I find it bemusing that the crowd in this week’s Gospel reading (John 6:24-35) is still asking for signs. How many do they need? In the first verse of John 6 from last week’s Gospel, “they saw the signs that [Jesus] was doing for the sick.” And then, after the Feeding of the Five Thousand, the Gospel concludes by validating the faith of the crowd: “When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world’” (v. 14).

The crowd’s appetite for signs, for proof, is insatiable. It’s like we are never satisfied. Nothing is ever good enough. There is always something wrong that needs improvement. You hear this from, ironically, players on winning sports teams never mind losing ones, when they say: “We can always get better.” Yes, but, what do they expect? That they can play a perfect game? Really?

The religious craving for signs feels a little bit like what is defined today as “spiritual materialism”. Spiritual materialism feeds off ‘signs’. It just leaves us wanting for more but with the expectation that we have to earn it by our accomplishments, and by possessing greater truth for ourselves. It’s tied in with the world’s values and that prosperity gospel notion – a way of doing religion in which we are never permitted to be content with imperfection. We can therefore never allow ourselves to be at peace.

If something I perceive is wrong I need to figure it out. I need to be better and work harder. Fix it. I must hone my skills of discernment, so that in the end I can own or discard the proposition based on my own interpretation thereof never mind what someone else thinks. On this path, everything I perceive is bad must be purged and eliminated. I therefore live in a constant state of vigilance, unrest, and discontentment.

You ask: Do we not want a deeper communion with God? And, can we not learn to tell the difference between right and wrong, good and bad? Absolutely, we can.

But Jesus suggests a way of life that does not deny the two are inextricably entwined. The weeds and wheat must grow together (Matthew 13:34-40), according to a teaching of Jesus. If we are going to grow in faith, we need to learn to live with and accept both realities.

Jesus talked about the mustard seed, which is both good and bad. Pliny the Elder, a contemporary of Jesus, wrote that the mustard seed was medicinal, so it did have some value. But Pliny the Elder advised against planting it because it tended to take over the entire garden. It was a weed that could not be stopped (Rohr, 2024).

Sometimes what we need is found only by embracing those difficult times in our lives as doorways to experiencing God in a whole new and wonderful way.

Because what we need is not validated by proof. What we need is not immediately perceived by observation alone. Let me give you an example. Today, many of us observe all that is not well in the world. And, there is definitely evidence that will support that proposition. These days are like nighttime when the world is blanketed by shadow and ash.

Ironically it is only at nighttime when we can see the stars shine brightly. When we look up at night our spirits rise to the brilliance of the pinpricks of light against the night sky. Ironically it only when we engage, accept and not avoid nor deny our doubts, our pain and the difficulties of life, that we discover a grace of God, a gift or a help coming from a place we never expected.

People of faith through the centuries have used this metaphor of the nighttime for how they still kept faith through their suffering. How did they do that? Did they know something we don’t? Or are they aware of a reality that exists beyond evidence of what we observe on the surface?

You see, those very stars that shone so brightly for us during the nighttime, are they gone during the daytime? Have they magically disappeared? Well, no. Those same stars are shining just as brightly in the daytime. We just don’t see them. But they are still there.

The brighter our surroundings, the more difficult it is to see the stars. And yet, during the daytime of our lives, those are the good times we say. During the day when our sun/star is shining brightly everything is going accordingly, to plan. During the day when our sun/star shines, all is well, and everything is just so.

We cherish those memories of the way things were – so right, so beautiful – in the past. When we could see it all. And everything was as it should be forever more. And so, as I said, we grieve today, that it will never be the same again.

It is significant that Jesus provides a way forward, albeit somewhat cryptically, in his response to the crowd seeking a sign. He says, in today’s Gospel, “… you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves” (v. 26).

In other words, you connect with God not because you ‘see signs’ but because you experience something that moves you to act. Manna has a purpose. You connect with God not because you’ve figured it out beforehand in your head, but because you receive God’s grace in the wilderness of your life to move on and do what needs doing.

Remember, when all you had was the simple manna that nevertheless sustained you through that difficult time (Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15). It was during the tough times that God’s presence was made manifest, that God was made real to you in the breaking of the bread. And so it is, today.

At the beginning of my vacation Jessica and I attended a Christian Meditation retreat whose theme was “From anxiety to peace”. Our theme speakers reflected on anxiety not as something to deny or try to get rid of on the journey of faith. Healing doesn’t come by denying the reality of what is, including all our thoughts, feelings and behaviours good and bad.

Rather, we were challenged to consider anxiety as the invitation towards peace, the doorway through which we discover deeper understanding and clarity of thought, teaching us to be ok. The wilderness night times offer a way to experience hope by accepting and seeing with the mind’s eye the small wonders of God’s love made real to us. And therefore we don’t need to let fear be our guide.

What are the stars shining in the night for you? The little things that you might miss in the daytime? Those things we easily take for granted? People and situations we overlook in all our hurry?

God, give us peace. God, give us courage.

Reference:

Rohr, R. (2024, July 30). A gracious weed: The reign of God. Daily Meditations, Center for Action and Contemplation. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-gracious-weed/