Today’s readings: Exodus 16, 2-4.12-15; Ephesians 4:17.20-24; John 6, 24-35
It was back in the 1990s, when I was still young and probably impressionable – this explains why the expression shocked me and lodged itself in my brain. Never did I expect a colleague to answer my question “How are you?” with the stark words “What a taste of death!” In truth, his demeanour was a reflection of his inner sentiments. The years have rolled by, yet I still wonder how human beings who have been offered life in abundance through Jesus fail to tap into that immense dynamism that transforms all things human.
Today’s gospel is another classic instance of people looking for life in the wrong place. The people had been fed bread and fish in abundance and their hunger had been satisfied. So, like people rushing crazily to supermarkets to obtain the latest fancy offers at ridiculously low prices, the Galileans went frantically in search of Jesus.
I can nearly hear them saying: “Surely he will work more wonders for us, satisfy our curiosity, fill our aching stomachs, and provide for all our frivolous ‘needs’ and capricious desires. If not, we will accuse him of being uncaring or even heartless, of not being powerful and omnipotent, of being distant and of turning a blind eye to our human longings. We crave the cheapest offers, the buy-now-pay-later options, and the no-commitment plans.”
Italian scientist and senator Rita Levi-Montalcini wisely said that we must not try to add days to our life but life to our days. No wonder so many remain stuck in a quagmire. Life itself has pervaded our human reality in the person of Jesus, yet the minds of many are too obfuscated to comprehend the greatness of such an event and the beauty of the offer he made us. In his first letter, St John states that life became audible, visible and tangible. And that life invited us to strive, not for food that perishes, but for food that endures for eternal life.
In his book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, Eben Alexander describes his near-death experience following a brain illness to which he succumbed. He was immersed in a world beyond the one we know and encountered the very source of life. He claims that these dimensions “cannot be known, or understood, from lower dimensional space”. This makes me wonder whether I am looking for life where it truly is.
In Biblical Hebrew, to sin means to miss the mark. In other words, sin is seeking life where it isn’t. In today’s gospel, Jesus does not speak so much about sin as he does about distraction, thwarted intentions, and false goals. He speaks of human dreams and perspectives that do not dare to go beyond the mundane. In a similar vein, in today’s first reading, the people led by Moses through the desert longed for the pots of flesh of Egypt rather than the freedom of the children of God that would be theirs in the Promised Land.
Jesus’ words – spoken in a context in which he sought to enlighten his hearers about the true bread that comes down from heaven – confronts us with one important question: Do we love Jesus for who he truly is, irrespective of his gifts? Are we simply interested in having some more grace, some more blessings, and some more divine help to allow us to carry on with our self-contained and restricted activities? Are we mere users, expecting God to be at our beck and call, who sulk and accuse him if his plans do not fit ours, if his gifts have no fancy wrapping, and if our wish list is not entirely ticked off?
The will of the Father is for us to believe, to accept, and to welcome his beloved son, the very source of life.