beyond the images (Chris Jewell)

I AM the bread of life.  ANOCHI, THE BREAD OF LIFE---Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. We hear the words---but do we hear, experience, the reality those words point to? Or is something in the way?

Last week I discussed the fact that John has historically been described as a mystical gospel. I mentioned that the word mystical points to the art of establishing conscious relation with the absolute or God. If I wish to establish a conscious relation with anything—including God, I must first direct my attention to it. This week at the Salvation Army a man in recovery said, and I am paraphrasing here, “Chris, my sponsor tells me to put my sobriety first and that everything else will work out.—that sounds like AA BS” The man, a person with a strict conservative church background, went on, “If Jesus tells me to do it I will—but not just because some white kid in AA tells me to.” I suggested that his sponsor was just emphasizing the importance of paying attention to the right stuff—to that which will nourish, sustain—help him stay sober. I explained that contemporary brain scientists say that attention is the driving force of development and change.   And I said, by the way, Jesus does have a saying that means the same thing as your sponsor’s advice to “put your recovery first.” I grabbed a bible and pointed to John 27, a verse we read last week. “Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures to eternal life”, in other words, what are you paying attention to? What are you putting your energy into?  I went on, “that is what your sponsor is suggesting: pay attention to what will nourish you—put your energy into that which will sustain you---don’t let anything distract you from your ultimate concern—sobriety—right now you’re stuck on what and who you think your sponsor is—you don’t believe somebody that looks like him can teach you anything—you have an image of this guy that is preventing you from seeing what he wants to teach you” all of us—those in the church and those outside of the church can benefit from his sponsor’s advice to pay attention to what will ultimately sustain and nourish.  As we saw last week, John, all throughout his gospel, teaches us what he believes we should be paying attention to. He does this by consistently drawing our attention away from externals, back to the divine or spiritual represented by Jesus.  In our gospel reading today Jesus makes an outrageous claim to people that know him---or at least think they know him—in 6:35 he says, I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE WHOEVER COMES TO ME WILL NEVER BE HUNGRY AND WHOEVER BELIEVES IN ME WILL NEVER BE THIRSTY. And in verse 41 we hear how the people respond by murmuring or grumbling at him—in the Greek the word is gogguzo---our pew bibles may have it translated as complain—for the Greeks this was a word used to describe the sound of cooing doves, a murmuring in a low tone, a grumbling--- a kind of indistinct noise—how often do we miss ANOCHI, I AM, THE BREAD OF LIFE, because of murmuring, grumbling, verbal, and just as importantly, mental chatter or NOISE? How easily we are distracted. The people are gossiping about Jesus. How often have I participated in a noisy session of gossip that brings all the preoccupation and escape I desire? Too many times! Gossip is, it seems to me, the opposite of the state of faith,--for “Talking about others is an escape from oneself. And escape is the cause of restlessness—escape is by its very nature restless.” In our celebrity culture we are so obsessed with the affairs of other people and our technology seems to be making this worse. As we stare at these incredibly multiplying screens we become more and more externalized---AND INWARDLY EMPTY AS WE INTERACT WITH IMAGES. Throughout the gospel John consistently redirects our attention away from externals—why? The more externalized we are the more sensations and distractions we must have, and this gives rise to minds that are never quiet and that are incapable of deep search and discovery. If gossip and mental noise is an escape from self—then estrangement from I AM OR ANOCHI IS THE RESULT, for ancient Jewish mystics like Jesus engaged in a practice whereby they discovered the divine within. In fact this is a hallmark of 1^st century Jewish mystical thought—that God was to be found within the temple of the body—in the 2cd chapter of the gospel of John Jesus refers to his body as a temple. It was by looking within that mystics in that culture were said to ascend to God. AND