“When they found him across the sea, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you get here?’ Jesus answered them and said, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.’” (John 6.25-27)
Telling the story of the two Delaney sisters who were pioneers in the Civil Rights movement, the book Having Our Say was published in 1993 and remained on The New York Times bestseller list for 105 weeks. An oral history of their lives, the book told of their leaving North Carolina in 1916 due to Jim Crow laws, moving to Harlem where Sadie became a school teacher and Bessie became a dentist, only the second woman to be licensed to practice dentistry in the State of New York.
At one point in the book, Bessie spoke of her early days as a dentist, remembering the time shortly after graduation when a white classmate from Columbia called her up and told her he was sending over a patient. “At first, I thought he was doing me a favor, but then he mentioned that it was his maid,” she said. “And I realized he didn’t want to work on her mouth because she was colored. So I said to him, “You are not a doctor of dentistry! You are a doctor of segregation!”
Bessie helped the maid and she helped many others in need of dental assistance. Speaking of other dentists she knew, she described those who only wanted the money. “Some dentists,” she recalled, “would even do poor quality work, just to make the patient uncomfortable so that he’d have to come back. It would never have occurred to me to do that.”
She continued, “When I started my practice in 1923, I charged two dollars for a cleaning, two dollars for an extraction, five dollars for a silver filling, and ten dollars for a gold filling. When I retired in 1950, I was still charging the same rate.” Explaining that she never raised her rates “because [she] was getting by O.K., she said it was enough for her to be proud of her work.
That story and others told in the book make it clear that Bessie and her sister had their priorities in the right order, the sisters’ father being the first African-American Episcopal Bishop elected in the United States. Their mother, also influential in their upbringing, was a teacher and an administrator. Both sisters lived to be over 100-years-old, never deviating from the right and the good through the long years of their lives.
Perhaps it was followers such as the Delany sisters that Rabbi Jesus had in mind when he spoke to the crowds in the passage that provides our reflection today, a part of “The Bread of Life Discourse” that is found in Chapter 6 of John’s gospel, a section that begins with the feeding of the multitude and moves into this teaching on “working for food that endures for eternal life.”
As we listen to the Rabbi instruct his listeners that they should “not work for food that perishes,” we see he once again sets up a dichotomy between the path of righteousness and the path of wrongdoing, between the way of the kingdom of God and the way of the world, between those who want to follow him and those who want to abandon him. Again, the dichotomy brokers no deals between the competing sides, but requires a singular choice, an either-or decision that determines the path that one takes in life, choices that eventually become the character of a man or a woman.
Setting the choice before the crowd, the Galilean Rabbi tells them that “whoever comes to him will never hunger, and whoever believes in him will never thirst,” promising them that his way of life will bring them to a life well-lived, while a choice for the bread that perishes will bring them to a life that falls short.
It is a timeless lesson, no less important for us to hear than it was for the crowds to hear two thousand years ago as they sat on a hillside listening to the Rabbi speak of finding the true meaning of life, a life of love and service, rather than seeking a life that may offer material success, but no spiritual success. While one is true bread, the other is perishable bread, colloquialized in the contemporary words bread and dough when speaking of money.
Perhaps the lesson is more urgent for our times when we have become full-time consumers, fed by materialism, drifting with each passing year further from the teaching of Rabbi Jesus, who saw clearly the soul-shrinking that comes from feeding on food that perishes. Rather than living to love, we are living to earn, a misplacement of priorities that starves the soul even as it bloats the stomach.
Decades ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. saw this selling out of the soul for the satisfaction of the stomach, warning us with these words, “We have bowed before the god of money only to learn that there are such things as love and friendship that money cannot buy and that in a world of possible depressions, stock market crashes, and bad business investments, money is a rather uncertain deity.”
With a clear-sightedness that urges us to open our eyes, he concluded, “These transitory gods are not able to save or bring happiness to the human heart. Only God is able. It is faith in him that we must rediscover.” Again, hearing his words, we are faced with an either-or decision, to worship false gods that do not speak to the needs of the human heart, or to worship the Most High God who alone satisfies the hunger of the human spirit.
