The Gospel of John, Chapter 6

The discourses in John's gospel are heavy going for anyone who would try to grasp the whole of the teaching in them. The direction of the argument changes unexpectedly, the continuity is not always obvious, occasional aphorisms appear as if from somewhere else instead of being embedded in the text. But the main reason they may fail to impact on the modern reader is our inclination to identify with Jesus and to see the 'others', whether it is Nicodemus or 'the crowd' or 'the Jews' as the thick-headed or wrong-headed opposition. Instead of having an attitude of curious listening we find ourselves presuming to know the mind of Jesus, and wondering why the others are so resistant to it. Yet in fact I am the resisting one, and Jesus picks the argument with me.

Over years of meditating on these discourses we come to a point of knowing without understanding. I wonder what would happen if I put myself in as one of the crowd and fully identified with them. This would entail writing the whole discourse again, filling in what the gospel writer left out with the possibility of missing the point or even of making a new point.

Is this allowed? Well, the christians of the first century were not content with one version. Each of the four gospels is a re-writing of what they already had, with the changes of emphasis and even of meaning that any re-working involves.  If any readers find that this exercise does not provide a useful way to penetrate the Word of God they should seek out more conventional commentaries and not be distracted by this foolishness.



THE ARGUMENT WE HAD TO HAVE



My name is Jair [he will illuminate]. Together with my friend Benammi [member of my people] we were following the rabbi at that time. He had gone with his disciples across the lake in a boat, and we joined the crowd strung out along the track around the lake shore, aiming to meet up with him when he came ashore.

We'd seen a lot of this rabbi Jesus, around the towns of Galilee. People liked his style. He had a knack of spinning yarns that had a twist in the tail. But by the time he'd been around for a couple of years we'd pretty well had enough of him. At first it looked like he might be the one to make a difference in our world, and there were people prepared to keep close to him, hoping to be in on the act when something finally happened. That was the mood over there on the other side of the lake.

It was one of the biggest crowds we'd seen, and him teaching them for hours, moving around talking to groups, asking about their life, answering questions, sorting out their problems with the laws and customs in a way that made sense. Come late in the day and a few here and there opened up their kits and started to have a bite to eat, but most hadn't brought anything with them. You could see some were getting worried because it was a long walk back to where you could buy food, and it was getting late. Then we saw the rabbi's men moving through the crowd, getting people to sit down in groups. Higher up the hill we saw the man himself with loaves of bread in his hands, and he spoke a blessing and gave the bread to his disciples and they handed it out to the people. Somehow it turned out to be enough for everybody. Then they came round picking up the left-overs in baskets.

Well, that was yesterday. We spent the night under the stars, and this morning waited around a while for the rabbi to come down from the hills where he had gone after his mates took their boat and headed off for home. He looked like he was getting away from a group that was a bit too enthusiastic for his liking, wanting to make him their king. Can you imagine?

Anyway, some boats came from over Magdala way and we got a ride back to Caphernaum. Benammi and I got talking to a little group we hadn't met before. They were pretty critical of this rabbi: reckoned it was time to forget about him and get on with life. There was one bloke from around Megiddo, a blunt talker who I felt might have been on the lookout for some young bloods to join the resistance groups that were giving the Romans a bit of curry. They've got a long history of that sort of thing around Megiddo. I don't think this bloke ever told us his name so I just think of him as 'Meggido'.


*********************18th Sunday: Jn 6:24-35*********************


When we reached Caphernaum there was the rabbi with his little group of followers, and as we were coming up from the shore one of our lot called out to ask him how he got here ahead of us.

He didn't answer that. In fact he may not have liked the tone of the question, because the reply he shot back had something of an edge to it.

"You're not looking for me because you saw signs that taught you something, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill."

We had seen him hold his own in an argument when the pharisees bailed him up , but this time it was like he was prepared to tell us where to get off. The way he looked from one to another made me feel he was reading thoughts. There was a note of exasperation in the next thing he said:

"Don't work for food that perishes! You eat that food: you die anyway. You've got to work for the food that carries you through to eternal life. This is the food the Son of Man will give you."

He kept looking at us a few moments more, then he looked away, out over the gleaming sea, and he said softly, almost to himself:  "The Father, God, has set his seal on him."  The way he said it he might have been trying to convince himself.

My mate Benammi had always been attracted to this rabbi and would have made a good disciple if he'd been asked. Now he broke the tension, taking up the idea of working for your food. He blurted out: "What work should we be doing so that we're doing the works of God?"

But the reply was not what we expected. The rabbi said: "This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent." It was a curious turn of phrase, but we all took it to mean: "You have to acknowledge the credentials of God's envoy" and it was obvious he was claiming to be that envoy. This was too much for Megiddo.

"What sign can you do," the big man said bluntly. "Where's the proof that we can see, and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it's written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat'? "

Jesus must have seen what was coming because he cut him short before he could get to a demand for arms and money to support the resistance.

