Scripture Study for
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Exodus 16:2–4, 12–15 / Psalm 78:24b / Ephesians 4:17, 20–24 / John 6:24–35
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Understanding the Word
By Br. John R. Barker, OFM
After their deliverance from Egypt, Israel finds itself in the wilderness, where the people begin to murmur that they have no food and water. The failure to trust that God will provide for them leads them to fear they will perish, which in turn causes them to regret leaving “the house of bondage” in the first place. It is imperative at this early stage of the relationship that God show Israel the capability to provide for their most basic needs. This will be important later when God insists that Israel must not turn to any other gods for assistance in such matters. Thus the provision of manna (from the Hebrew man hu, “What is this?”).
Paul has been urging the Ephesians to recognize that, having been renewed and transformed through their incorporation into the one church, they are not the same people they were before they were baptized. They are fundamentally and radically different now, and they must begin immediately to acknowledge this. Their baptism and incorporation into Christ’s body must mean, among other things, a complete reassessment of their lives, leading to a renewal in their way of thinking and of evaluating the world and its ways. Now, as members of God’s church, they must manifest the very character of God, which is “righteousness and holiness of truth.”
Shortly after the feeding of the five thousand, the people find Jesus in Capernaum, where their initial question, “When did you get here?” begins a dialogue about Jesus himself. He accuses the people of setting their sights too low by “working” for perishable food instead of seeking eternal life. They take this to mean that they themselves can “work” for this “food,” but the only work they can, or need to, do is to believe in him, who was sent by the Father. Now skeptical, the people demand proof of this. Moses was sent by God and provided manna in the desert; what can Jesus do? He responds that it was God who gave manna in the desert and it is now God who gives the “true” (authentic, incomparable) bread from heaven, the source of life, Jesus himself.