Why are you here this morning? What are you expecting or hoping for from our time together?
This morning’s gospel reading continues the story from last week. The crowds were following Jesus then, and today they’re looking for him again. Why? What were they expecting or hoping for?
We were told last week that the crowds were following Jesus because they saw the signs that he did for the sick. A sign is something that points beyond itself, and maybe they recognized in what Jesus was doing something that gave them hope for a better future. Maybe they were sick and tired of their lives being the way they were.
This week, Jesus tells them they’re no longer looking for signs, they’re just wanting more food. I think it’s important to remember that Jesus feeds them physically before offering them spiritual food. They might have mixed motives, but they’re still looking for Jesus, and Jesus does not reject them when they find him. He responds to their immediate needs before engaging with them about their deeper needs. He wants to provide something beyond what they know how to ask or even imagine.
Even that physical feeding is a sign. Jesus does not only give bread for life, he is the very bread of life. Ultimately, he offers himself to us, he wants to share his own life with us. The hunger and thirst he would satisfy is both our physical need for food and drink and the deeper desires and longings of our spirits for fullness of life.
Last week, our reading from the letter to the Ephesians included a prayer for Jesus the Christ to dwell in our hearts through faith, that we might be rooted and established in the love of Christ, that we might be strengthened in our inner being with power through his Spirit within us. There is a power at work within us, we are told, whether we are always aware of it or not. It is a power of love that is always drawing us towards God, in ways beyond all we can ask or imagine.
There are sacraments through which we respond to the invitation from God. Baptism is a sacramental act by which we are joined to the body of Jesus the Christ, becoming members of the community of those who believe in the One whom God has sent to give life to the world. The Eucharist is a sacramental act of receiving Jesus as the bread of life within our selves, food for our souls. Both of these sacraments are ways of asking Jesus to live his life in and through us for the sake of the world.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism, we heard from the letter to the Ephesians this week, one God who is above all and through all and in all, our one hope. This hope is not passive, though. It requires our active involvement if it is to become reality in our lives together.
There is a calling from God, and the writer to the Ephesians wants us to respond well to that calling. This is not necessarily something that comes naturally nor easily to us. It will require all of the power of love that is at work within us.
The calling is to contribute to the growth of the body of Christ as it strives to build itself up in love. Each of us, every one of us, has been given grace by which we can join our efforts with other members of the community of faith. Responding well to this call to love requires humility and gentleness, it requires patience, with others and with ourselves, it requires bearing with one another in love, for there will be challenges and frustrations in the effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace despite all of our differences.
Learning to speak the truth in love together can be a difficult process that often involves considerable misunderstanding as we learn to make space for one another to respond to the call of God, each in our own way, according to the various gifts we each have been given. There is no other way, though, if we are indeed to reach maturity as we grow together into him who is the head of the body, even our Lord Jesus Christ.