Br. John R. Barker, OFM

Jan 28 2025

The Bread of Life

The song makes me quake inside even now. The first time I heard it, I was at a large conference. Still young in faith, I sang the chorus with my whole being as several thousand people processed toward the altar, “And I will raise you up, and I will raise you up, and I will raise you up on the last day.” My ribcage swelled with elation. My mind floated into grandeur. My heart burned with the promise of eternal life. There was nothing so rich as the Bread of Life, here, present among us.

Strengthened by that food, I have walked for the forty years that have followed.

The song goes on: “You who come to me shall not hunger; you who believe in me shall not thirst.” The internal quavering starts again: the vision so rich, the reality so imperfect. I want not to thirst. I want not to be hungry. But I thirst. I hunger. That chasm between what could be and what is, that ache, that yearning for something more, trembles within me.

I walk down the steps. My thumb and forefinger dip into the ciborium, select a small round host and hold it up to the first young man in line: “The Body of Christ.” People come forward in a stream. Hands extend in front of me: rough hands, manicured hands. Some tongues lengthen. Then more hands: flat hands, young hands, shrunken hands, eager hands.

“The Bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world,” sings the congregation. Do we recognize the magnitude of what we are doing here? No? A little bit? I shiver again as we sing, “Yes, Lord, I believe, that you are the Christ . . .” And they keep coming. Palms unfold, reaching for the Bread of Life, murmuring “Amen,” “Amen,” “Amen,” to the grandeur in our midst.

Consider/Discuss

God asks us to sing a song of surrender as we receive the Body of Christ. We have nothing to give but ourselves as we open our hands. In the strength of that food, how can we walk another forty years, even if it takes us into the gates of heaven?
Creation is radiant with the splendor of God. Sometimes we perceive that glory. Other times, the world just looks drab. On this summer day, with the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, where do we see the grandeur of God “flaming out”? Is it only in church? Do we experience it at other times as well?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord Jesus, Bread of Life, your love burns within me. Your Body and Blood sustain me. Your life invigorates me. And yet, never do I get enough of you. On this side of heaven, I still shake with longing for you to come, come heal the brokenness of this world and my life. I cannot grasp you. But you seize me. You are with us in the breaking of the bread. Amen.

Jan 28 2025

Scripture Study for

John’s vision of the woman and the dragon begins a section of Revelation that focuses on the power of evil—Satan—to oppose both God and God’s people. Although the power is formidable and truly destructive, in the end it does not prevail. The woman adorned with the stars, sun, and moon (see Genesis 37:9–10) represents Israel, who gives birth to the Messiah. Satan, of course, wishes to prevent this, but God rescues the child and also the “mother,” God’s people, who are also threatened by evil. The passage immediately after the reading (12:7–9) recounts the battle in heaven between Satan and Michael, which ends with Satan being thrown down to earth. Our reading resumes with a hymn of praise for God’s victory over Satan.

Paul has been responding to the claims of some that there is no resurrection, to which he answers that if there is no resurrection, then Christ was not raised from the dead and—if this is the case— then we have no hope (15:12–19). But Christ has been raised, and now Paul explains the implications. Christ has been victorious not only over his own personal death but over death absolutely. Just as our human existence and experience of death is corporate (“in Adam”), so also will be our experience of life “in Christ.” Those who “belong to Christ” will be the next to be raised, and then finally all will be raised when Christ comes into his kingdom.

Luke’s account of the Visitation features what might be termed two prophetic oracles, in the sense that both Elizabeth and Mary praise God and announce what God is doing. Elizabeth’s greeting to Mary focuses on Mary as “blessed” both because she is the “mother of my Lord” and also because she has believed what God has spoken. Mary begins by “proclaiming the greatness of the Lord” for the blessing God has given her, but immediately turns to the larger redemptive work of God, which is the reason for Mary’s blessedness. This redemptive work involves overturning the power of the proud, the rich, and the mighty in favor of the weak and lowly. All of this is done because God remains faithful to ancient promises.

Jan 28 2025

Scripture Study for

As God’s prophet, Elijah makes enemies of king Ahab and his wife, Jezebel. In the scene immediately preceding the reading, Elijah has bested Jezebel’s prophets of Baal, whom he puts to death (18:1–46). Jezebel’s response is predictable: she will have the head of the prophet, who now flees for his life into the wilderness (19:1–3). Here we find him praying for death. But his task as God’s man is not done, and so an angel comes to bring him some food. This, then, is not simply a story of God providing food, but is particularly a story of God providing food to sustain the prophet so that he can continue divinely-commanded work.

Paul reminds the Gentile Ephesians that they have been brought into the household of God in Christ through baptism and “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (1:13). Those who fail to conform to the character of God by “living in love,” the same self-giving love shown to them in Christ’s “sacrificial offering,” grieve the Spirit who has been given to them as a pledge of their adoption. The emphasis here, as throughout the letter, is that the church, as the people of God formed to announce God’s salvation, must in its internal and external relationships reflect the love that motivates that salvation. The world must be able to see God’s love in the church created by God.

When Jesus announces to the people that he is the “bread come down from heaven,” the bread the people have asked to receive, they turn on him. Jesus cannot possibly have “come down from heaven”— they know exactly who he is, the “son of Joseph.” Jesus’ call to “stop murmuring” recalls Israel’s “murmuring” in the wilderness when they didn’t believe that God would provide for them (Exodus 16:2, 7–8). The theme of belief thus now comes to the fore. Only those who listen to God (a form of belief) are able to believe further that Jesus has been sent by God and that he, indeed his very flesh, is the bread of life, which is far greater than any manna.

Jan 28 2025

Scripture Study for

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.

Jan 27 2025

Scripture Study for

The books of Kings contain several stories of the prophets Elijah and Elisha providing for the destitute. During a drought, Elijah ensures that a widow’s jars of flour and oil will not go empty until the drought ends (1 Kings 17:9–16). Elisha performs a similar miracle for another widow, filling all of her vessels with olive oil for her to sell (2 Kings 4:1–7). Here we have a multiplication of barley loaves. All of these stories point to the providence of God, particularly for the needy. The role of the prophets is necessary, however, for it is through them that God provides for “the widow and the orphan,” a care that God insists throughout scripture is the job of all Israel.

In last’s week reading, Paul spoke of the reconciling action of Christ, who reconciled Jew to Gentile and both to God, creating “in himself one new person” and bringing peace. Paul now returns to the theme of unity and peace. The church does not exist for itself but has a mission to announce God’s plan of salvation in Christ, which requires that Christians reflect the unifying and reconciling work of Christ by their behavior toward one another. Others must be able to see that the church, though made up of very different people, is “one body” (not a collection of individuals), animated by one Spirit, motivated by one shared hope in the one God and the one Lord, Jesus Christ.

For the next few weeks, the Lectionary departs from Mark in favor of John’s account of the feeding of the five thousand and the Bread of Life discourse. As Jesus heals the sick, he attracts a huge crowd, whom he intends to feed. Whereas Philip had noted that they would never have been able to buy enough to feed all the people, Jesus feeds them so well that there is plenty of food left over. The people rightly understand at least one implication of what Jesus has done, which is that he is no ordinary wonder worker, but “the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world” (see John 1:9). He will soon explain to them an even more astounding—and difficult— truth about who he is.