Imperishables

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. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.” So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.” (John 6.25-29)

Years ago, one of the founders of humanistic psychology, a branch of psychology based on the belief that each person could and should achieve their full potential, Abraham Maslow formulated a theory he called the hierarchy of needs. Simply put, Maslow believed that we are motivated by higher and lower needs. Physiological needs, such as the need for food, water, and air, form the base of the pyramid. As one ascends, other needs include the need for safety, the need for love, the need for esteem. At the top is the need for self-actualization and transcendence, the pinnacle of human effort.

As with most theories regarding the human person, there have been critics and supporters, some downplaying its importance while others applaud its insights. But the one truth that Maslow hit on was the fact that we are motivated or moved by different things, and they are not of equal value. Today, we find Rabbi Jesus suggesting much the same, challenging the crowd before him to strive for higher values rather than settling for lower values.

All of this comes to the fore in Chapter 6 of John’ gospel, that section that usually goes by the title “the bread of life discourse.” It began, as we saw last week, with the feeding of the multitude, the physical needs of the people satisfied by Jesus’ providing an abundance of food, over and beyond what they needed. The short section that we study today is anchored in that story of food.

The problem, as today’s text makes clear, is that the crowds seem stuck on the physical level while the rabbi wants them to move to the spiritual level. In fact, the entirety of the text today is built on these split-levels, the people apparently unable to move to a higher level. We hear Rabbi Jesus say to them, “You seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled.”

He then urged them, “Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.” Therein is his challenge to the crowd, charging them to resist a life spent at the stomach level and instead to live a life on the spiritual level. As we see, they don’t get it, their subsequent questions showing their slowness to grasp what he is saying to them, stuck in physicality rather than spirituality.

The back-and-forth discussion centers on bread, but bread understood on two different planes, bread that perishes and bread that endures. Rabbi Jesus wants them to go beyond their fixation on physical food, moving towards something more substantial than the stuff that we put into our stomachs. As John continually does in his gospel with light and darkness, truth and falsehood, good and evil, he presents a split screen once again, this one between spirit and flesh.

As we listen to the dialogue between Rabbi Jesus and the people, it seems he makes little headways in advancing their understanding, although their questions allow Jesus to enunciate exactly what true or living bread is. He tells them that “the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Whereupon, they say to him, “Sir, give us this bread.” Jesus answers, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” 

In other words, he puts before the people the hierarchy, much the same as he had done with the woman at the well earlier in Chapter 4,  telling her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” She, like the crowds, will say much the same thing to him, failing to move beyond the physical as he invites her to do, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” 

As we hear the exchange between Rabbi Jesus and the crowd, we have the benefit of understanding what he is saying to them, offering them a life that supersedes the physical, a life spent doing the will of the Father as his own life has been spent doing the will of his Father. “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work,” he says to them, offering his life of selflessness as the measure by which to measure their own lives.

However, just because we understand what he is saying doesn’t mean that we are living what he is saying. There’s the rub. We can’t claim incomprehension of these spiritual values, as the crowds do, and yet, like them, we do not so often seek the true bread that stands over against all other breads offered in this world. We’re content to stay on the lower rung of the hierarchy.

Why? Well, it’s much easier, requiring less sacrifice, less service, and less selflessness. Looking out for ourselves is always much easier than looking out for others. Stuck in the quicksand of this world, surrounded by selfishness on all sides, it is difficult for us to reach for the heavens, understood as putting into practice those higher spiritual values such as goodness, generosity, and gratitude.

So, given this brief overview of the text today, what does it say to us? That’s really the important question. Not what the exchange meant to those early listeners of Rabbi Jesus. The fact of the matter is he is addressing us in the here and now. What, then, do we do with his words? The same choice between staying on the physical plane or living on a higher plane is ours to make. And the choice will determine just about everything about us.

As I see it, Rabbi Jesus is inviting us on a journey with him. And while it is not a physical journey, metered in miles and measured in months, it has many of the same characteristics, even if it is a spiritual journey. I think our understanding of this spiritual journey can be best understood by some of the same questions that we would ask ourselves when taking a journey on the road.

First, where do we want to go? That seems to be the question at the start of any journey, even this journey through life. Generally, our trips are talked about in terms of our destination. On this spiritual journey, what do we see as our destination? Is it a life with God or is it life without God? Will we put on Christ, or will we put on worldly goods? Will we be guided by the will of God as Rabbi Jesus was, or will we be guided by our own will? Our steps in life will go in one direction or the other. 

Another question to ask is what will we take with us. As a rule, when we go on a trip we pack a bag or several. So, what do we pack on this spiritual journey? Will it be the ways, words, and works of Jesus or will it be the ways, words, and works of the world in which we live. As with any trip, this journey through life will require that we take things out of the carry on as we need them. And what will be the things that we consider important enough for us to have with us at all times?

Just as importantly, we may want to ask ourselves what we want to leave behind. On this spiritual journey, there are many things that can weigh us down and slow us down. Things such as selfishness, resentment, and judgment of others. Those things have to be left behind if we are going to progress towards living in the same way as Jesus. If we cannot leave behind our want for power, popularity, and a privileged lifestyle, then we aren’t going to go far, regardless of how high our rise is in the eyes of the world.

Another thing we have to decide. Who do we want to go with us? Are we going alone or are we going with others? As we know, Rabbi Jesus sent his disciples out two by two, his actions suggesting that spiritual warfare is generally done in company with others, not by ourselves. So, do we have as our companions people who also want to imitate the life of Jesus, or do we have as our companions those who want to imitate the rich and famous, the powerful and the privileged? We should never underestimate the influence of those we call our companions on the journey of life. They can help us on our path to a life with God or they can halt our movements towards living as a child of God.

Another question to ask. What will we do if we get lost? Although getting lost is less of a hazard on the road these days with GPS, we easily can find ourselves lost on the spiritual road, taking the wrong way in the world, following the wrong directions, or becoming distracted by the wrong sights and sounds. If so, what do we do? Rabbi Jesus often talked about conversion, another word for turning around. It seems the thing to do if we want to get back on the right path.

Finally, we want to ask ourselves how we will know when we’ve arrived. Obviously, that depends on the destination we have desired. If our destination are all the signs of success in this world, then we will feel we have arrived when we have a big job, a big bank account, or a big following. The markers of having arrived are fairly obvious if we have followed the ways of the world.

On the other hand, if we have followed the ways of Jesus, then our destination will be the same as his. He acknowledged he had arrived when he spoke his last words from the cross, “It is finished.” For us, then, if we have chosen the path of the One sent from Heaven to do the will of the Father, we will know we have arrived at our destination when our will and the will of the Father are conformed, when our heart and the heart of God are connected as if chambers of the same heart, when our love for all others means we lay down our lives for them by sacrifices of self, large and small each and every day.

These are some of the basic questions that can direct us on our spiritual journey through this world. Our primary guide always remains Rabbi Jesus, the mediator between heaven and earth, sent by God to get the world back on course. If we wish to be like him, then we must not become entranced by earthly bread, but keep our eyes on the true bread of heaven, understood here as Jesus who says today, “I am the bread of life.”

The episode that we hear today in the gospel reminds us of the difficulty of following the spiritual path with our heart and our souls. It seems our stomachs always come first, as the people’s response to Jesus makes abundantly clear. But as he reminds them and us, there is a greater hunger that we all possess than the hunger in our guts. And that is the hunger for the Most High God. If we wish to satisfy that hunger, then we have to work, not for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures. Only the food that endures can satisfy the hunger and the thirst in our hearts.

–Jeremy Myers