You heard me say last Sunday that our son left the nest in May and moved into his own house. We miss him very much at home. However, because he lives only about twelve minutes away, we do not experience the separation as much as we would have otherwise.
About two times each week, he comes home in the evenings when he gets off work. Each time he comes home, he says: “I can smell the food you have cooked as soon I park the car outside, and that smell reminds me of home and the food I had at home.” You all know that I am the cook at home :).
Last evening, our son came home late, had dinner, watched the Olympic games with us until late, and left around midnight. As he left, he said, “I miss the food at home and will come again on Monday evening.”
After he had left and as I was lying in bed, I reflected again on this Sunday's Gospel Reading. It reminded me of a beautiful story Linda Fang had told.
Linda is a professional storyteller who grew up in Shanghai. She specialises in bringing Chinese folk stories to diverse audiences, including adults and children from around the world. Stories from historical anecdotes, Chinese folktales, Chinese theatre, and oral traditions inspire her.
I cannot remember whether the story I will share with you was in her popular book The Ch’i-lin Purse: A Collection of Ancient Chinese Stories or a story on record that she had told an audience. I used to collect her stories and read them to our son and daughter when they were small children.
Linda tells the story like this:
A father and his three sons lived at the foot of a great mountain in China. They were a simple and loving family. The father noticed that travellers came from afar eager to climb the dangerous mountain, but none of them ever returned!
The three sons heard stories about the mountain, how it was made all of gold and silver at the top. Despite their father’s warnings, they could not resist venturing up the mountain. Along the way, under a tree, sat a beggar, but the sons did not speak to him or give him anything. They ignored him.
One by one, the sons disappeared up the mountain, the first to a house of rich food, the second to a house of fine wine, the third to a house of gambling. Each became a slave to his desire and forgot his home.
Meanwhile, their father became heartsick. He missed them terribly. “Danger aside,” he said, “I must find my sons.” Once he scaled the mountain, the father found that, indeed, the rocks were gold, the streams silver. But he hardly noticed. He only wanted to reach his sons, to help them remember the life of love they once knew.
On the way down, having failed to find them, the father noticed the beggar under the tree and asked for his advice. “The mountain will give your sons back,” said the beggar, “only if you bring something from home to cause them to remember the love of their family.”
The father raced home, brought back a bowl full of rice, and gave the beggar some as a thank-you for his wisdom. He then found his sons, one at a time, and carefully placed a grain of rice on the tongue of each of them. At that moment, the sons recognised their foolhardiness. Their real-life was now apparent to them. They returned home with their father, and as one loving family lived happily ever after.
Today’s Gospel reading continues from last week, which focuses on a discussion between Jesus and the crowds about bread that comes from Heaven. As I shared with you in the sermon last week, the main teaching was that Jesus is the gift from the Father for the life of the world. Therefore, verse 35 is included to make the necessary connection back to Jesus’ claim that he himself is the bread of life.
Today’s reading builds on that claim and highlights that Jesus is the centre of our faith to which the Father draws His children.
Let us look at what’s happening in this conversation between Jesus and the crowd. (You may wish to have the Gospel reading opened in front of you)
In verse 41, the crowds who had made such efforts to find Jesus after he had crossed the lake begin to complain, in the same way the children of Israel had done in the wilderness (Exodus 17:3). As found in verse 42, the crowd’s complaint and their difficulty in understanding what Jesus is saying are caused by their own presumed knowledge of Jesus.
They conclude that he has not come from Heaven because they know that he is Joe’s and Mary’s son.
Here is an excellent example of familiarity breeding contempt. The crowd is aghast that the one they had known from the neighbourhood, went to school with, and grown up together with doesn’t add up to what Jesus claims to be.
Here is the irony: the knowledge the crowd claims to know of Jesus through his “father and mother” only reveals their complete ignorance of the Father who sent Jesus (verse 44).
The truth is not found in knowing the human parents who raised Jesus but in knowing that Jesus has come from the Father in Heaven. The crowd’s self-professed knowledge prevents them from recognising the truth.
Here, we see Jesus speaking to you and me today. Often, we also suffer from the same difficulty of seeing beyond what we “know” to be true so that we might see Jesus as the one who is in our midst, reminding us of Home.
For our son and the three sons in Linda’s story, food reminded them of home. In the same way, Jesus is saying, “I AM that Bread, that food, that reminds you of Home. “
Since we cannot see beyond what we see, like the father in the story placing a grain of rice on each of his three sons' tongues, God has stepped out to draw us into faith.
God the Father stepping out to draw us into faith is the focus of today’s Gospel reading.
The faith the Father is drawing us into is not our bland piety. Faith is not a choice we make—it is the activity of the Father drawing people to Jesus. The word “draw” used in verse 44 is the same word used to describe fishing nets being hauled into a boat. In other words, we must be dragged into faith by God; there is no other way to come.
However, what does that say about the grumblers and complainers in the story? What does it say about those around and among us who, to all appearances, have not yet been drawn to Jesus? What does it say about ourselves when we recognise our resistance to faith to be so deep and persistent?
There are no easy answers to such questions, but today’s Gospel promises hope and declares that God draws people to faith in Jesus. God is busy doing that right now in our midst.
Yes, there is the call to faith. Each time you and I reach out to people and our families, that call to faith is apparent. This call to faith is also demonstrated by the fact that there is a church in the heart of our community and a ministry to the community from the church.
All those of our attempts and witnesses to the call of faith would bear fruit at the right time. They have their own place in God’s activity in the world.
But the principal drawer is God the Father. Therefore, even to the grumblers in the story—and here in our communities and families—Jesus comes as the Bread of Life, opening ours and their eyes and hearts to new possibilities.
So, as Jesus offers himself to us as the Bread of Life that has come down from Heaven, we have received a reminder of Home. The taste of that food, that Bread of Life, will help us remember who we are and to whom and where we belong and return Home.
Like in the case of the three sons in the story, wouldn’t it be a nice ending if we, too, could leave whatever mountain we are on and live forever in a loving family? And wouldn’t it be nice for our son to leave his house – the mountain on which he is-- and come back home to live with his parents and sister?
However, that is not what returning home means. While we still draw breath and must complete this life the Father has given us in this world, the time to do so has not yet come.
What happens instead is that when the Father draws us to Himself by reminding us of Home through the taste of Heaven's food, Jesus, the Bread of Life, we come to know that our Father is with us on the mountain. Because He is with us, we are Home already.
The mountain on which we are is not a place of isolation, fear, darkness, and danger. Once we eat what the Father gives us and open our eyes, we see that even this mountain shimmers with the light of Heaven. Home is where God the Father is; since He is with us, we are called to live as though we are Home already. Amen
Let us pray:
Lord Jesus, you are the Bread of Life, the manna which sustains us in the desert of our daily lives. Without you, we hunger for righteousness but will forever be found wanting. Sustain us, O Lord, and keep us in your graces through the vessel of your most Holy Body and Blood. For your love’s sake, we pray. Amen. (NZ Prayer Book)
