Over the last few Sundays, we have listened to the discourse on The Bread of Life from John's gospel. The discourse is set in the desert. The parallel Old Testament text has been from the book of Exodus. The people of Israel are being led by Moses through the desert from the slavery of Egypt. But they had no idea where he was taking them to. In last Sunday's reading we had the Israelites venting their frustration by rebelling against Moses in the desert. "Why did you lead us out here to die in the wilderness," they objected. "At least we had full pans of meat to eat in Egypt."
We have a similar revolt against Jesus in the gospel today. The people who surrounded Jesus were also starving in the desert. He had provided food for them. As we read in today's gospel, the Jews begin to dispute among themselves. Jesus had said to them: "You are only here because I gave you your fill to eat." Like babies, they were happy when their bellies were full. They were not really interested in his meaning or his message. The fact that he put himself forwards as the Bread of Life, the answer to humanity's deepest questions, meant nothing to them.
Later on in chapter 6 of John we learn that many of them simply refused to walk with him any more. The Jews rebel against Jesus just as their ancestors had rebelled against Moses. And both rebellions, we are told, took place in the desert. The desert is a place of testing, a place of rebellion.
The incident recorded in our first rading today also takes place in the wilderness. Elisha Jezebel, a Phoenician pagan, has become queen in Israel. She introduced the worship of the pagan God Baal. Elisha vigorously opposed this practice and he suffered for his convictions. He flees into the desert and collapses from exhaustion, refusing even to eat or drink. The angel of the Lord intervenes and urges him to take 'food for the journey'. Strengthened by that food, he makes the 40 day journey to Mount Horeb, the place when God traditionally reveals himelf.
Writers have often identified similarities between the history of the People of Israel in the history of every human grouping and indeed the history of each individual human being. The history of every human being has its echo in the history of Israel. Adam and Eve were blissfully happy in the Garden of Eden, just as every infant is blissfully happy in infancy, provided its basic needs are attended to. No labour is demanded, no decisions have to be made, no responsibility taken on board. All of that is done for us.
But the time came when Adam and Eve had to be thrown out of the Garden, just as every child has to leave the cradle initially and the home eventually. It is a painful experience but it is the price we pay for our struggle towards maturity. Interestingly enough, the bible tells us that they were thrown out because `they had eaten of the tree of knowledge'. Both we are told became conscious of their nakedness. In other words they had passed out of infancy to some state of self-awareness.
Now as every parent knows, and as psychologists and educationalists tell us, when we come under pressure in adult life, we tend to revert to our state of infancy, to throw the very tantrums we threw in childhood. But the bible tells us that God put an angel with a flaming sword at the gate of Eden. In other words, there will be no returning to infancy.
In the same way, the people of Israel, when they came under pressure in the desert, wanted Moses to lead them back to Egypt where they had plenty to eat, where their basic requirements were satisfied. But Moses pointed out to them that the journey back was not only physcially impossible; it was also psychologically impossible. They had been changed by the experience of the desert. The Egypt they left decades ago would not now satisfy them. Asking for a return to Egypt was simply an exercise in sterile nostalgia.
The same dynamism applies to all human groups, including the Catholic Church. In times of cultural or religious crisis, such as the one we are experiencing at the moment, various groups emerge who advocate a return to the practices and habits of the past. You will have people hankering after the Latin Mass, longing for a return of the Old Church, when everything was black and white and everyone knew their station. The bishops were totally in charge, the rules were extensive and clear. All my decisions were made for me, a clear paralell to the world of infancy, in fact. But this another exercise in nostalgia.
The bread that Jesus offers us is 'bread for the journey', the bread that sustains us on our pilgrimage towards christian maturity, our daily bread, not the stale bread of nostalgia, but the bread that makes sense of our contemporary world.
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