In the biblical story, Jesus has just fed thousands with bread and shared his disdain for their interest only in the miraculous signs he performs. He wants them to be interested in more than just dinner, to understand that he is the true manna/bread from heaven. If Jesus wanted those disciples and the crowd to understand something, he most certainly wants us to understand something as well. Just what will we discover about the bread of life? How does Jesus feed our souls?

I have at least once in my work at Saint James talked about this passage. That Sunday my sermon and its contents were in the Washington Times and I remember clearly the phone I call I received from a church-goer from another denomination who disagreed vehemently with my interpretation of the meaning and told me the ONLY meaning of this passage is that we need to take communion, that Jesus is in the bread. I told this person that certainly they could interpret the passage that way and that their interpretation was valid, that both of us were right. That began a long round-and-round debate which ultimately ended with my indication to the caller that we’d probably not see eye to eye and we’d have to leave it at that.

At the outset, reading this passage again I see that indeed Jesus is the bread of life, that he sustains me in my daily living. I find some of that sustenance in weekly communion but Jesus as bread for me reaches beyond communion and into my daily living in other ways. As I begin to ponder what this passage is saying for our community at Saint James and for em personally, I look forward to the unfolding of this passage for us all.

Comforting images of the shepherds are mostly guessing and intuiting as well. The shepherd protects the sheep, risks his life for the sheep, and generally ties the well-being of the sheep to his own. There is more to discover and more about who Jesus is. I’ll keep looking and listening.

A six-week series on who Jesus said he was/is from the gospel of John. Metaphors are sometimes challenging to translate for us into everyday living so I was thinking that  talking about living water/resurrection/bread/good shepherd images of Jesus for us today might be helpful and even encouraging. What do you think? Share a comment if you would.

My Wednesday night group gave me a lot to chew over. I was originally thinking about  discerning God’s will in terms of individual decisions but the group pushed me to think about long-term direction. Do we dare plan for the long-term or is a decision-by-decision approach all we can do? Is there a broad, overarching group of expectations that can guide discernment? Are some decisions clear? How can we know what God wants?

It also seems to me that trying to discern God’s will, actually stopping to ask what God may want us to do even if it is not clear opens us to the possibility of discovering that will much more than simply deciding without asking. If we are not interested in knowing God’s will, the likelihood that we will discern it is diminished. Attention to the issues, to the will of God is the beginning of being better able to discern it.

I am hoping to have more and clearer things to say about this later this week/today.

Still, this week we are meant to talk about the conditional and situational will of God. It is not about settling on less than what God wants but allowing us freedom and giving us choice. Perhaps God adapts to the current set of circumstances and to the accomplishment of the ultimate will of God, the reconciliation of the world.

I find myself looking at Abraham’s argument with God (Genesis 18:16-33), Jonah’s disappointment when God doesn’t follow through with destruction of Nineveh (Jonah 3-4), or Moses argument with God about the destruction of Israel (Exodus 32:7-14). God’s ultimate will guides what is done in the given circumstances