Reflection on the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Exodus 16:2-15.                Ephesians 4:17-24.                  John 6:24-35

Bread is the central image of today’s readings, as it was last Sunday.  It illustrates a single theme in three ways:  God’s care can be counted on.  Like hearty bread, God’s care is life-sustaining, nourishing and daily.  

First we hear that the God of Moses made bread rain down daily on the Jews starving in the desert.  Next, we read that God’s abiding spirit of truth nourishes and renews Paul’s Ephesian converts. And finally, Jesus in John’s Gospel declares that he himself is bread given by God, given as a sustaining life-force for all who believe.

These are such familiar texts, made more familiar by the imagery of bread, that most common of daily food. We welcome the reassurance of these texts that God can be counted on to provide hearty, life-sustaining care down to the most basic level of our daily bread.

Familiar texts and reassuring, yes, but challenging too. Over against the news of the day, today’s scriptural assurance can seem as bland and lifeless as cheap white bread. We have an abundance of news of the harsh particularities of wars, massive famines, cruel injustice.  Even close to home, our near and dear neighbors experience soul-searing losses, unearned pain, grinding daily effort, hunger in body and soul.  Where is God’s bread for all of these?

The daily news is full of ironies and paradox and seeming unfairness, raising questions about the evenhandedness of God. We’ve all heard commentaries about the recent assassination attempt, questioning the escape of Trump and the loss of a faithful husband and father. Many are asking where is God’s sustaining care in that?

Look at the map of today’s Middle Eastern conflict areas. The earliest farming settlements of Western civilization came to life and thrived in the region called the Fertile Crescent. In this area in the remote past, ancestors of today’s warring factions shared the first harvests of grains baked into sustaining bread, truly a gift of God. Can we believe that the Creator’s tender care still abides in the fertile soil of that land, in the flowing water, the warming sun?

In the Gospel Jesus says God’s provident love can’t be measured only by the bread you can hold in your hands and eat. God’s loving care is in the whole loaf of life, especially in the life-giving love of those God sends. Jesus knew he was bread sent by God to nourish others. Can we believe that we are the bread God sends to our neighbors, even now when we are old and crusty? We believe that Jesus is present to us and for us in the Eucharist bread. Can we trust that the one in the pew next to us, the visitor at the table, the postmistress and the mechanic and the kitchen staff are also life-giving bread, gifts for us from the hand of our God? Can we bring ourselves to trust in this daily bread as God gives it to us? “Deus providebit.” God will provide.