What is it that we are hungering for?
Let’s think about our lives, what do we need? Is it something material? Is it security, the confidence that we have a place to live and can put food on the table? Is it meaningful work, work that builds our society and that we can be proud of? Is it justice, that we will be treated fairly by those in power, and don’t need to fear oppression or persecution? Is it love, do we need to give love to others, and have them love us?
Maybe many of us have all these things - security, meaningful work, justice, love. If so we are fortunate, because many in our country, and in the world, don’t. The people that Jesus taught and served certainly didn’t have security, most of them had little money, and justice for those who weren’t Roman citizens was pretty hit and miss!
Think of last week’s gospel, the feeding of the 5000. Remember how it ended? The people wanting to make Jesus king, so he had to get away. In today’s gospel, they’ve followed him. They have recognised that Jesus may be the one who can meet their needs, feed their hungers. And of course he can, but not in the way they want. Following Jesus will not provide them with a never ending supply of food, following Jesus won’t get rid of the oppressive Roman rulers, their taxes, or the corrupt local religious and political leadership.
In these weeks we’ll be hearing Jesus teaching on the Eucharist, the sixth chapter of John’s gospel. Jesus tells us that he is the bread of life, he is the one who gives life, in fact, who gives eternal life. If we are fortunate enough to have security, meaningful work, justice and love we should of course be thankful for that, and of course we have a responsibility to help those who don’t have them to be able to get them. However let’s not forget that they, by themselves, are not actually the last word.
The path of Jesus is one that leads to union with God. This is the last word, this is eternal life, and this is what Jesus offers us. In prayer and sacrament we participate in the life of Christ. In the gospel our Lord tells us ‘the Father and I are one’, and today he tells us that he, Jesus, is the bread of life, the life that comes from the Father and that is offered to us. In our Mass today we pray that, receiving the body of Christ, we will participate in Christ’s life, participate in his union with the Father, that we will participate in God.
Now that is a tremendous gift, and a tremendous responsibility. It calls us to participate in spreading the love of God in the world. I spoke about the human hungers for security, meaningful work, justice and love. When we look at our society, indeed at our world, we can see where our brothers and sisters are lacking these things. In the gospels we are taught that it is God’s work to do what we can to heal the world, to comfort the poor, to bring justice to the oppressed. If we receive God’s life in the body and blood of Christ, we are called to do God’s work in the world. This will affect how we live with others, how we work, how we talk, in ways that spread peace and encourage justice. Each of us is given the vocation to do this in whatever state of life we are in, in our families, in our workplaces in our communities.
May our union with God, in the Eucharist, give us the grace to be bearers of God’s love for the world.
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