Readings: Ex 16:2-4,12-15; Psalm 77:3-4,23-25,54; Eph 4:17,20-24; John 6:24-35
Theme: WHAT DO YOU HUNGER FOR?
- ONLY THE HUNGRY LONG FOR FOOD
Hunger and food are in such a relationship that the presence of one calls for the presence of the other. When one is hungry and there is no food to solve his hunger, then it is a catastrophe. And when food is there but one has no hunger for it, the food will not be recognized.
Hence, one who is hungry needs food to be available, and then food needs someone who is hungry for it to be recognized and cherished. The first reading from the book of Exodus narrates the desert experience of the people of Israel on their way to the Promised Land. On their way through the desert, the people cried to Moses for food. It took the people of Israel to be hungry for them to recognize that they needed food (Ex 16:3).
In the people’s complaint, they hungered for the pots of meat and bread (lechem) existing in the land of Egypt (Ex 16:3). The irony in the people’s complaint about their feeding in Egypt is found in the word, ע ַבֹׂש (savay) which means to be to satisfy one’s hunger. The people said that while in Egypt the meat and the bread were there to satisfy their hunger. But if their hunger was satisfied by the Egyptian pot of meat and bread, why were they again hungry? They were hungry because the Egyptian food was not meant to give them permanent satisfaction. But responding to the people’s hunger and their particular request for meat (basar) and bread (lechem), God promised to give them bread, but instead of bread from Egypt, their land of slavery, which God promised to rain from heaven meat (basar) and bread (lechem min hashamayim) (cf Ex 16:12).
Our point here is that the people of Israel were hungry, and they recognized that they were hungry, and consequently demanded for food. However instead of their temporary satisfying Egyptian meat and bread, God sent them meat and bread from heaven.
- HAVE HUNGER FOR THE RIGHT FOOD
In the first reading, we say that the people of Israel were not just hungry but hungry of meat and bread from Egypt. Even if getting to eat from Egyptian pot of meat and bread would mean their being slaves to them, the people of Israel were willing to take that path (cf Ex 16:3).
As discouraging as this action from the Israelites would seem, it shows us that they (the people of Israel) were slaves not only to the Egyptian king but to Egyptian food. And this slavery to Egyptian food is more ‘catenational’ than slavery to the Egyptian King because the people were willing to die in their servitude to the Egyptian king and land insofar as they were allowed access to Egyptian pot of meat and bread (cf Ex 16:3). But God, by giving them meat and bread, coming not from Egypt but from heaven, wanted to redirect the gaze of the people to the food that comes, not from below (Egypt), but from above (Heaven).
In the gospel reading, we see what we might call the people’s reaction from Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand in Jn 6:1-15. The evangelist refers to the feeding of the five thousand as a ‘sign’ (cf Jn 6:14) which means it was pointing to something bigger and more important. But the question is, what did the people make of this sign? As we have in Jn 6:14-15, the people, seeing the sign, saw in Jesus a king-figure they would love to have. That is, the people wanted to make Jesus their king so that he would be strictly and officially charged with the responsibility of continuing feeding them as he just did. Jesus managed to escape from the people because this was not whom he wanted to be for them.
However, the people managed to identify where Jesus had gone to hide and followed him there. The people were looking for Jesus because, as Jesus himself noticed, they all ate of the loaves and were satisfied. But Jesus explained to the people that although they were satisfied from eating of the loaves, it was not a lasting satisfaction (cf Jn 6:27). That is, the satisfaction which the people were looking for cannot come from the kind of food they were rushing to have.
Hence Jesus told them, do not expend effort on the food that perishes, but invest your energy on the food that endures to eternal life. Unlike their fathers who were hungry for the food of the Egyptians, the people must rather hunger for the bread of God (ho artos tou Theou), the one which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
- JESUS, THE TRUE BREAD THAT WE SHOULD LONG FOR
Upon hearing Jesus speak of the bread that comes from heaven and that gives life, the people acknowledged truly that the bread they had been having had not been able to give them the life they longed for. Hence, when Jesus invited them to hunger for the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world, they immediately responded: “Sir, give us that bread always.” Then Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life.” The people were requesting for bread that will be given to them, but Jesus told them that it is not about what will be given but what has been given.
Jesus is the bread that the Father has given for the hunger of his people and for the life of the world. How can the people eat Jesus as the bread? By coming to him and by believing in him (Cf Jn 6:35). When we come to Jesus and believe in him as the only one who can quench our hunger, he will fill us up for only in him is our soul at rest.
From the discussion so far, the readings are able to teach us that:
- Humanity is hungry and in a continuous search for a lasting solution to its hunger.
- We labour so much in order to find our satisfaction from the food of the world (earthly goodies) and each time we get them, we think our hunger has been satisfied only to notice that they rather increase our hunger and enslave us more to their taste and temporal satisfactions.
- Our satisfaction comes not from the things below but from above. We must therefore not hope to get satisfaction from the wrong things. In Jesus lies our satisfaction.
- The bread that is capable of satisfying our hunger comes not as a result of our labour or service but God’s gift to us. Christ is sent, not just to come and provide us bread for our hunger but to be himself that bread which satisfies our hunger and quenches our thirst.
- But the question is, do we have the right hunger? What are we hungry for, the food that increases our hunger, making us slaves of our appetite and earthly goodies, or the food that makes us not to hunger for any other thing? Are we hungry for the Spirit of God, for justice, for right treatment of others, for peace, for the welfare of others?
Fr. Henry Chukwuezugo Nnamah
Catholic Diocese of Aguleri, Nigeria