This morning’s Gospel reading is John 6:24–35:

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered them and said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.” 

So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.” So they said to him, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 

So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” 

What do we seek for fulfillment? Do we look for that which truly satisfies, or just that which slakes our appetites of the moment? 

To put this question into context, let's consider a quote from the excellent John Sayles film from 1988, Eight Men Out. The film tells a stylized version of the true story of the 1919 Chicago "Black Sox" scandal, in which several players threw the World Series for two syndicates of gamblers. Most of the money evaporated in the end, thanks to double-dealing and welching. One of the gamblers explained to his henchman why he wouldn't pay the players what they'd been promised:

Sport Sullivan: You know what you feed a dray horse in the morning if you want a day's work out of him?

Jimmy: What?

Sport Sullivan: Just enough so he knows he's hungry.

This comes to mind in both the Gospel reading and our first reading from Exodus, in which the Israelites bitterly complain about their rescue from slavery. The Israelites had served 400 years at hard labor in service to the Egyptians, oppressed and impoverished, and in at least one instance the victims of a genocide -- the murders of the firstborn male children of the Israelites, which Moses himself escaped as a baby. 

By the time that we pick up their story in this reading from Exodus 16, the Lord has not just released them from their bondage, He has done so with a series of plagues on their enslavers, protected them from death in the Passover, and miraculously defeated the Egyptians at the Red Sea. The preceding chapter to this passage literally consists of a song of praise, followed by a miraculous cleansing of water and an instruction to obey the Lord as a way to prosper and thrive.

And in almost the next moment, the Israelites have begun to complain. And not just complain, but to praise their Egyptian slavers as more merciful than the Lord. Suddenly, their recollection of their time in bondage has become downright nostalgic:

The whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “Would that we had died at the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! But you had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine!”

Bear in mind that the Lord had anointed Moses and Aaron to lead the Israelites to their own Promised Land. The Lord had expressed His love for His people not just in words but also in actions, which these Israelites had seen with their own eyes. He intended to create through them a nation of priests and prophets by which His salvation would bring the entire world to paradise. 

And the Israelites still preferred those who gave them just enough to eat so that they knew they were hungry. Their focus remained on their appetites rather than their faith and their freedom, which the Lord had provided. Not only did they have little faith, their appetites had become so warped that they preferred slavery than freedom as long as they got dray-horse provisions, in Sport Sullivan's analogy. 

In the end, the Lord provided both manna and quail for the Israelites' daily provisions. Likewise, Jesus fed the multitudes through the miracle of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fish, as we read last week. For this, the crowd loved Jesus, but Jesus knew that this came from the sating of their appetites and not necessarily through their grasp of His teachings. They had not even recognized this as a sign, at least not yet.

Jesus used this moment to make clear what that sign actually meant. Salvation doesn't come from full bellies; it comes from adhering to and trusting in the Word of God. The Word itself is the true bread from the Lord. It is that which feeds us in our faith, and it is the Word of God that we must consume, both figuratively and literally in the Eucharist, to never hunger and never thirst.

This gets us back to Sport Sullivan and Eight Men Out. None of those involved in the 1919 Black Sox scandal had clean hands. White Sox owner Charles Comiskey was a notorious tightwad who underpaid his players even by the standards of the time. The players resented Comiskey and wanted to get paid more, and figured they could make it up by sticking it to Comiskey on the field. The gamblers exploited the situation to cheat bettors and the players out of their money. All of this is a tragedy based on greed and faithlessness, especially as Sayles frames it in the film. 

This is what happens with sin. We lose faith and start looking for ways to serve our appetites, and those ways inevitably become self-destructive. Our bellies begin to dictate our actions and warp our wills away from the Lord. Jesus warns us about that very impulse in this Gospel reading today, telling the crowd not to confuse a dinner with the eternal sustenance that faith provides. 

Otherwise, we become nothing but dray horses at the service of the temptors, trapped by our appetites that provide us only enough to know we're still hungry. That is the slavery of sin from which Jesus comes to free us -- a slavery of false promises that always leaves us hungry for real food and freedom. Which banquet would we rather attend in the end -- the meager provisions of the world, or the eternal feast we reach by faith? 

Previous reflections on these readings:

• What exactly are we hungry for? Sunday reflection (2021)
• Food for the journey: Sunday reflection (2018)
• Sunday reflection: John 6:24–35 (2015)

The front page image is "Sea Port With the Lecture of Christ" by Jan Brueghel the Elder, c. 1600-1625. Currently on display at the Alte Pinakothek museum in Munich, Germany. Via Wikimedia Commons. 

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.