Much the same point is made in a story told by Rabbi Kushner in his book, Overcoming Life’s Disappointments, in which he tells the story of a prominent rabbi who ran into a member of his congregation on the street one day and said to the man, “I haven’t seen you in synagogue the past few weeks. Is everything alright?”
The man answered, “Everything is fine, but I’ve been worshipping at a small synagogue on the other side of town.” The rabbi answered, “I’m really surprised to hear that. I know the rabbi of that congregation. He’s a nice enough fellow, but he’s not the scholar I am. He’s not the preacher I am. He’s not the leader I am. So what can you possibly get from leaving my synagogue to worship at his?”
Raising his eyes to the rabbi, the man answered, “That’s all very true, Rabbi, but he has other qualities. For example, he can read minds. I’ll show you. Think of something. I’ll read your mind and tell you what you were thinking of.” So the rabbi concentrated for a few moments, after which the man said, “You’re thinking of the verse from Psalm 16, ‘I have set the Lord before me at all times.’”
Laughing at the simple man before him, the rabbi responded, “You couldn’t be more wrong. I wasn’t thinking about that at all.” The man shrugged and said, “I know you weren’t. That’s why I don’t worship at your synagogue anymore.” With those few words, he walked away, leaving the rabbi to ponder his failure to set the Lord before himself at all times.
The story should not be lost on us, living as we do in times that do not make it conducive to set the Lord before us at all times, instead putting before us idols of every make and model, each of which swears to satisfy our cravings, but none of which fills the emptiness in our souls, a sanctuary that belongs to the one true God who alone has the key to the door.
So what are we to do, surrounded as we are on all sides by second-rate excuses for soul food, easily tempted as we are by these fast foods that bring temporary satisfaction, but not long-lasting fulfillment? The answer is right in front of us. We change course, turning away from the siren call of our money-oriented society, and turning back to the wisdom of Rabbi Jesus, who said that he promises something that is far more endurable, far more fulfilling, far more meaningful.
We enmesh ourselves in his way of life, imitating his concern for the neglected, the forgotten, and the abandoned, spending ourselves, not on our own pleasures and pursuits, but on the well-being and wholeness of others, those who no longer have a spring in their step, who no longer have a drop of hope in their hearts, who no longer have a desire for tomorrow to come. Reaching out to these lost and lonely souls on this planet, we offer a connection with them by our empathy, our compassion, and our recognition of a shared humanity.
In doing so, we re-prioritize, putting others before ourselves, retreat, breaking free from the false advertisements of this world, and re-evaluate, choosing the course that Rabbi Jesus puts before us. And in saving others, we save ourselves, our souls finding sustenance and strength in our service to others; and in losing ourselves, finding again the resonance of our soul with the Spirit of God.
Years ago, there was an episode of the TV show, “The Equalizer,” in which the hero was talking with his son. When the boy was eight-years-old, the father had gone off for what seemed like forever in order to be a super spy. As the father and son now talk, the son tells his dad that he used to go sit on a special rock in the park. There, he asked himself what he had done that was so terrible that his own father stopped loving him, leaving him behind all alone.
The Equalizer says to his son, “But I’ve always loved you.” The boy looks at his dad and answers, “I realize that now, but I just wish love had a higher priority.” I just wish love had a higher priority. When all is said and done, that is pretty much the same thing that Rabbi Jesus is wishing for when he speaks of how people go after the perishable bread instead of wanting the bread that endures.
If only love had a higher priority. Today Rabbi Jesus asks us to reprioritize, returning love to the highest place in our lives. When we have done that, then we will have found the bread that endures rather than stuffing ourselves with the bread that cannot satisfy the human spirit. While the latter may fill our stomachs for a while, the former fills our souls, overflowing into a life of love and service to others, especially to the unloved and the unwanted and the unseen who huddle in the hidden corners of the world.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 