Today’s Gospel passage links with the one we read last Sunday.
Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes to give a sign to the multitude of the abundance of the gift he has brought; to give a sign that he is the only one who can satisfy the deep hunger for meaning and purpose for our life.
After performing the miracle, Jesus’ disciples returned to Capernaum by boat.
Jesus stayed behind, but then caught up with them walking on the lake.
In the meantime, the people who had been satiated with the food Jesus had given them remained for a while, and realizing that neither Jesus nor his disciples were in the place, they decided to return as well.
The next day they found Jesus in Capernaum and asked him, surprised, when he had crossed the lake.
This is the beginning of our story today.
The first thing Jesus does is to clarify intentions and purposes.
He reproaches the people who are looking for him that their interest is not to discover the meaning of the miracle he performed, but simply to see if for the second time Jesus performs the miracle and they have another free lunch.
“I tell you the truth, you are not looking for me because you have seen miraculous signs, but because you have eaten your fill of those loaves.”
This is a sentence of Jesus more profound than it seems, because it is a question that invites discernment.
We must ask ourselves the questions: Why do we seek Jesus?
Why do we follow him?
Does our interest in Jesus coincide with the purpose of his mission?
Do we ask Jesus for what he came primarily to offer us?
In the case of the story, the people were looking for Jesus to see if he would feed them again, but the main reason, the ultimate motive and the underlying intention of Jesus in performing the miracle was to show that he was the one sent by God to offer eternal life; he did this through the sign of satisfying temporal hunger.
The people then, as they may now sometimes do, were looking for something else in Jesus than what he had come primarily to offer.
Let us see what are the most frequent misconceptions today.
Many people consider Jesus to be an admirable moral teacher, but a simple wise man.
He taught us to value our neighbor without distinction of rank, appearance or origin; he taught us to love our enemies and to share with those who have less.
One can admire those teachings, even if one does not intend to assume them in one’s own conduct.
But is Jesus just a wise man?
Is he not the Son of God who came to teach us the way to God?
Certainly he taught us to love one another, but that was not the main reason for his coming, for that teaching was already in the Old Testament.
Another mistake: Based on the faith that this world is God’s creation and that he placed it in our hands, and based on the commandment of love for God and neighbor, many invoke Jesus to motivate us to care for creation and to pay attention to the ecological problems we have created with industrial development.
Is this concern legitimate? Yes. Caring for creation is a legitimate concern.
Did the Son of man come to teach us that we must care for creation so that it does not deteriorate?
No, he did not come for that.
Indeed, he taught us that this world will collapse and come to an end, and that we do not have a definitive abode here, but that we must set our eyes on heaven, which is our permanent abode.
Ecological concern is legitimate, but that is not the reason why we follow Jesus, for he did not even explicitly teach those things, since they were problems that did not exist in his time.
Did Jesus come to teach that all religions are equal and that they all lead equally to God?
No, he came to teach that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to God except through him (cf. Jn 14:6).
Did Jesus come to teach that since God loves us and since he died on the cross for the salvation of all, then everyone will be saved regardless of whether he believes or does not believe, whether he keeps the commandments or not? No. Jesus came to teach rather that we are all responsible before God for our actions, that we must appear before God’s judgment at the end of our life, and that some will find that their life ended in frustration and failure and others will find that their life ended in achievement and fulfillment before God according to the quality of their decisions and actions.
God loves us to be good, not to remain in our error, our obstinacy and our moral waywardness.
Let us return to today’s story.
Jesus says: “Do not work for the food that is running out, but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has marked him with his seal.
These words of Jesus can be translated as follows: Do not set as the goal of your life only temporal objectives: professional success, social renown, economic solvency, a well-constituted family.
These life goals are good and desirable, but they are subordinate to another greater goal: to attain eternal life with God forever; to attain the fullness that fills us with perennial joy; to end our life with the satisfaction that it was worthwhile before God, because we lived it with our eyes fixed on Him, in order to attain life with Him forever.
As Jesus has exhorted his listeners to work for the food that lasts for eternal life, the people ask him, “What do we need to accomplish the works of God?”
Jesus’ answer is blunt: “The work of God consists in their believing in him whom he has sent.”
In other words, to attain eternal life, the food to eat is Jesus, which we eat first of all by believing in him.
“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall not thirst.”
Of what hunger and thirst is Jesus speaking?
Of hunger and thirst for the meaning of life, of purpose for our existence, of direction for our steps.
This is what Jesus came for: to lead us to God and to the fullness that comes from him, and to remove the impediments that hinder our path to God: our sin and our death.
That is what Jesus has come primarily for and that is what we must primarily seek in him: the healing of our freedom and liberation from death.
All other concerns are subordinate to this primary quest.