IF WE ARE TO BELIEVE THE REPORTS OF PEOPLE LIKE PAUL, AND THE GOSPEL WRITERS, THAT JOURNEY WITHIN MYSTERIOUSLY TRANSFORMED RELATIONSHIPS—SO THAT THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN WAS SPREAD OUT UPON THE EARTH. No wonder John’s Jesus is always redirecting our attention away from externals and back to himself—for he represents the nourishing, TRANSFORMING, sustaining experience of I AM or the Bread of life we can all have. In verse 42 we hear what the people are grumbling about, what they are saying—“Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” Jesus has earlier talked about his heavenly father—and the people are once again stuck in the external or literal meaning of the word. If one is a literalist then one misses the deeper symbolic meaning behind the word. They miss it—no wonder Jesus so often sounds frustrated. Here is where I can certainly relate to the grumbling, murmuring crowd---they think they know Jesus—it is their ideas, their conclusions about Jesus that are preventing them from really experiencing the deeper level of truth he represents. Isn’t this Much like the contemporary Church?—hasn’t two thousand years of Christian tradition made many of us think we know Jesus?, hasn’t tradition constructed images of Jesus that prevent us from really seeing, hearing, and experiencing the Bread of Life? The Church has always been a battleground for people who think they know Jesus—history is littered with DUALING IMAGES OF JESUS. Currently There is the homophobic Jesus vs the Jesus who endorses gay marriage, the feminist Jesus vs the good old boy Jesus. The list could go on.  And the church stands like a murmuring crowd—full of all the mental noise this creates---and so they miss the nourishing, sustaining bread of life he is offering us. I suspect this Washington-like division is one of the major reasons many people stay away from church---they are hungry for the bread of life—not the murmuring crowd.  Unfortunately People like my-self can be the loudest mouths in the grumbling crowd—seminary education and research can—if one is not careful—construct a golden image of Jesus that then prevents the deeper experience of the mystery. Images and conclusions can be so dangerous in any kind of relationship—whether the relationship be with ONE’S SELF, ANOTHER PERSON, OR LIFE ITSELF. In the gospel story the grumbling, murmuring crowd, has an image of Jesus—and this prevents them from really experiencing him as he is in that present moment. That image is based on the past—this is little Jesus of Nazareth we know his parents—WE KNOW HIM—images are dangerous because they prevent us from REALLY PAYING ATTENTION—I KNOW YOU JESUS. I DON’T HAVE TO REALLY PAY ATTENTION TO YOU AS YOU ARE RIGHT NOW. Images allow us to transfer our experience of someone in the past to the present—and so the past covers up the present reality. reality is actually dynamic--my girlfriend cannot possibly be the same today as she was yesterday—for change is constant—but I have that image—so I don’t SEE that CHANGE, in other words, I don’t actually see my girlfriend, I see the image of my girlfriend—that is, like all images,  constructed in the past—like the crowd in our text I say I know you—I know where you come from---and thanks to the images I construct, I don’t have to pay attention to who YOU OR ANYBODY ELSE actually is in the present moment.  Images allow me to proceed without really paying attention. IMAGES DIVIDE. IMAGES SEGREGATE. IMAGES PREVENT RELATIONSHIP. BUT IF I GO DEEPER, BEYOND THE IMAGE, BEYOND THE EXTERNALS, I CAN EXPERIENCE I AM, THE BREAD OF LIFE, ANOCHI WITHIN NOT JUST MYSELF BUT WITHIN YOU AS WELL

In verses 43 and 44 we see Jesus does not approve of this grumbling, noisy crowd. HE basically says, don’t do that—stop it. And then Jesus, as he always does, points beyond himself toward THE ULTIMATE REALITY HE REPRESENTS, saying “no one comes to me unless drawn by the father who sent me” the Greek word for drawn carries the connotation of being pulled or compelled by an INWARD POWER—what we might call today a psychological shift or development. I cannot REALLY come to I AM, THE BREAD OF LIFE, unless I am pulled, drawn by God. Am I being pulled? Do I feel this inward power grasping me? Am I being grasped by a power greater than myself? Am I being pulled beyond externals, BEYOND THE SURFACE, beyond my conclusions, beyond the images I have built up so that I can PAY ATTENTION TO, SEE, AND EXPERIENCE that NOURISHING, SUSTAINING dimension of reality called I AM OR THE BREAD OF LIFE. LET IT BE SO.