By The Rev. Dr. Peter Robinson
July 29, 2012
Text: John 6:24-35
God will provide. In another era, the promise that God provides made sense in tangible ways. Day by day people looked to God to provide them with food: “Give us today our daily bread.” But, how are we to think about this today in our complex and sophisticated culture when we don't really need a god to take care of our daily needs? We simply go to the grocery store or the bakery to get our daily bread - does God have anything to do with that? It isn't all that clear what room there is left for God or God's provision except of course in those moments when we find ourselves in awkward or difficult situations.
Many years ago my parents lived in Halifax and worked in a ministry to business people. Their job was to help people learn how to live the Christian life in the context of their business or workplace; to assist them in creating links between their understanding of Jesus and the way that they lived and worked; making sense of the Christian faith in the context of the workplace. The ministry grew and people's lives were changed; the ministry was going well. The one area that continued to be a struggle for my parents was fundraising; the ministry was completely supported by free will offerings.
Month by month they were never completely sure that they would have the money they needed to pay their rent or other bills and yet time and again something happened and they were able to continue. They had some amazing stories of receiving what they needed at the last minute. Many years later as my father was dying of cancer he spoke of that time and he said, “As hard as it was to live with that uncertainty it was also a great gift because it taught me what it meant to trust in God's provision.” God will provide.
There are people (missionaries, Christian workers) who continue to live in that way and not just in faraway countries and places. There are Christian organizations in Toronto that depend on donations to fund the salaries of the people who work there. Although we may not have experienced a situation like that, nonetheless, in one way or another at different points in our lives we all look to God wondering will God provide?
Some needs are more legitimate than others. When I was a boy I remember thinking that it would be just amazing if you could turn on the tap in the bathroom and ice cold coke would come out instead of water. How wonderful would that be - Coca Cola whenever I wanted it. I don't remember but I might have asked God to make that happen. Thank goodness my prayers and hopes weren't answered. I can't imagine anything much more awful than trying to wash with coke, but at the time… There are lots of things that we hope for or even pray for that aren't essential and are a little foolish. It isn't always as easy to discern the difference between wants and needs. There are those issues that matter deeply when we ask, where are you God or will God provide?
In one way or another we can all relate to the idea of looking to God, or some higher power, in the face of needs; Perhaps we live month to month, paycheque to paycheque and we find ourselves praying to God that we will have enough money to pay our bills. Even when we are financially well off there are still plenty of situations where we come face to face with our needs - a broken relationship with a close friend, or a spouse; an issue with one of our children or grandchildren; perhaps a health crisis, or simply a situation where life feels out of control. At those points we ask God, where are you, or God will you provide? Last Friday night, in the middle of the grand spectacle of the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games there was a quiet and more reflective moment when the hymn, “Abide With Me” was sung. In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me. Even at the Olympics we cannot escape the question: “Where is God?”
That brings us to this great story where Jesus speaks to a large crowd about bread and about life. It follows on the story of his feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. Many in the crowd around Jesus knew what it meant to go hungry; high unemployment, civil unrest, weak leaders and powerful nations surrounding them. Perhaps a little like Greece today. The people aren't looking for something frivolous, the latest gadget or toy, they are wondering if they are going to survive. Some have lost their homes, their jobs, their hopes. And in addition to their pressing and immediate needs the people of Israel had expectations rooted in the ways in which God had taken care of them before.
They remember the story of God providing for them as they travelled through the desert; thousands, hundreds of thousands of people in the middle of the wilderness with no food. We are told that the first time their leader, Moses, stopped to count them there were 600,000 fighting men. (Numbers 1:46), which would mean close to 2 million people. Not far off the population of Toronto. And they are in the wilderness: there are no grocery stores or restaurants. How did they survive? God provided: our people ate manna in the wilderness. Day after day, month after month, year after year God gave them their daily bread. The people around Jesus know these stories - they are part of their history. They were expecting, hoping that it might happen again and now here is Jesus meeting needs, doing all kinds of wonderful things.
The people around Jesus have seen something of what he can do. They are starting to wonder is he the One: the one they have been expecting who will come to rescue them, to provide for them. The one sent from God. God, will you provide?
