Today in the Spirit: Proper 14B

In this next week of the Pentecost season, following the Proper 14B schedule of readings, we dig deeper into our meditation on Jesus as the bread of life. The assigned Gospel reading out of John 6:37-51 takes us to the next phase of our Lord’s conversation with the Jews who refuse to believe what he is telling them about himself (see v.36). In the face of their grumbling, Jesus teaches: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day (44), and I am the living bread that came down from heaven (51).

The assigned OT reading from Deuteronomy 8:1-10 contains Moses’ sermon to the Israelites at their final encampment east of the Jordan (see 1:1). Recalling here (and we remember the Exodus reading last week) their experience of receiving manna from heaven, Moses urges them once they have entered Canaan to bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you (10). On the week, we hear Jesus declaring about himself, I am the living bread that came down from heaven (Jn. 6:51). With our raised voices, we sing of say Psalm 34:[1-7]8-15[16-22], The lions lack and suffer hunger, but those who seek the LORD shall lack nothing that is good (8, BCP New Coverdale). If we, as worshipers, are led to believe that Jesus might be talking only about life after death in his teaching, this psalm reassures us that eternal life begins with the here and now.

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In our assigned NT reading from Ephesians 4:17-5:2, we find Paul now beginning to address behavior patterns in the lives of church members, such as falsehood, anger, and corrupting talk. Before he becomes too specific on outward behaviors, however, he would have them look inward to the work of Christ transforming our hearts, assisting us to put off our old self and put on the new self (see commentary below). The assigned Collect for Proper 14 is a plea to God for the further internal transformation of our lives as Christians, that he would “give us the increase of faith, hope, and love” and “make us love” what he commands.    

The Collect

Almighty God, give us the increase of faith, hope, and love; and, that we may obtain what you have promised, make us love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

The Whole Way (Deuteronomy 8:1-10)

1 “The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Deut. 8:1-3

Notice the whole commandment and the whole way and every word in this passage (the translations whole and every coming from one Hebrew adjective kōl). Moses’ sermon here is giving the Israelites not an assignment to learn an entire list of duties on a scroll (like all 600+ laws) but an instruction to take in their whole experience of following YHWH out of Egypt and through the desert to the gates of the promised land. So, consider everything: all the laws, every experience of provision and deliverance, every test of your faith. Together, this is every word that comes by the mouth of the LORD to live by.

Similar to the commentary I sought to make on the OT passage last week about manna in the desert, what we are led to devotionally this week is to take a long view of our life following Jesus Christ, seeing the consistent quality of his faithfulness. Single acts of divine provision in our times of need are quickly forgotten once a new crisis comes. Our minds in isolation can often judge times of testing as too harsh. But when we consider the whole revelation of God to his people in Scripture and couple that with our experience of walking with Jesus over the years, what do we always find? That our God is faithful, true, and merciful throughout. Every form our deliverance from trouble takes is just what we need, and every test of our faith brings us to a new level of maturity we need to reach for the next phase. It all fits.

Today, in the Spirit, I ask for wisdom to apply Moses’ instructions to the Israelites to myself, learning the whole commandment of God and the whole way that Jesus has taken me to date.

The Eyes of the LORD…the Face of the LORD (Psalm 34:[1-7]8-15[16-22])

It looks to me like finishing the required portion of this psalm at v15 cuts us off in the middle of a section of “David’s” lyrics. When we say or sing, The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous (15) in one breath and, The face of the LORD is against those who do evil in the next, we profit from a more well-rounded picture of God who both stands with the righteous and against those who do evil. Figuratively in Hebrew poetry, the eyes of God fall on the object(s) of his favor (like the apple of my eye, Ps.17:8); while the face ( or countenance, BCP New Coverdale) of God turns with contempt on his enemies (see 1 Peter 3:12 ff). Surely, to whatever extent this psalm truly reflects David’s feelings while living among the Philistines (1 Sam. 21:10-15), both sides of this picture of God’s sovereign authority would have been in view.

