Day of the Church Year: 9th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture Passage: John 6:1-21
Today, we begin a 5-Sunday exploration of John’s Bread of Life discourse. In the gospel of John, Jesus always has a lot to say about...everything, and over the next 4 weeks, we will hear Jesus speak at length about today’s feeding of the 5,000 story. The feeding of the 5,000 is one of the few stories that appears in all four gospels, but the details of the story and the meaning ascribed to them is very different in John compared to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Matthew, Mark, and Luke regard the feeding of the 5,000 as a miracle in response to the physical hunger of a crowd who gathers to listen to and receive healing from Jesus. In John, the feeding of the 5,000 is a sign, and signs in the gospel of John point people to the presence of God. From the gospel of John’s perspective, Jesus feeds the crowd not because they are physically hungry but because they are spiritually hungry to see and know and love God. Jesus feeds the crowd not barley loaves and dried fish but, instead, himself. Jesus does not wait until the night before his death to pour out his body and blood as he does in Matthew, Mark, and Luke through the last supper but instead gives of himself throughout his life, including in the feeding of the 5,000. (Some scholars call this story John’s Last Supper.)
When Jesus feeds the crowd barley loaves and dried fish, when he himself distributes the food to the masses, God shows up to the crowd. Contrary to Matthew, Mark, and Luke where God is most clearly revealed in the cross, in John, God is most clearly revealed in signs throughout Jesus’ life. The feeding of the 5,000, sight given to the man born blind, water turned to wine, the healing of a boy, the raising of Lazarus from the dead point to God’s presence in Jesus. It is in living life, doing ministry, loving people that God is revealed in Jesus. Yes, of course, at the end of John’s gospel, Jesus dies, but while on the cross, he says: It is finished. The incarnation of God is finished. God shows up in the life of Jesus, not the death of Jesus in the gospel of John. And so, the signs in John’s gospel take on greater importance than similar kinds of stories of healing and feeding in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. For the feeding of the 5,000 is not just a nice story about a gracious God who tends to the physical needs of those living in poverty or even about a community who share with each other. The feeding of the 5,000 is about a God who shows up in the daily lives of people who feel forgotten and abandoned. The feeding of the 5,000 is about a God who gives of God’s own self for the sake of ordinary people. The feeding of the 5,000 is about a God who is here, now, present not in some distant, heavenly, or spiritual realm but really, fully present right where we are.
Does this make sense? The difference between John’s telling of the story and Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s telling?
When I was in seminary and taking a class on the gospels, we discovered with stark clarity the differences between each of them—to the point that our exams included verses whose origin we had to identify just by looking at the content of the verse. After receiving clarity between these different visions of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection presented in the four gospels, I remember one of my classmates raising their hand and asking our professor, David Rhodes, “Do you mean to say that we will preach different theology based on whether we are preaching from Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John? Will we preach Matthew’s theology on a passage from Matthew, Mark’s theology on a passage from Mark, and so on? How do we do that? How do we make sense of multiple theologies and remain Lutheran?” And Dr. Rhodes replied: “I don’t teach that class.”
As Lutherans, we believe the Bible is the inspired and authoritative word of God, so what do we do with the multiple visions of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection offered to us in the four gospels? The differences are not simply a matter of detail but instead wholly different conceptions of what it means to follow Jesus, believe in God, and be led by the Spirit.
What helps me is to realize that the diversity of visions has always been present within Christianity. Multiple meanings of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection lie at the very heart of our religion, in our scripture. Those inspired by God to write Jesus stories passed down orally were inspired to tell different stories with different meanings about the One we call Son of God and Savior. These multiple meanings have always been present within Christian community. We need not agree in order to follow Jesus, and in fact, multiple meanings enrich and widen our faith.
Jesus offers himself as food and drink to the crowd. God shows up in real time among people sick and hungry and tired to offer life, life abundant. In Holy Communion, in the word proclaimed, in the embrace of community, God shows up among us, today, here, now. Thanks be to God! Amen.