JN 6: 35 & 41-51 

Jottings on John…Pentecost + 12…Revised 2018. 

Though “I AM the Bread of life” is the first of Jesus' “I AM”s recorded, I do wonder if He may also have said, unrecorded, “I AM the Wine of life” at Cana? A Celebration not only of a wedding, but of Life. For those who don’t normally have much to celebrate. Today, Jesus Himself IS life! Essential as the daily bread He has us pray for. Surely He means we’re to pray for Him, too, to be as much our daily bread as the flour & water kind.

In ancient & widespread tradition, Bread is so at the heart of life that it should be respected & never wasted. Today we might focus on respecting Jesus, the Bread of Life, & never wasting Him. Never being disrespectful of God in any way. Never wasting God in any way. 

Multiple choices of food, & many other things available today to those of us who live in affluent societies, can be a confusing phenomenon of our times. Whereas the only choice for people like Jesus was poor quality bread from the poorest quality flour. Jesus may be one of the ordinariest of us so far as His humanity is concerned, but He is still the Very Best Bread available, i.e. the Bread of life. Do today’s multiple choices in so many areas play their part in our losing focus on God, the Essential at the heart of Life? Bread, representing God, as Jesus represents Himself as Bread, is a great & powerful symbol of God at the heart of Life. Those of us who make our daily bread can vouch for how much better it tastes than much of the mass-produced kind. As God tastes so much better than the many mass-produced idols on offer!

Jesus’ “I AM"s have taken on a deepening significance for me since I began to understand them in Capitals. Jesus can Word-play on the divine “I AM” because YHWH is "I AM”. The Essence of BEING. Because YHWH is “I AM”, Jesus is therefore “I AM”. Because Jesus is “I AM”, I am, too. When I live on Jesus, the Bread of God.

As we celebrate God & our relationship with God & each other in Eucharist we re-enact Jesus telling us He’s the Bread of Life. And, as He is at Cana, the Wine of Life, also. So, do look me in the eye when you pass the Peace to me as we share God in Bread & Wine.

A story from the days of the Desert Fathers - Anthony de Mello has a version - tells of a monk advised by his Abbot not to try any harder to keep the faith, but instead, become fire! Do we need to talk less about bread &, instead, become Bread? For God, for each other, for a hungry world?

Afterthought: Was it Mother Theresa who said, “To pray ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ & then refuse to share it is blasphemy”? 

Brian