The Holy Gospel According to St. John, the 6th Chapter
The next day, when the people who remained after the feeding of the five thousand saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for 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, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”
Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 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.
Jesus took five loaves and two fish and fed five thousand people. Now, all those people, who had apparently fallen asleep under the influence of a heavenly, fish sandwich, food coma, woke up the next morning to find Jesus and his disciples had gone. So, they set off to CHASE Jesus in hopes of another one of those AMAZING fish sandwiches!
They LOVED those fish sandwiches! They LOVED that full belly feeling of that giant fish-sandwich food-baby resting in their tummies. They LOVED it, and now they wanted it again... and frankly, I can’t blame them! It was a FREE fish sandwich! I have a motto. “Free food? I’ll be there!” But this was more than just a “FREE” sandwich... it was a DIVINE sandwich! The people had tasted it the day before and now they chased Jesus down to get another! They would do whatever they needed to do, say whatever needed to be said, just to be fed one more of those miraculous, heavenly, happy-tummy meals from Jesus... I’d be there too! Free Food! I’d be there!
And that’s just it, really. It SEEMS like the right thing to do. It seems right to chase after Jesus… for another sandwich... for contentment... for peace. It seems even faithful to chase after Jesus and the logic of the world says that if we catch him he would fill us... and not just with food, but with security and safety and success and prosperity. It sounds right… Jesus fill us up! Give us what we NEED! BLESS us so we feel that divine abundance... whatever I hunger and thirst for... forever.
So the people CHASED Jesus and asked him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” They wanted to know what to DO... where to chase... so they could always be FULL. Jesus told them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one whom God has sent.” And that’s where it got hard. Those people KNEW Jesus wasn’t inviting them to chase down some kind of intellectual check list, to sign a statement of faith or join the “right” denomination. When Jesus invited them to “BELIEVE” Jesus was inviting them to stop CHASING and begin instead to FOLLOW! Jesus was inviting them to stop living their lives always chasing... always worrying, bullying, scheming, plotting, manipulating, controlling and bargaining to be sure THEY would be filled, THEY would find peace, THEY could be prosperous, THEY could be successful, so THEY could FEEL BLESSED.
Instead, Jesus was inviting them to FOLLOW him by living their lives emptying themselves for the sake of the world... In the other Gospels, Jesus puts it this way... “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” He was telling them that CHASING another sandwich... even another DIVINE sandwich... EVEN chasing after Jesus himself to get what you think you want, need or deserve... will always, ALWAYS leave you hungry again the next day... in fact, CHASING anything... sandwiches, power, wealth, security, control, success, being “good” enough, being right... CHASING ANYTHING... will only leave you hungry later today and back to the chase to try to get filled tomorrow. The only way to never again be hungry or thirsty... the only way to give up the chase is to follow the Jesus way of life which means giving everything and all of yourself away.
The trouble, of course with FOLLOWING Jesus on that particular path is that CHASING makes way more sense! Chasing is the way we experience the world actually working! If you want it, you go and get it! Right? FOLLOWING the Jesus way of living and giving it all away makes NO sense! If you GIVE it all away you don’t have it anymore! It’s math! And so we continue the CHASE and people continue to preach chasing Jesus as a path that will fill us up. The first guy who stood up the morning after the feeding of the five thousand and proclaimed to the crowd that they should all get in boats and go get Jesus to give them another sandwich must have felt pretty great having 5000 people stand up and all shout “AMEN BROTHER!” and then run down to the shore to get in their boats. Maybe they even bought him a private boat so he could preach chasing Jesus to more and more people! Private boats then... private jets today… vehicles change, but the chase continues. The chase continues... and that’s the problem, isn’t it? That is our failing, our brokeness... our sin. We don't trust Jesus's math, that giving it all away is actually the path to it all. Same then as it is now and so we’re still chasing... still worried about money, finances and property... still scrounging, bullying and bargaining for security, peace, contentment and always CHASING after that thing, that place, that life, that time, that whatever it was... that just yesterday seemed to fill us up and tasted so... DIVINE.
Jesus wanted more for those people (and for us) than to always be hungry, always thirsty... always CHASING. The path Jesus calls us to FOLLOW has been called lots of things over the years... the way of the Cross... Discipleship… Costly, rather than Cheap Grace... but no matter what you call it, it’s you and me putting one foot in front of the other day after day living a bit more like Jesus lived and chasing after life a little bit less. People who have the title “Saint” in front of their names might make that transformation all at once, but those of us without that title typically do it one step at a time, in fits and starts, with backpedaling and small glimpses of what it might look like one day and always seem to need a hand along the way.
So, I’ll invite you today like Jesus did back then, to give up the chase and begin again to follow the Jesus Way of living... Living life not bound to the math of this world, but to the kind of math that turned the ‘never gonna be enough’ of five loaves and two fish into the WAY MORE than enough for everyone that fed five thousand! To live life confident in God’s infinite and unconditional love for you and all people and all of creation. To live life loving and caring for the world from the bottom up and from the margins in. To live for the other before yourself. To live generously, giving a little more and a little more and a little more each day until one day you look up and find that you have given EVERYTHING… up to and including your very last breath. To live graciously, live inclusively, live lovingly, live honestly, live for justice, live for kindness, live humbly and live like FOLLOWING that WAY… the Jesus way is the path of truth… the path of life. I invite you again to follow Jesus and give up chasing... not because following the Jesus way of living makes sense to the world, but because following the Jesus way of living allows the world to make sense. Amen.
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