Hi folks, I hope you are doing ok, this week we are meeting at the Tavern and Galley in Whitley Bay, meeting at 7.30, I hope you can join us if you are able. This week we have a guest blog written by one of our new leaders, Hilary!
John 6:35 (NIV): Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty….”
Jesus as the Bread of Life and Living Water are important concepts for many Christians, and one – as the child of an Anglican Vicar – that I probably heard about before I could even spell my own name. I have listened to numerous Sunday school classes about Jesus being the bread of life, including a very exciting one where we made unleavened bread over an open fire, but I’m not really sure what it means to my life now.
I suppose a good place to start is what actual (non-metaphorical) bread and drink provide.
What does food and drink do for us? It is life-giving and is necessary for survival. It gives us energy and hydration. And beyond those necessities, it provides joy by tasting good, by being enjoyed with friends and family, and by connecting us to cultures and family histories. Added to this, it links us with ecosystems and the environment, as these are what provides us with our food and drink.
Food and drink sustains us holistically, taking care of physical needs as well as our wellbeing.
My Christian faith was formed in an Evangelical Protestant context and I was told that through my personal relationship with Jesus I would find spiritual sustenance, joy and connection. But, if I am being honest, I have very rarely felt this way and have, in fact, often felt spiritually or mentally hungry and thirsty.
From conversations I have had with friends, I think it’s a pretty common feeling, and one that can often carry a huge amount of grief, especially among those who have been told that personal relationship with Jesus needs to be the cornerstone of their life. For those who have prayed daily, looking to Jesus to sustain them in the way they were promised, and have gone hungry and thirsty, there can be shame and sadness.
I don’t have an answer for that grief. I think it’s something we have to carry with us, investigate and interrogate.
But looking to the bread and water metaphor, I do find some further things to consider, beyond the individual spiritual fulfilness narrative I was raised with.
Outside what food and drink give us individually; there are other analogies to be made with Jesus. Most important, for me at this point in my faith journey, is what Jesus as the Bread of Life and Living Water teaches me about community – not about individual spiritual sustenance, but about communal sustenance.
Everyone needs bread and water/food and drink. To think that you need to “earn” food or drink is a characteristic of an eating disorder, and to deny people food and drink is considered a method of abuse or even torture. Sara Miles in her book Take This Bread discusses how radical she found it to walk into a church and be given communion, no questions asked, even though she was an Atheist at the time. She went on to start a food pantry in her church that was open to everyone, no questions asked. She wrote, “ ‘Feed my sheep, feed my sheep,” I repeated. “[Jesus] didn’t say, ‘Feed my sheep after you check their ID.’ ”
The Bible verse at the start of this blog comes a little while after the Feeding of the 5000 story. I’m sure you already know it (it’s a real classic Bible story, like Hey Jude is for the Beatles): essentially there’s a big crowd of people listening to Jesus talk and then everyone realises there’s no food to feed this crowd. But a small boy comes forward and he has five loaves and two fishes to share. Jesus blesses the food and feeds the entire crowd with it.
Jesus didn’t check whether the people he was giving the loaves and fishes to were deserving of this food. He gave it freely. So when he later says “Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty….”, he’s again saying that you don’t have to do something or be something to earn this sustenance he offers.
It is powerful to understand that the Divine loves me no matter what. But I think it’s more powerful to understand that the Divine loves my neighbour too, no matter what. And, therefore, how I treat my neighbour needs to be impacted by that knowledge. It is not for me to judge and exclude who can be in my community.
I again find this message in another Bible story about Jesus as Living Water. In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well – this woman has been excluded by her community because they perceive her as being sexually immoral. Furthermore, she was a Samaritan and Jesus was a Jew, and at that time Jews and Samaritans were enemies. But Jesus chats with her all the same, despite their cultural animosities and despite her status as an outcast. He tells her that he is the son of God and that he offers Living Water to everyone.
I find both spiritual sustenance and challenge in the idea that God wants us to care about the wellbeing of everyone, not just those who we think are morally pure or culturally acceptable to us.
What are the ways I can show love to people who I want to condemn? How can I welcome and respect the climate change denialist? The men’s rights activist? The racist? The abuser? The billionaire who hoards wealth?
And how can I help bring a better world for people who are outcast and overlooked? The unhoused? The poor? The mentally ill? The refugee?
The final thing I take from Jesus as the Bread of Life is summed up again by Sara Miles when she writes, “There’s a hunger beyond food that’s expressed in food, and that’s why feeding is always a kind of miracle.”
I agree that food and drink are a kind of miracle, especially when shared with others. I have found the most spiritually nourishing times in my life have been raucous meals with friends, sharing good food and wine, and having big, joyful chats putting the world to rights, joking and teasing each other, remembering previous misadventures, creating new in-jokes, and learning a little bit more about God by seeing the different facets of the Divine that are in each one of my friends.
I’ve been told by some people that a personal and individual relationship with Jesus is the most important thing when it comes to being a Christian – that this bread and drink he provides is for individual nourishment. But I think it’s important to remember that food and drink are almost always better shared with others, and shared freely, without stipulations.
Questions:
- What’s your favourite food and/or drink?
- Can you remember a great meal shared with friends or family?
- Can you think of any other Bible stories or passage or any other (religious or non-religious) texts that talk about hunger and thirst/spiritually nourishing food and drink?
- Have there been times in your life where you have felt especially spiritually malnourished?
- What does it mean in your life that God loves everyone?
Photo: Rob Wylie
This post is written by one of our many friends. At BeachcomberFX we love to hear what others have to say and are always on the lookout for people who want to share their thoughts or stories with us.