“Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me
not because you saw signs
but because you ate the loaves and were filled.
Those in today's Gospel who seek Jesus because of what he does for them, or the way in which he is useful to them, find him to be elusive. This is a bit troublesome since our motives are seldom based solely on the love of God. We're moved by fear of the pains of hell and the loss of heaven, and often by concerns even more mundane than these. We may even sometimes slip into treating him like a cosmic Santa, whose purpose is to provide for our desires, arbitrary happiness on our terms. Sometimes there is some overlap between these desires and what we receive, we eat the loaves and are satisfied. But, lest we believe that the satiation of physical hunger is itself the point, Jesus leaves us on our own, or perhaps we are simply not able to see him when he doesn't follow-up by doing what we think he should do next.
Do not work for food that perishes
but for the food that endures for eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give you.
Yes, we do need food. But our primary work, our focus as human beings, needs to have a more expansive vision than merely the repeated satisfaction of our physical or emotional needs. If these hungers are our primary concern they will own us, and we will be slaves to the highest bidder. Whoever we depend on in this way can indeed become someone we forget how to do without, as though they have somehow taken the place of God in our lives. Jesus calls us be elevated above the cycles of hunger and satisfaction and so experience the true freedom that is the beginning of eternal life even in the here and now.
“What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”
If, as Jesus said, we often work wrongly, seeking temporary things with a zeal that should be reserved for ones that endure, how ought we to work for that which the Son of Man desires to give us? His answer is such an upset to our paradigms, such an explosion of our typical ways of thinking, that it can be hard to receive.
Jesus answered and said to them,
“This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”
Our work must therefore be to surrender our control, our insistence that meeting temporary needs has eternal weight, and to seek first Jesus and his Kingdom (see Matthew 6:33). Only then can we receive all else besides. Only then can we safely eat and drink and enjoy the blessings of this world without being subordinated to them, and through them to the forces that control them.
For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.
Things in this world sometimes have a seal of quality, foods, for instance, claim to be natural or organic. Machines sometimes have their safety indicated by UL or ISO certification, indicating certain expectations we should have about them. And we rightly prefer quality goods to those which are inferior. How much more, then, should we be concerned about the one on whom God himself has set his seal? He alone is able to speak the wisdom of the Father and perform his works. He alone is our safe guide to eternal life. If we care more about him we will be free in regard to others, just as was Stephen.
but they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.
Concerned more about the Son of Man than the opinions of men Stephen was able to keep his heart open to the promise that the Spirit himself would give him the words he needed, empowering him answer his accusers. It was as though, in spite of the fact that he was surrounded by these accusers, his gaze remained fixed primarily on God himself, his face radiant like the face of Moses.
All those who sat in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him
and saw that his face was like the face of an angel.
And so, having concluded some lofty and more abstract points, here is a simple test. When we are opposed or accused, or when we face difficulty, does our face remain like that of an angel? Or would we have to contort our expressions with all our strength and inject some Botox to keep our faces in such an expression? Stephen wasn't working hard to do this, because he was concerned above all about the work of God, belief in the one on whom God set his seal.
Yes, your decrees are my delight;
they are my counselors.
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