Aug 64 min read

Being Drawn to the Holy One

Our exploration of Jesus as the bread of life is half way through this week. At this point we may begin to find the text repetitive, even confusing, as the same phrases swirl around us. This is partly because this is the gospel of John and the form of story telling and theological explanation has this shape of midrash, of discussion back and forward. Also chapter six has a lot of important themes woven into the text with layers of meaning for the people then and for us in our time.

You may like to read what I wrote three years ago.

Part of what is happening is that the language of Jesus as the bread of life is pointing back to the exodus and the chosen being fed manna in the wilderness, and pointing forward to the eucharistic meal that the followers would share in memory of the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is as though the text is reverberating across time. Jesus is the focal point of God’s way of providing for the needs of the people then and now just as God has always been caring for the people.

The text also points to Jesus being the visible expression of God who has not been seen directly before. As the gospel of John claims in the prologue that no one has ever seen God but the one and only son has made God known. In the language of Bread Jesus (in God) is the provider of the bread and is the bread itself as he is the one who will be consumed. (next week’s discussion).

Those who are asking questions and wanting this bread which satisfies are told that they are to believe in this one who is sent, the one in front of them and speaking to them. Their response is to seek further proof and reassurance. To which they are effectively told they have the evidence they need and that the way forward is to believe, to enter into relationship, with this one. Relationship , not necessarily having correct intellectual doctrine, is what is offered and asked for. Relationship includes confident connection but also the more exploratory process of being persuaded and coming to know.

We also have the mysterious statement that none will be able to believe unless they are drawn by the father. To the contemporary mind this seems somewhat unfair or at least a circular argument. But for many of us, is this not our experience? That we came to faith by some strange force of attraction and curiosity, because of a need for meaning, because of a felt need to be saved from ourselves and other forces, by being surprised by delight and fascinated by wonder? At various points in our faith life we have probably weighed up the moral guidelines of the tradition, or the convicting story of the life and love of Jesus, the words of a passionate preacher. But, as O. Benjamin Sparkes puts it “ You just don’t come to faith by yourself, through your own deduction, reasoning, and insight alone. You are wooed, invited, even cajoled [by God]” Even our belief is a gift of God, a fruit of the attraction of the divine drawing us into relationship. Driven by hunger and drawn by enticement of bread that satisfies we will find ourselves both consuming the bread of life and being consumed.

It is not only that we came to faith, that the relationship began, because of the divine drawing us near but also that we continue to grow through the ongoing attraction and reaffirming dance of the divine’s love and desire for us. One of the best known spiritual daily practices of the Ignation tradition is that of the Daily Examin in which we are encouraged to reflect on our day and see where we have been drawn closer to God by either joy or sorrow and where we have been drawn away from |God either by what seems exciting or what troubles us. It is a simple discipline that teaches us to discern the pattern of our life, the ebb and flow, of what draws us closer and what results in distance. The daily dance of relationship.

God draws us into relationship by invitation, by seduction, and by placing within the character of humanity an appetite for meaning and intimacy, for wonder and delight, for hope and joy, and for peace and belonging. We are a hungry species and God is a generous and intimate creator who provides us with food, with the daily bread, with the bread of heaven, in word, in the person of Jesus and in sacrament.

And as we consume the bread, as we enter into relationship with Jesus the bread of life, we find that we are in the eternal now, the forever present moment of presence in the divine. Eternity is not a reward dangling on a string just out of reach but a deep entering into the moment in which we are engaged with out beloved Lord. As we give ourselves to the relationship we find ourselves connected with the one who exists beyond the present moment and place. No wonder that next week we will need to explore why this is such a hard teaching and to pause before we truly hand ourselves over again and again to relationship.

Even so, come Lord Jesus Christ, come draw us near.