The Waking Dreamer: Filled?

Tuesday, August 03, 2021

Filled?

John 6:25-35[1]

When I was growing up, culture observers often referred to the young people of 1970’s and 80’s as the “me generation.” After the idealism of the civil rights movement, many young people became disillusioned. A sense of responsibility to family and society began to be replaced with seeking “self-fulfillment” and “finding yourself.” Perhaps the best example of this was the sitcom “Seinfeld,” which was explicitly created as a “show about nothing.” If you’ve seen the show, you know that characters are all noticeably self-absorbed. This outlook on life became embodied in a culture obsessed with entertainment and possessed by the quest for more possessions. We became a people seeking by any and all means to be “filled.”

Unfortunately, that shift in our culture also affected our approach to spirituality. Rather than seeing the church as a place where we can live out our commitment to loving God and loving others, church became another “product.” “Church shopping” became a common feature of life. People began to speak about church as a place to be “fed” or “filled,” rather than as a place where they could serve. And if your church didn’t “feed” or “fill” you, you went looking for another church that would. We became “consumers” of religion just as we are consumers of any other product.

While it’s easy to blame this on “people these days” being too shallow, I think we have to reckon with the reality that people have always had a complicated relationship with religion. From the dawn of civilization, people have used religion as a means to an end—whether that end might be a happy home, or prosperity, or protection from threats. Those of you who have joined us on our journey of reading through the Bible may have noticed that, from the very beginning, the people of Israel demonstrated a shallow commitment to God. The prophets continually called them from their own pursuits to love God with all their hearts and to reflect that love in the way they lived.

It should come as no surprise to us, then, that the crowd that sought out Jesus after he miraculously fed the 5000 didn’t “get it.” As Jesus told them in our Gospel lesson for today, “you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves” (Jn. 6:26). Jesus almost scolds them for seeking him out not because they recognized that God was working through him, or because they were drawn to the new quality of life he offered, but simply because they ate a good meal (cf. Jn 6:11). They were “fed” and “filled,” literally speaking, and they wanted more!

But Jesus challenged them to go beyond their superficial motives and seek something deeper than simply another meal. Jesus consistently refused to give in to their requests for “one more sign.” I think he recognized that those who came to him simply because they saw something miraculous would always need one more miracle. And so, whenever they asked him for a “sign” to enable them to believe, he refused. I think part of what we’re to learn from this is that a faith that constantly seeks some kind of external confirmation is not really faith at all.

So when they asked him what they should do, he answered them straightforwardly: “believe in him whom [God] has sent” (Jn 6:29). Unfortunately, they were not able to see their way clear to do that. They were still looking for “proof.” So they asked him to repeat the sign of feeding them miraculously. But he warned them not to seek the fulfillment of their lives in the “food that perishes” (Jn 6:27). Rather, he pointed them to “the bread of God that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (Jn 6:33).

The tragedy in this episode is that the vast majority of the people in this crowd that thronged to Jesus were not looking for a way to become more committed to God. They were simply looking for another way to be “filled.” And so they missed the fact that the “bread” that Jesus was talking about was not something they could serve up on a plate. Rather, he was talking about himself: he was the “bread” that would truly satisfy their hunger. He was the one who would give them the life they longed for.

We are a society of people constantly looking for ways to be “filled.” We run from one thing to another trying to fill the empty places in our hearts, whether through achievements, success, prosperity, influence, fame, approval, possessions, people, or even food and drink. But the truth is that all the things we use to try to “fill” ourselves only leave us empty, dissatisfied, always wanting something more. One of the great ironies of life is that we find the most fulfillment when we give our lives away to others as we share the love we have received from God.

Our gospel lesson reminds us that the only “bread” that can truly satisfy our hunger is the life that God offers us through Jesus. But believing in the one whom God sent means more than just acknowledging Jesus as God’s son. And Eternal life is about more than just a way to have assurance of life after death. It’s about experiencing God’s love in such a way that instead of spending our lives looking for ways to be “filled,” we respond to Jesus’ call by committing our lives to following him and his ways. It means “signing on” with him and with the life he lived, and the life he calls us to live in service to others. Only when we do that will we find ourselves truly “filled.”