28). They understand that Jesus is talking about spiritual food, which they rightly associate with doing God’s work. As Jesus says earlier in John’s gospel, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and accomplish God’s work” (Jn 4:34). So how do we accomplish God’s works? Their horizon has expanded now. They long for this spiritual food that endures, and they are open to being instructed. What is the work of God?
Jesus tells them. “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent” (Jn 6:29). Jesus is leading them a little further along this spiritual path, and again they follow him. “What sign can you do that we may see and believe in you?” (Jn 6:30). This is something. Jesus says they must believe in the one God has sent and they ask Jesus what he can do that they may believe in him. They are starting to see clearly! They know Jesus is speaking of himself as the one sent by God. And they want to believe in him, so now they ask for signs.
The people who came not because of signs but because Jesus filled their bellies are now asking for signs. And they even give Jesus an example of what would, for them, be a satisfactory sign that he was sent by God. They mention the manna God provided their ancestors to keep them alive in the desert during the Exodus. Can Jesus do anything like this? The fact that Jesus did something very much like this the day before and they missed the significance only shows how spiritually blind the people still were. Or perhaps they were looking for a repeat performance, still thinking only of their physical needs.
But Jesus reminds them it was not Moses but “my Father” — notice he doesn’t say “our Father” in this case, because he is not speaking collectively as one of many children of God, but is rather speaking as God’s only begotten Son, so he says “my Father” gave them the bread from heaven. And then he says this: “The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (Jn 6:33). The bread of God comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. The manna was like this. It came miraculously from heaven, and it gave life to the Israelites. It kept them from starvation. But it did not give life to the world. So the manna cannot be the bread Jesus is talking about. It is only a symbol, a foreshadowing of the true bread from heaven that will give eternal life to the world. What could this bread possibly be? How could any bread, no matter how miraculously given, give life to the whole world? It wasn’t the manna. And it wasn’t the barley loaves Jesus multiplied for them yesterday.
So now the people, who came to Jesus seeking only to have their bellies filled, and who have been led by Jesus in just a few sentences on a spiritual journey to now contemplate the things of heaven, respond to him with eagerness, “Sir, give us this bread always” (Jn 6:34). Give us this bread from heaven! We are hungry for the food that endures!
And Jesus replies, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst” (Jn 6:35). I am the bread of life. What you seek, the food you are hungry for that will satisfy your souls and not just your bellies, is me, myself. This is the beginning of the Bread of Life Discourse where Jesus teaches that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood to have eternal life, a teaching that scandalized those who first heard it, causing many of his followers to abandon him, but which is made manifest to us in the Eucharist.
When Jesus says, “I am the bread come down from heaven,” this is what he means. Just as the Father sent manna from heaven to give life to Israel, the Father has now sent the Son from heaven to earth to give life to the whole world. Jesus is the bread of life. It is written: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4, cf. Dt 8:13). Jesus is the Word that comes forth from the mouth of God, the eternal Word spoken by the Father before all ages who is sent into the world for our salvation.
We have a choice to make. We can accept or reject this Word. We can believe or disbelieve in the one sent by God to bring us life. It is up to us to decide. Jesus will gladly lead us, he will lead us all the way to the very threshold of salvation, but we have to decide to take that final step. We can be attracted to Jesus, we can love many things about him, but at some point we hit up against a hard saying, something we cannot understand or find too difficult to accept. It might be the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, or Papal infallibility, or the immorality of contraception, or any another teaching of the Church we struggle with. Or we encounter a trial too burdensome or a cross too heaven to bear. We may find ourselves in a situation, like the Israelites in the desert wondering, “Lord, why did you lead me to this place of desolation?” Or we discover in our hearts a sin we cannot seem to let go of. In all these instances, we have a choice to make. Do I remain with my Jesus and trust him to feed me, to nourish me and to sustain me through this difficulty? Or do I leave?
We all begin to seek Jesus for many reasons. We may come to him hungry for food, for consolation, for community or companionship. These are not bad reasons. Like the people who seek Jesus in today’s gospel, our problem is usually not that we ask too much from God, but too little. Whatever it is we want God to do for us, God always wants to do more. And often we are not prepared for what God wants to do for us. So it seems too hard. Or it seems impossible. But we must remember that all things are possible for God (Mt 19:26).
Jesus wants to lead our hearts to higher things. To the sacraments. To mysteries. To miracles. To grace. To divinity. And when he does this, we can, like the multitude at the end of the Bread of Life discourse, say, “This saying is too hard for us,” and walk away. Our good Lord allows this. But he does not desire this. He desires instead with all his heart to give himself to us, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Eucharist. He desires to give us life. That’s why he came down from heaven. That’s why he went up to the Cross.
But we must be open to receiving that grace. So let us never say to Jesus, “This saying is too hard” (Jn 6:60). Let us instead trust that Jesus knows what he is doing, and has the power to make it true. Let us echo the words we read in the gospel today, and say to him who is the bread of life, “Lord, give us this bread always.” Amen.
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