"You think Moses gave them bread!" he said, scornfully. "It was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven! It's my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven. This bread puts real life into the world."

"Sir, give us this bread - always,"  Benammi burst out in a rash of enthusiasm, but the rabbi's reply took the wind out of his sails again.

"I am the bread of life," Jesus said softly. "Whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst."

A loud grunt from Megiddo rumbled through the crowd, and I saw a disdainful look spread cross his large strong face. Beside me Benammi looked mystified. I felt the same. I wanted to say: "You? You will put life into the world? You really are serious about this! You expect us to believe that you are the one sent from the Father?"

I looked across to the bustling street of Caphernaum a hundred metres away, and saw the people I knew, businessmen whose bookkeeping I took care of, going about their business, buying from suppliers, offering deals to merchants trading with the Greek cities further round the lake, calculating options and working out who to trust and who to avoid. They were men of the world. In fact they are the men who make the world go round. They know about supply and demand, about high prices when supplies are short, and hunger and famine when harvests fail, and waste when they can't sell what they've contracted to buy. A shock went through me as it sunk in that this rabbi, this teacher of spirituality, this very unlikely bloke said he - he himself - was going to give real life to the world. He was the 'bread of life'!


********************19th Sunday Jn 6:41-51*************************


A group of men, about half a dozen of them, had come out of the town and pushed their way through the crowd spread across the path. They were discussing arrangements for the transport back to Nazareth of goods they had bought in Caphernaum. Nazareth was an out of the way place with a reputation. Nothing terrible, but people said the town had a problem with 'attitude'. Now this group stopped to listen for a few minutes and while we were digesting the rabbi's last claim, one of them said: “Hey! We know that rabbi. Isn't that Jesus, son of Joseph? What's he doing here? We know his dad and mum; we know the whole family. How can he say: 'I have come down from heaven?' ”

I saw Megiddo moving towards this group, ready to do in the rabbi, perhaps, if people from his own town said he was a charlatan, but Jesus was too quick for him. He took a few steps forward, and told his fellow townsmen to their face, “Stop grumbling among yourselves.” At close quarters I was struck by his commanding presence, even when he spoke softly. He seemed to know there was no need to bully people into believing in him. Whether they did or whether they didn't was something beyond his control. Then in the same conversational tone he explained,

“No one can come to believe in me and join up with me unless the Father who sent me draws him to me.”

It seemed like an explanation he had to convince himself of, and I wondered whether he had no choice but to be content with the people who volunteered to be his followers. Would he have wanted sometimes to make his own selection! But then he added,

“The person who comes to me I will raise up on the last day.”

This did not sound like an argument for predestination: the Father calls the ones he chooses, and the son bestows the reward for having been selected. Nothing of that. I felt he was looking forward to some final moment which would make this painful time of uncertain choices and fateful decisions seem worthwhile in the end.

He spoke up again so everybody could hear.

“It is written in the prophets:'They will all be taught by God'. Well, everyone who has listened to the Father, all those who have learned what the Father wants to teach to every human being, they will come to me.”

This was another slam dunk that made the head spin. God teaches all of humankind, and anyone who listens well and learns what god teaches grows in understanding until he sees that the right path is to come to this rabbi, this man Jesus! I was just beginning to wonder whether he was talking about some mystical kind of enlightenment, visions and stuff like that, when he added a qualifier:

“Not that anybody has seen the Father except the one who has his being from god: he has seen the Father.” So we ordinary people don't have to start doing weird exercises to find a way to have a vision of god. That's a relief.

He turned then, and took a few steps back into the middle of his group of disciples. They looked uncomfortable too, I must say, and maybe some of them were having trouble swallowing claims of this sort. Then he faced us again, and he seemed to grow in stature as his friends moved away from in front of him. He spoke in a strong voice that carried out across the water.

“In all truth I tell you, everyone who believes has life that goes on for ever.”

And after a pause: “I am the bread of life.”

A longer pause this time, observing the effect of his words on this group of worldly men, businessmen, craftsmen, traders, farmers, not to mention the idealists and the smattering of poets and mystics looking for a spiritual way. I would have given a penny for Benammi's thoughts as he shuffled his feet, looking quizzically at this man from Nazareth making these extraordinary claims. Perhaps the rabbi took advantage of the fact there were no scholars around that day, because he went on to teach a lesson in their style.

“Your fathers ate manna in the desert, but they are dead. This bread that I am talking about is different. It comes from heaven, so a person can eat it and not die.

“I am this living bread that has come down from heaven.

“Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever!”

It rang out like a proclamation. He laid it down as a challenge, like a declaration of war. Believe this if you can! And then, quietly, the final piece of the puzzle, the mystery squared - or multiplied to the nth degree:

“The bread that I am going to give? It is 'my flesh', my own self. I'm going to give up my self, so to give life to the world.”


*******************20th Sunday: Jn 51-58******************

To come (?)