Devotionally, we find added assurance in this picture of God with both eyes and a face. He is not like a man who can only be turned in one direction at a time. In our prayers, we can be bold in asking for greater things because he is both actively in favor of our success and vigilantly on guard against those who would cause us to fail. Sometimes, in secular society, we may be tempted to underestimate the level of hostility set up against us, even denying we have enemies at all. While we do this to our peril, the word here assures us God is wary and watchful even when we are not. Part of our becoming brokenhearted is recognizing the severity of real opposition and the level of God’s protection against it. 

Today, Holy Spirit, we rejoice with David over your eyes and face, turned in every direction on our behalf all at once. Increase our faith in you, the Father, and the Son to take greater risks for the kingdom, knowing that all sides are covered.  

The Way You Learned Christ (Ephesians 4:17-5:2)

17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Eph. 4:17-24

After writing rather abstractly in the earlier verses of this chapter (last week’s NT reading) about maturing in Christ, Paul will now, in the remainder of this section of the letter (4:17-6:9), get down to brass tacks with a renunciation of concrete behavior patterns to be put aside by the believing community. As he begins testily with, Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds (17), we might anticipate a list of dos and don’ts to come. He does go there, but first, he would urge us to take the initiative on internal affairs:1) putting off your old self, 2) being made new in the attitude of your minds (NIV), and putting on the new self (22). First comes matters of the heart.

Devotionally, when we look to make changes in our lives out of loyalty to the Lord, we must take a cue from Paul’s writing to look inward first before going outward. The way [we] learned Christ, Paul claims, is to try the best we can to catch on to what Jesus has done and is doing inside us. Through putting our faith in our Lord’s coming, dying, rising, ascending, and sending the Holy Spirit, we have volunteered to undergo spiritual surgery, a heart transplant. We certainly have new clothes (new behaviors) to wear, but they are just the covering over the radical internal work underneath. Paul would have us strain to see and trust in that work first and only then to attend to what happens next. 

In one of his “Letters from Jack,” C.S. Lewis writes: “We are doing well enough if the slow process of being more in Christ and less in ourselves has made a decent beginning in a long life (it will be completed only in the next world). Nor can we observe it happening. All our reports on ourselves are unbelievable, even in worldly matters (no one really hears his own voice as others do or sees his own face)—much more in spiritual matters. God sees us, and we don’t see ourselves. And by trying too hard to do so, we only get the fidgets and become either too complacent or too much the other way.”

Today, in the Spirit, I will hear the apostle’s counsel to look inside and then outside.

Give Us This Bread Always (John 6:37-51)

33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” 35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” 41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

John 6:33-41

In this narrative, the people asking Jesus, “Give us this bread always” (6:34), strikes a parallel with the Samaritan woman who earlier had said, “Sir, give me this water” (4:15). But see how Jesus reacts differently in each case. Jesus discerns the woman’s true faith in him, which he proceeds to tease out of her. In our passage for today, he finds no faith (“But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe,” 36). From this point forward, Jesus speaks to them no longer about himself but only abstractly about how the Father gives to the Son those he (the Father) has chosen to be saved. As proof of their unbelief, the people who hear this part of the speech ignore it and refer back to his earlier claim that he himself is the bread that came down from heaven (41).

In seeking an application here, we would do well to imitate Jesus’ detachment from the situation in John 6. It is not as if our Lord liked the Samaritan woman and did not like these people as much. Instead, in one case, he discerned faith in him and pursued it; in the other, he recognized unbelief and let go. (He said more, but only things that made them angrier.) Friends, we need wisdom through the Holy Spirit to discern faith in Jesus coming from some and courage by the same Spirit to face unbelief coming from others. And we need to know whether to walk away from unbelief (like Jesus did in Nazareth, Lk. 4) or speak the truth further as he did here. 

Peter, who certainly witnessed our Lord handling various interactions with unbelievers, would later write:

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

1 Pet. 3:15-16

Today, Holy Spirit, in imitation of Jesus in this passage, train me in the art of discerning belief in the Son of God from some and managing unbelief from others.

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Geoff Little

Geoff Little writes the Today in the Spirit series of reflections on the ACNA Sunday and Holy Day Lectionary. He is the founding rector of All Nations Church in New Haven, Connecticut, where he lives with his wife, Blanca.

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