Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 1, 2021 – Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15; Ephesians 4:17, 20-24; John 6:24-35

The 1950s was the era of the big sprawling western. The biggest thing about them was they were almost all in Technicolor, and they were shot in the great outdoors. They were great to look at, but sometimes the plots left something to be desired. There was a movie called “Pony Soldiers” (and it was called “Pony Soldiers” because the Canadian Mounted Police, just like much of the United States cavalry, rode on ponies rather than horses because they were lighter). But this particular story takes place in Canada. Sitting Bull, trying to escape from the US cavalry, after the battle of the Little Big Horn - and this is a fact of history - crossed the border into Canada because the United States and Canada did not have reciprocal treaties. So United States troops could not pursue him into Canada. And he tried to make a home for his people among the Western Cree Indians in Canada. And everything was hunky-dory until the Canadian government decided they didn’t want Sitting Bull there, and then things went south rather quickly.

That’s the basic historical fact behind the story, but the story is ridiculous. Somehow or other, some Canadian mounted officer makes friends with the Indians, and they’re going to go to war over this whole thing, and he convinces them that they should wait. And then a wonderful sign appears in the sky - it’s a paddle wheeler. And the plot wants us to believe that Indians are so stupid that they’ve never seen a mirage; only white people know what a mirage is. And this mirage, supposedly, is a steamship that’s on a river hundreds of miles away. It’s impossible that this phenomenon should’ve taken place in the sky, but the white man says to the Indian, “See this is the sign from the great mother in England that you shouldn’t go to war.” And the Indians all lay down their weapons and say, “Okay, we won’t go to war because…” It’s kind of silly.

But I tell you that because the idea that signs are something spectacular continues in our society, from the very beginning of time up until now. Sometimes when we are at a crossroads in our lives, where we don’t know where to turn next, we think we can ask God for a sign, and somehow something spectacular is going to happen, so we say, “Oh that’s what that means. That’s what God wants us to do.”
That’s really not the way it happens.

I tell you that because today’s narrative in the gospel centers around the issue of signs. Now, I said last week that we were going to be reading from John’s gospel for the next couple of weeks. Last week we read the story about the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes. And this week we begin to look at the speech that Jesus gave as a consequence of that. But, unfortunately, on the day we’re finally supposed to get to the climax of that speech, where He talks about Himself as a living bread that can be eaten, we’re not going to be able to read that gospel, because the Feast of the Assumption falls on a Sunday this year, and we’re going to have to read the readings for that feast that day. The last time that, in year B, we didn’t get to read the gospel of the twentieth Sunday, was way back in 2006. So it’s been a long time since the sequence was suddenly interrupted. This year it will be. So, what we’re going to do instead is we’re going to focus just on the parts of the talk that we do get to hear. And I asked you to listen whether or not Jesus answers people’s questions.

The story starts out, they say to Jesus “How did You get here, and when did You get here?” The answer, obviously, is, “A couple of hours before you.” Jesus does not answer the question. He says, “You’re looking for me, not because you saw signs, because your belly is filled.” What does He mean by that? Of course they saw a sign. They were all there for the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. It was a big deal. So how can He say to them, “You’re not here because you saw signs.” It’s because of what Jesus means by sign. What He is saying to them is, “You did not penetrate into the meaning of the event in which you were taking a part.” They should, as faithful Jews, have known better, because very often in the writings of the prophets, in the psalms, and in the wisdom literature, the rescue of God’s people by God takes place through signs of feeding. There are banquets. And the most important thing, is that in the wisdom literature, Lady Wisdom is frequently portrayed as a wealthy woman, who is very wise, who prepares a sumptuous feast for all of her neighbors and invites them all in. And they should’ve immediately referred to that in their heads, once they experienced the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Since they didn’t do it, Jesus says, “You missed the point.” You missed the point.

Then they start this dialogue about works. And they say to Jesus, “What sign can You do that’ll prove to us that we should follow You?” This is ridiculous; He just did a spectacular sign. What more do they want?

They say, “Moses, our ancestor, gave us manna in the desert.” And that gives Jesus the opening that He needs. He says, “No, no. Moses didn’t give you bread. My Heavenly Father gives bread always, and He has sent Me as the Bread from Heaven.”

And then they say, “Well, what works do we have to do to get this?”

He says, “There is only one work to do. Believe in the One whom God has sent.”

Now when we think of belief, we think of it in terms of intellectual assent. Here’s a whole bunch of doctrines - either you agree with them or you don’t - and to be a faithful Christian, you have to believe in these things. That’s not what the word believe means in the scriptures, especially not when Jesus is speaking about it. It means, instead, that we invest ourselves in a person or a way of life, and by our way of life, show how we’ve invested ourselves into it. And so at the end, Jesus finally says, “I, I am the bread come down from heaven.”

That’s what he gives them, the sign that they asked for. He Himself is the sign, and they are invited to invest themselves in Jesus.

That’s how signs appear in our lives. When we are confronted with a challenge, usually there is a right and wrong way to go forward. The wrong way to go forward indicates that we are not invested in Jesus - in His teaching, in His church, the church’s doctrine - in an ethical way of life. When we choose the right way to go forward it’s frequently very, very difficult to do, but we know we ought to do it. That means we are invested.

In our second reading, St. Paul talks about living the right way, living in Christ. And that’s what that’s all about. The way we find the signs that we’re looking for in our lives is by going forward, living as we believe Jesus would want us to live. When we do that, we ourselves actually become the sign.