July 5, 2015 John 6:27 – 42
Download discussion questions: John 6_27-42 bread of heaven
Jesus has fed the crowd. He followed His disciples across the lake (they had a boat; He didn’t), and the crowd has followed Him. They were impressed by the provision of food (like the manna for the Israelites in the wilderness) and possibly by His miraculous crossing of the sea (another reminder of Moses?). Jesus knows that their motives are essentially materialistic: more bread.
This passage continues the interchange between Jesus and the crowd. The “back and forth” between them is reminiscent of movie scenes (or actual experience) where two parties in a conversation are talking about completely different things without realizing it. Certainly Jesus knew what was on their mind, but they repeatedly miss the point of what He is saying.
The initial question sounds quite spiritual: “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” The context and their comments that follow suggest they had one very particular work of God in mind: How can we multiply food like You did? Maybe their hearts were not that cunning, but everything they said kept coming back to the topic of free food. Their responses to Jesus consistently take part of what He says and bend it back to that theme.
For example, in His continuing effort to help them make the connection between physical bread and spiritual food He tells them that “the work of God is to believe in Him whom He has sent.” (Another instance of the continual reminders Jesus gives of His “sentness” – over forty times in the Gospel of John.) The crowd picks up on the mention of “belief,” but again turns it back to their particular desire. They ask Him what sign He might do so they can “believe” (apparently forgetting yesterday’s meal?). And just in case their intention is not clear enough, they offer a hint about the bread their fathers had in the wilderness. They even back up their point by quoting Scripture. But they weren’t listening.
This is the first of several instances where the crowd focused on a few words of Jesus (“believe”) without really listening to what He was saying. One person in the discussion group observed that the “work of God” was belief in a person (Jesus Himself) rather than a belief in signs. The language Jesus used was very clear, to believe into (εἰς, eis) a person. The crowd expected a sign for evidence that what He said was true. Jesus kept drawing their attention to Himself (another member of the group commented on how many times He used the words “I” and “Me” throughout the passage.) The people kept ignoring that emphasis and insisted on talking about signs. Rather than believing in Him, putting their trust into Him, they were testing Him based on their satisfaction with the signs He might do. They weren’t listening.
Jesus responds patiently (a remarkable accomplishment throughout this entire passage). He corrects their implied thought: His Father was the source of the manna, not Moses. The crowd seems to have forgotten their dependence on God and expected Jesus to be another human Moses (“The Prophet” in verse 14, reminiscent of Deuteronomy 18:15-18). Their thinking was limited to human terms, and that filter affected their perception of everything Jesus said. When He told them that the true bread came from heaven, they asked Him for a perpetual supply. In spite of what He said, the mention of bread from heaven apparently sounded to them like the manna they were expecting. They heard what they wanted and interpreted what He said through their own filters. They weren’t listening.
Once again, in the face of a confrontational crowd, Jesus responds patiently (did I mention that was remarkable?). He tells them as plainly as possible: “I am the bread of life” (one of His emphatic “I AM” statements). He continues to attempt to connect with them using their primary interest, bread. He uses the topic they want to talk about to direct them to Himself. At this point in the exchange He has much more to say about never hungering or thirsting, about not casting out any who come to Him, about doing the Father’s will and raising up what the Father gives Him. Incredibly, amazingly, almost unbelievably, all the people do is grumble about His identity. He’s just a young man from a local family. Not one question. Our group speculated on what questions the crowd might have aksed, about “Casting out from where?” or “Raising up to what?” or even about never hungering or thirsting. Jesus makes amazing, thought-provoking statements and all they can do is grumble. They really weren’t listening.
Our discussion considered the perspective of the crowd – perhaps we are being too hard on them. They were responding based on what they knew. They understood bread. They knew the story of the Exodus and manna. They knew Joseph and Mary in a nearby town. But some of the things Jesus was saying didn’t quite fit. “Coming down from heaven” was especially troubling to them. That was the main reason for their grumbling (v. 41). And as one person observed, the subject of the action changes from “the crowd” or “the people” that have been mentioned since the beginning of the chapter. Now the grumblers are described as “the Jews.” Surely most if not all of the crowd were Jews. But John (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) changes the wording here to particularly associate the negative response with “the Jews.” Perhaps these were the religious leaders that were also part of the crowd. Maybe they were even bystanders watching to see this interesting exchange between Jesus and the people. In any case, they heard the astonishing things Jesus said, and all they could do was grumble. They weren’t listening.
The application portion of our discussion took the examples of the communication style of Jesus (patient, clear, responsive) and the style of the crowd/Jews (half-listening, self-motivated, manipulative). In conversations we (I) can often be more like the crowds. We listen to the other person just enough to pick up a word or two that triggers something in our mind that we want to say. The person may still be talking, but we are formulating our response, missing much of what they are saying, waiting for our opportunity to spring as soon as they pause for a breath (or maybe sooner). Instead we need the model of Jesus, patiently listening (really listening) to the other person. Because we have the indwelling Holy Spirit we can have the freedom to listen to another person (and simultaneously listen to the Spirit) without the pressure of worrying about how we will respond. Like Jesus, then we can respond with words that truly connect with the other person and where their heart is. We can listen as long as the person wants to talk without feeling anxiety that we need to get our two-cents in immediately. We can learn James’ admonition, to be quick to hear and slow to speak. We can listen in dependence on the Spirit promised by Jesus, depending on Him to give us the best response for the person we are listening to. May we be people who listen to Jesus, and who listen like Jesus.
Our discussion included a few brief comments about the implication of Jesus words, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (v. 37). That brief sentence is packed with theological meaning, but a fuller discussion will have to wait until we see more of what Jesus has to say in the rest of John 6. One of the goals of this discussion group is to focus on the text with an inductive methodology. As interesting (and lively!) as theological discussion can be, it is critical that we continuously focus on the text and let theology grow out of that rich soil, rather than allow theology to become a filter for how we interpret the text. One of the obvious limitations of the approach we are using in the group is the artificial segmenting of the passages. Separating some of the things Jesus said in this long discourse is one of the unfortunate consequences, but hopefully we can bring some “loose ends” together as we keep going.