Let me see a show of hands: How many of you still believe in Santa Clause? I’m not ashamed to admit that I do, and that I probably will for as long as I have cognitive thought. Maybe my belief comes from the never-ending child-like person who lives in me, or maybe it resides in the symbol of hope Santa’s memories bring to people around the world, either way my strong conviction that Santa Clause lives will most likely never be shaken.
I can’t say the same thing for all of the holiday child-hood symbols in my life. Once I realized rabbits didn’t lay eggs I stopped believing in the Easter Bunny. The tooth fairy went away about the same time I began losing too much teeth and the other kids in school starting talking about how the tooth fairy was really their parents. But Santa – there’s just something pure about this symbol that will always hold true in my heart.
Sometimes, when it seems that the world has forgotten what Christmas is really about and the symbols for which Santa stands – care, compassion, generosity, kindness to friend and stranger alike – something happens to renew my confidence in all the things which bring us closer as a people united by the jolly guy in the red suit.
To believe in something is to admit its existence, to have some kind of understanding that what we believe in has some root, some foundation in reality. But, to trust something is to go beyond belief, to go beyond the simple assurance that something exists.
Some might also call this faith.
The word “faith” as we use it today is defined as a noun, something we possess. We possess the ability to believe in something that can’t be proved. We hold an obligation of loyalty towards a person or promise. Faith as we understand it in today’s vernacular is something you either have or don’t have, there is no in between.
To the community for which John was written, however, faith was a verb. It was an action, something that was performed to the best of one’s ability. One did not have faith, one did faith.
The Greek word used for “believe” in today’s passage is translated to being committed, to trust in, or to have confidence about something. So when it is written in John 6:29, “This is what God requires, that you believe in him whom God sent,” the community of John is to understand that they are to put all of their trust, all of their confidence, all of their conviction into the personhood of Jesus and his life-examples.
Let’s take a closer look at today’s story. It follows last week’s reading about the feeding of the 5000 on the mountain. If you remember, Jesus used the gift of an innocent child to feed those who were there and he did this for two reasons: he wanted to provide for the needs of others and he wanted to highlight the workings of God on this earth. What Jesus did was nothing short of a miracle; a sign that God is still with us and is still providing for us.
Jesus then goes into hiding because he senses that the people gathered want to make him a king, to appoint him as the messiah, but he’ll have nothing to do with it. Jesus sees as his duty on earth to do one thing and one thing only: reconcile people with God and with one another. Jesus was not put on earth to take over; rather he was put on earth to bring people together under one God. For you see, John 3:17 tells us that God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be healed and made whole through him.
But the people want a king so they go looking for Jesus. They board their boats and go looking for their would-be king. When they find him and ask where he’s been, Jesus simply says, “It’s not really me you’re looking for, rather it’s more food you want.” He says, “You did all that work – searching, sailing, and traveling across the waters – not because you want to be with God, but because you want more bread.”
Imagine if those messages instead told us to do all things in moderation, start taking care of the planet, and do whatever you can to help those in need. Imagine what this world would be like if we put our efforts, if we worked, towards finding a way to reconcile each other with God and God’s creation as well as one another.
Imagine.
That is the message John is trying to give us in today’s passage. Sometimes we can be like those crowds of people – fed to content but still looking for more. Jesus reminds us that it’s not physical bread that will satisfy us, rather it’s spiritual bread we should be searching for. The way we do that, the way we find that bread of everlasting life is to completely trust in, and be fully committed to, what Jesus is trying to teach us.
I may have mentioned that going to seminary shook my faith to the core. The things we were exposed to, the different points-of-view we were asked to look at went against a lot of the things I learned as a young man at the church in which I grew up. But it also reaffirmed what I’ve also known in my heart to be the right thing.
In seminary I struggled with clear definitions of Heaven and Hell. I saw the stories of the Old Testament from the viewpoint of a people who were constantly being oppressed and held captive. I was introduced to a loving and forgiving God who was being portrayed as vengeful and judgmental. I read the Psalms as cries of anger and frustration to a God from a people who felt abandoned, as well as songs of praise from a people who were freed.
Through it all, though, I asked questions, found new truths, and when I emerged through the other side I knew, without a doubt, what it meant to be a Christian: To love in such a way as to not make anyone an enemy. I understood that we all have different ideologies and beliefs and that the goal of Jesus and his followers was to unite us despite our differences.
One of the last struggles I had with my faith was that of the virgin birth. It was something I really found myself trying to wrap my head and heart around. You see, in the time of Jesus, stories were told of the Pharaoh in such a way as to make it clear he was descended from gods. Not only did there have to be a strong lineage to past Pharaohs, but there also had to be a connection to a god of some kind. That connection was usually told as though the Pharaoh was given to us directly from the gods.
So my first dilemma was, “If Jesus was truly born of a virgin, wouldn’t this be something all the Gospels writers would put in their stories?”
Once again I’m reminded that the Gospels are written for a specific group of people, each with its own way of telling the good news that God is still with us and it’s through the teachings of Jesus that we can be reconciled with God.
In seminary we were taught that perhaps the writers of Luke and Matthew wanted to make it very clear that even while living under a Roman Empire that sought peace through violence, there was an alternative which if followed would bring peace through love. This alternative was Jesus, who, by the way, is also a direct descendant of a god. Not any god, but the God of their people’s ancestors, also providing their readers with a very strong lineage.
So, there I was, literally torn between what I had always grown up with – the comfortable knowledge that Jesus was born of a virgin named Mary – and that which had begun to challenge my belief. I struggled for more than a year with this one, wanting desperately to hold on to the idea that the Jesus I knew wasn’t of this world and instead came into this world, given to us by God.
Then, one day while I was driving to church the solace which I was searching for came to me. In our Sunday afternoon study group we were discussing the metaphorical bible and its impact on today’s Christianity. The discussions really brought to life the idea that through our relationship with the bible and with God through Jesus Christ we will all find ourselves in different places along our spiritual journeys. By the end of the classes, those who attended came to an understanding that our churches need to find a way to welcome all people, regardless of where they find themselves on the spectrum of Christianity, or on the spectrum of life for that matter.
So, there I was, driving to church for a meeting of some kind when I thought to myself, “It really doesn’t matter what I believe. It doesn’t really matter if Jesus was born of a virgin or not.” It wasn’t a question of what I believe, rather an awareness that I was trusting in the fact that what I understood to be true might not be what others understood to be true and if I could accept that as a starting point on my new journey towards uniting with my neighbor and with God, then that was a good place to be.
When I came to that understanding, when I had accepted in my heart that it’s not about the physical realities of what the bible says or doesn’t say, but about the spiritual direction my soul was heading in, I cried; I cried so hard I actually had to pull off the road because I couldn’t see what was in front of me.
This is what Jesus meant when he says that he is the bread of life. It’s an invitation to consume a spirituality based in the understanding of what Jesus’ ministry was about, and to do our best to continue that ministry into our lives.
So, unlike the people who came down from the mountain with bellies full of bread who were still looking for proof that Jesus was indeed the king who would lead them back into a life filled with hope, peace, and joy, let us be the ones who fill ourselves with the bread that gives us what we need to continue down the path Jesus laid before us and fulfill the works needed to bring everyone into the kingdom of God.
Let us be the ones to set aside our differences, learn from each other’s diversities, accept one another for who we are and where we are on our journeys of life, and continue to be in faith, trusting God’s words as portrayed through Jesus’ actions, committing ourselves to lives filled with care, compassion, generosity, and kindness to friend and stranger alike.
God is with us always. Amen.
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