The Challenge:
It is right at this point that Jesus challenges them and confuses them. He says: “You are chasing after me not because you saw signs, but because you filled your stomachs.”.
The conversation Jesus has with the crowd would be a little comical if it weren't for what was at stake. It's like Abbot and Costello's great dialogue: “Whose on first.” Lots of words pass back and forth but there is very little understanding at least on the part of the crowd. Jesus begins by saying, “You are just looking to get fed, you aren't looking for a sign, you need to work for the bread that endures not the bread that perishes.”
They respond: “What work do we have to do?“
Again Jesus replies: “That's not the point - you don't need to work for this bread you just need to believe.”
More than a little confused they say: “Give us a sign.” And then they continue, remembering: one of the signs that we were told to expect is that the Messiah will provide bread in the same way that Moses did. They are looking for history to repeat itself: for food to appear, for their needs to be met. The difficulty is they see this food, this bread, in terms of their immediate needs while Jesus has something much bigger in mind.
Jesus says, “Moses is not the one who gave you the bread. It was my Father who gave you the bread. And this bread is really about life, full, abundant life.”
The crowd is not dissuaded - they say, “We'll take it. Where is it?”
Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” He could just as well have said, “Do you mean that you have had over a 1000 years to understand what God was trying to teach you in the wilderness and you still haven't got it?” Abbot and Costello - it almost doesn't seem to matter what Jesus says the crowd can't hear it because they know what they want.
Jesus has fed them, inspired them and given them hope. And yes he has promised to provide for them. But he is asking them to trust him not to trust what they have received, not to trust that they will get what they want.
We have a tendency to interpret this by making a distinction between the physical and the spiritual: We assume or maybe we have been told that Jesus is not talking about physical needs but only spiritual needs as though our inner spiritual lives are separate from our day to day lives and needs. That is one of the ways we have learned to deal with our questions whether God is still active in the world. We suggest that God is more concerned with the inner spiritual self. After all we don't seem to need God for most of our physical needs. But that perspective doesn't make sense in the context of what we have just read. When Jesus says he is the bread of life he is not saying, your physical needs don't matter, just focus on the spiritual. No, he has just recognized and provided for their physical needs. Yet, he doesn't stop there because our physical needs are interwoven with our spiritual needs. We are physical and spiritual beings the one cannot be addressed without the other. And God's care and provision in our lives involves the whole person.
But, and this is the sticking point for us all: Jesus was not promising that our every need would be met in the way that we want or expect he is asking us instead to trust him, to put our confidence in who he is, what he has done and what he will do for us.
Turning Point
This passage marks a turning point in Jesus' ministry. Up to this point there was a growing sense of wonder and expectation. The crowds following him were getting bigger and bigger. There was a lot of excitement: Some people were already beginning to imagine what their new lives were going to be like. No more worries about food or money, about rent or taxes or hydro bills. No more persecution or suffering. No more problems or concerns. They are brought back to earth with a jolt when Jesus tells them that isn't what he has come for and it isn't what has been promised.
So it is decision time. Do they continue to follow Jesus trusting that what he promises will be worthwhile even if it isn't what they had hoped for? Or do they give up and get on with their lives because what he offers simply isn't what they want? People began following Jesus for what he offered them. But he wanted them to follow him for who he was: “I am the bread which comes down from heaven. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” The vast majority of people turned away and eventually turned against him.
The decision that the crowd faced is the same decision that each of us faces. It is not a onetime decision. We face it over and over again in every area of our lives: will we let God be God? Will we thank God for everything we have acknowledging that it is God who has given it to us? Will look to God for what we need day to day? Will we honor God with how we handle our money and possessions? What complicates this is that we only learn how to trust God as we come to truly know God and we only come to truly know God as we also learn to trust God. That doesn't happen overnight, it is the process of a lifetime. Which brings us back to where we began: My parents learned to trust God, to trust that God would provide, over a long period of time, in the face of difficult and anxious situations; in the face of real need. God was faithful and coming to know God and know God's faithfulness transformed their lives - when my father had cancer he prayed, we prayed that he might be healed. He wasn't. Yet, even in the face of death my father was able to trust God for life because he had learned that God was faithful. “In life, in death O Lord abide with me. “