Observation: Jesus just fed five thousand people by multiplying loaves and fishes. They want him to do it again. They want him to teach them to "do the works of God." Why? Because they're hungry. Jesus spiritualizes the moment and tells them the "real" food is his presence and his teachings, and the real work of God is to believe in him.
Application: It's very typical of Jesus in John's Gospel to do a miracle that gives material help to someone, like healing or feeding, and then use it as a teaching moment to point to a deeper spiritual truth. Honestly, sometimes that rubs me the wrong way. If I were a first century peasant, with no guarantee that I knew where my next meal was coming from, and Jesus just demonstrated the ability to feed five thousand people with five loaves and two fish, I'd be a little let down by a lecture that "spiritual food" is more important. But I'm not a first century peasant. I'm a middle class white American Christian, living in a world that has known for a full generation that we could eliminate hunger if we wanted to...but we don't. For me, and probably for you, the existence of physical hunger is actually a spiritual problem. Put another way, if every person of faith in every wealthy nation was getting proper spiritual nourishment--if we prioritized being fed by Jesus, who is the Bread of Life--I honestly think extreme poverty in this world would become a thing of the past. If we were getting the spiritual nourishment we need from Jesus, who blessed the poor, we would become the blessing that they so sorely need. The obscene inequalities we see growing deeper and deeper by the day, the fact that many people of faith are totally okay with that, means we are delirious with spiritual hunger. And Jesus wants to feed us. It's time to come to the table, so all may eat.
Prayer: Jesus, may those who lack food have it, and may those who have enough food hunger for justice. Amen.
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