Journey's Weekly Homilies

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 3^rd, 2003
Homily by Laurie 

Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15
Ephesians 4:17, 20-24
John 6:24-35 

Who must do the work of God? Futility of mind? In exile.  In the world but not of the world.  Do we live as exiles?

I was multitasking in the shower this morning, thinking about this homily while bathing.  First, I took my facial cleanser, put it on my toothbrush and with the barest inkling that something was wrong, I began to brush my teeth.  Then fully aware that the tube in my hand was facial cleanser, yet miles away in thought, I squeezed the cleanser into my hand, rubbed it around in my palms and promptly applied it to my shampoo covered hair.  Is this what Paul calls the futility of the mind? 

Last weeks gospel was the story of the feeding of the multitude. This week and for the next three Sundays we have the continued unfolding of and commentary on this story.  Last weeks the crowds declared of Jesus that he must surely be a prophet.  Today there are back full of questions and doubts.  Our lectionary leaves out the miracle of Jesus walking across the sea.  It is on the far shore that we pick up the story.  The crowd cannot find Jesus and they go looking after him and the disciples.  They are surprised to find him on the other side of the sea, they are certain they didn’t see him get in the boats with the disciples.  

“Rabbi, when did you come here?” they ask.  The human Jesus knows their hearts and calls their bluff.  “You seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill, your bellies were full yesterday. Do not labor for fish that will rot and bread that will spoil, but labor instead for the food of eternal life, which the man of heaven, the patron of God, will give to you.”  Some may have turned away at that moment, shamed by the blunt honesty of this man, but others stayed, intrigued, longing for a new way of being beyond the daily hard labor for bread, for mere existence.

Those that stayed asked Jesus, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God”, if the bread was different, then maybe the work was different as well?  Jesus replies, this is the work of God that you believe into the one whom God sent.  Believe into?  What does that mean?

It is easy for us to grasp that belief in Jesus is more than an intellectual or cultural exercise.  We know that we can’t sometimes justify our reasons for following after Jesus; we just know, trust, that it is what we are to do.  It is harder to understand the concept of believing into Jesus.  What does John mean to believe into Jesus?  He is talking about more than belief; he is referring to solidarity with Jesus, not just when the bread and wine are flowing freely, but when the cross is before us.  Believe into, active loyalty and solidarity.

The response of the crowd is to challenge Jesus, asking for a sign even though it was just the day before when they had been witness to and shared in the meal of the loaves and fishes.  Jesus had just asked of them a long-term active continuous belief.  They, like we are more than a little skeptical.  What guarantees have we of this bread from heaven?  Give us today a sign of your love, then.

In exile, Moses brokered with God for food, can this Jesus make the same claim?  He claims that he can, that he is worthy of trust, worthy of believing into.  “I am the bread of life; they who come to me shall not hunger, and they who believe in me shall never thirst.”

To a people who know exile, who live on the margins of a society, never sure if and when they will eat again, this is a profound statement.  I think we can only understand this bread of life to the point that we know what it is to live as exiles, not as Moses and the people wandering in the desert, but as the Jesus people living as exiles in our own time and place. The Jesus people did not chose to live as exiles in their own land.  The society and culture forced them to lives as exiles, hungry and always searching for sustenance.

To stand in solidarity with Jesus and thus to remain loyal to the poor, the sick and the imprisoned, we might have to seek conscious exile.  Chose to live as a people on the margins of society, be a people who stand out in the way we love and support one another as well as in how we care for the poor, sick and imprisoned. As different as one-day manna is from the bread of eternal life, one for this moment only, one for a future we can only imagine.

My story about the facial cleanser besides being classic me, is insight into how far from conscious exile I have chosen to live. I believe that using a different soap for my skin will keep zits and wrinkles away.  I believe that several hair products will make my hair sexier, and I believe that a separate soap for the rest of my body saves money, being less expensive that the facial cleanser, but even it must be scented to hide the odors of my own body. Doesn’t sound like a human being in exile, hoping that I can get a clean toothbrush and a little paste at the shelter tonight, to try to keep my teeth in shape, cause Lord knows there is no dentist in my future. 

Why would we want to be an exile people, a journey people, why would we want to stand up and speak a different word than the everyone for him or herself message of our own culture and society? We also long for the bread of life, we have more than enough manna and quails, more than enough consumer products to call us down aisles of deceitful lusts.  What we desire, why we gather together to share the bread of life, is because we know that we cannot live on bread alone. 

Paul for a change puts succinctly, what I don’t want to hear.  Put off your old nature, which belongs to your former manner of life, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds.  Put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.  Put off looking good that others might see you and be impressed, put off having the latest new toy, put off pretending not to see those who make you uncomfortable, put on being seen in the company of those who walk in exile. Put on goodness of mind and sprit, put on what you know to be holy. Be of solidarity and loyalty with those with whom Jesus walked and walks.  Walk as exiles from this society and this culture by choice and by action.