Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, August 11, 2024:

First Reading: 1 Kings 19:4-8

First Reading (Semi-cont.):

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33

Psalm: Psalm 34:1-8

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 130

Second Reading: Ephesians 4:25--5:2

Gospel: John 6:35, 41-51

Now we enter into that time of bread, where Sunday after Sunday, Christ uses that metaphor. Many of us are hungry, physically, but we're not sure what we hunger for. Bread makes a great metaphor, as it sustains us in our daily life, but it stands for so much more. Think of the miracle of bread: water, yeast, and flour, at its most basic level. But given time and attention periodically and an oven, it's transformed into so much more.

Henri Nouwen spent much of his writing talking about Communion, trying to impress upon his readers how important it is. In Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith, he says, "The Eucharist is the sacrament by which we become one body. . . . It is becoming the living Lord, visibly present in the world" (reading for Oct. 13). In the reading for the next day, he says, "We who receive the Body of Christ become the living Christ." Nouwen argues for a mystical--yet very real--transformation: the wine and bread transform themselves into blood and body which then transforms us from ordinary sinful human into Christ.

We are hungry for that transformation, but like those people who followed Christ from shore to shore, hoping for a free meal, we often don't know what we hunger for. We want to do God's work in the world, but there's so much work to do, and we're so tired before we even get started.

Our Scriptures remind us in both the Old and New Testaments that God provides. God gives us both physical food and spiritual food. But we must be receptive. We must open our mouths. God won't chew for us.

There are days and weeks when what I do seems so insignificant. What are my words of comfort when person after person suffers medical crises, their own or family members? I solve one student’s problems, only to discover that 10 more have sprouted in its place. Most people don't know how much longer their jobs will last, how long their retirement funds will last, how much longer we can go at this pace.

It’s good to return to the metaphor of bread. It’s good to think about small granules of yeast and to remember that without their activation, our dough would not be worth baking. It’s good to know that small acts can lead to great transformation further on.

It’s essential to remember that we are the leaven in this loaf that is the world. In the words of N. T. Wright: "But what we can and must do in the present, if we are obedient to the gospel, if we are following Jesus, and if we are indwelt, energized, and directed by the Spirit, is to build for the kingdom. This brings us back to 1 Corinthians 15:58 once more: what you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that's about to roll over a cliff. Your are not restoring a great painting that's shortly going to be thrown on the fire" (Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, page 208).