John 6:24-35

I confess I often find John’s Jesus annoying.  He speaks in code and then seems to scold people for not getting it.  In this passage, he declares, “I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”  He is offering himself as metaphorical bread.  But what does that even mean?  What does it mean when so many people need real bread, real water; when way too many people would dearly love never to be literally hungry or thirsty again?  Just last week, the United Nations reported that progress in fighting global hunger has been set back 15 years, leaving around 733 million people going hungry in 2023, equivalent to one in 11 people globally and one in five in Africa. 

I agree with biblical commentators that by equating himself with bread, Jesus is saying he is essential for life.  Some commentators explain that Jesus is not referring to physical life, but “eternal life,” a phrase Jesus uses in this passage.  Many if not most Christians have been taught that “eternal life” begins when we die.  Brian D. McLaren posits that what Jesus actually meant by “eternal life” might better be translated “life of the ages,” or “life to the full.” Jesus was not proclaiming what Diana Butler Bass refers to as an “elevator religion,” focused on getting people up and away from a troubled earth to heaven.  Rather, Jesus came to be the savior of the world, this world, the world that God so loves (John 3:16).  God’s primary mission, embodied in Jesus, is saving the earth and its inhabitants from human evil and folly.  Thus, “I am the bread of life” must mean something more important, more earthly and more urgent than, “Believe in me and you’ll go to heaven.”

This passage follows John’s version of the feeding of the five thousand.  In John 6:1-24, a crowd is following Jesus to hear and be healed by him.  They grow hungry, but Jesus’ disciple Philip says, “‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’”  They learn that a boy in the crowd has five barley loaves and two fish, clearly not enough.  Yet after giving thanks to God, Jesus distributes the boy’s meager contribution, and everyone has enough to eat.  As McLaren writes, “When I was a child, these stories were explained to me as evidence of Jesus’ supernatural power … But now … I see that Jesus is engaging in powerful prophetic drama, demonstrating through sign and wonder a radically different economy, one that doesn’t depend on spending more and buying more, but on discovering what you already have and sharing. … This is a different economy, indeed – one based on contemplative gratitude and neighborly sharing, not consuming more and more, faster and faster.”

So, what makes Jesus “bread” – what makes him essential to our survival?  I’m borrowing liberally from Brian D. McLaren:   

• Jesus reveals a God who loves us not because we are so deserving and loveable, but because God is so loving, without limit or discrimination.
• In case after case, Jesus calls people to repent from the goal of growing their personal wealth portfolios, and instead he calls them to grow their good deeds portfolios for the common good, especially the good of the poor and marginalized.
• He challenges people to believe there could be a better, more human, more satisfying alternative to the economy of the Roman Empire, and to our own economy of unsustainable consumer capitalism.
• In story after story, we see that the driving motivation in Jesus’ life is love.

It comes down to this: What is it that will save this world?  Hate, or love?  Fear, or love?  Indifference, or love?  Violence, or love? Greed, or love? 

Jesus as “bread” also reminds us of the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist.  Doug Gay and Werner Jeanrond write in the introduction to their treatise on theology and economics: “The central Christian practice of sharing in the Lord’s Supper is a definitive sign of how all that comes from God is to be offered back to God and shared with our neighbors.” They quote Chris Wigglesworth: “The economy is for God which means it is for my neighbor; it is for my neighbor which means it is for God.”

Sometimes poetry helps these images clunk into place.  This communion prayer comes from a Christian base community in Lima, Peru:

God, food of the poor,
Christ, our bread,
give us a taste of the tender bread
from your creation’s table;
bread newly taken from your heart’s oven,
food that comforts and nourishes us.
A fraternal loaf that makes us human;
joined hand in hand, working and sharing.
A warm loaf that makes us family;
Sacrament of your body,
your wounded people.

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Resources:

“Fight against global hunger set back 15 years, warns UN report,” July 24, 2024, https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/07/1152451

“The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024,” published by UNICEF, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Fund for Cultural Development, World Health Organization, World Food Programme, https://data.unicef.org › wp-content › uploads › 2024 › 07 › SOFI2024_Report_EN_web.pdf

Brian D. McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion Is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian (New York: Convergent, 2016)

Brian D. McLaren, Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis, and a Revolution of Hope (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007)

Calum I. MacLeod, “A Place at the Table,” August 5, 2012, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, IL, https://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2012/080512.html