In the beginning was a meal[1]…
Others were noticed in their hunger…
Five loaves and two fish were offered…
Twelve baskets of food were leftover…
Was it a miracle of God or a miracle of sharing?
Does it matter?
All were fed…
And, at least for a moment, people opened beyond the confines of their own skin, beyond their own self-interests…
In so opening, the bread of life is encountered, the living bread which promises to sustain beyond this fleeting moment[2]…
And, as the story daringly suggests, those who live this encounter, who live beyond the confines of their own skin, who embrace this way will hunger and thirst no more…
Those who remain with Jesus are offered the way of discipleship, that way unfolding and enfolding life, death and life again[3]…
Those who abide in the way of the Christ embrace the way of the universal self in which the call of the other is heard and acted upon[4]…
To abide or remain with Jesus is to learn to live beyond oneself, to place the needs of the interdependent whole before those incessant and insatiable ego demands which enclose and separate one from another…
To abide with Jesus is to learn that our most authentic self is one which is in sync with the interdependent origins of all life.
The truth is, none of us is self-made, none of us pulls ourselves up by our own boot straps, none of us is the centre of anything – we are part of the whole, known only within it…
We are literally in this together…
To remain with Jesus is to embrace the way of abundant life[5], not in terms of me and mine but rather, us and ours[6]…
To remain with Jesus is to withdraw support for and participation in mechanistic ideologies and technologies which, blinded as they are by hubris, seek to assert control and grasp after ‘power over’…
To abide with Jesus is to learn the way of limits and restraint, of living simply in order that others may simply live…
But to be clear, to abide, to remain with Jesus is not easy nor is it a quick fix; we will tend to resist learning the ways of restraint…
So let’s be honest, to change the practices of dominant culture is difficult but do we have a choice?
As Wendell Berry says,
“…we will either have to live within our limits…or not live at all.”[7]
Which is of course to say – the struggle is real…
It is a struggle to practice non-violence in a world which markets violence…
It is a struggle to speak of vision in a world blinded by arrogance and pride…
It is a struggle to confront wage disparity in a world in which more is always better…
It is a struggle to address hunger, unemployment and other social ills in a world still shaped by the pernicious belief that ‘god helps those who help themselves’[8]…
It is a struggle to live differently in a world where the earth is continually seen as a natural ‘resource’…
It is a struggle to value beauty in a world where the prevailing ethos is one of utility…
The struggle is real and the way out is as nonsensical and as paradoxical as it always was – ‘we must lose our life in order to save it’[9]…
So why not risk our life – after all, where else are we to go for Jesus has ‘the words of eternal life’[10]…
So let’s move forward, tentatively perhaps, with Julian of Norwich as she says:
I know at times I will be troubled,
I know at times I will be belaboured,
I know at times I will be disquieted,
But I believe that I will not be overcome.
Footnotes
[1] See John 6:1-14.
[2] See John 6:35, 48
[3] ‘You have the words of eternal life’ See John6:68.
[4] This call, this hearing, this action is the nexus of divinity – a sacred internodal event.
[5] See John 10:10
[6] See Sallie McFague, Blessed Are The Consumers: Climate Change and The Practice of Restraint (Fortress Press, 2013) p.147. The belief in individualism (never to be confused with individuality) is beyond doubt in our culture. As a young person I can remember my father saying with absolute conviction, “It’s mine! I earned it! I’ll do whatever I want with it!” To put it simply, he was wrong!
[7] Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977) p. 94
[8] Many assume that this is biblical; it’s not, it’s Benjamin Franklin.
[9] See Matthew 16:25; Luke 9:24
[10] See John 6:68b
