Rabbi, when did you get here?
The crowd ate the loaves that Jesus had multiplied to feed them. Because Jesus was now useful to them they sought to follow him. But he remained mysterious and elusive. The crowd knew that he hadn't gotten into the boat, but also that he wasn't near the area where they had eaten the bread. Not knowing where else to look they decided to head to Capernaum.
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.
Jesus was operating at multiple levels when he fed the crowds with bread. He was revealing himself to be the Good Shepherd who feeds his sheep, the true Moses who gave manna in the desert, the one who provided the true banquet of the wisdom of God. The actual physical bread was meant to operate as something like a sacramental, pointing to the deeper unseen reality. But the crowds stopped at the level of mere physicality. Their bodily cravings were temporarily sated and now they sought Jesus not because of what the signs were meant to convey, but because they ate the loaves and were filled. But their experience of satiety was inevitably temporary. The sign was meant to convey something eternal.
Do not work for food that perishes
but for the food that endures for eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give you.
Jesus own food was to do the will of his Father (see John 4:34) and he would in turn make it possible for this to be our food as well. This was his priority. But he did not neglect the earthly hunger of the crowds because he had other priorities, nor even because by addressing it he knew he would be misunderstood. Rather it was necessary to address himself to them at the basic level of their needs, so that they didn't have to leave him to manage on their own. Once they had been fed they were interested and he was then able to attempt to address their misunderstandings, calling them to elevate their minds from that which was literal, worldly, and temporary, through the sign those things were made to be, to the eternal and spiritual.
We might see a lesson or two here for our own outreach to the world, which often must begin at a level of addressing basic subsistence, even at the risk of being misunderstood. But like Jesus, we can do this prophetically, in a way that points toward deeper truth. Then, once we feed the crowds and they are satisfied we can show them that the bread we give is meant to point to something deeper, something that can last for eternity. An NGO could perhaps provide bread, but not this way that can also lead to spiritual freedom, peace, and joy. This is the unique power of Christian charity.
"What can we do to accomplish the works of God?"
The crowds were disappointed to learn that their efforts were not oriented in the right direction, that they were working for food that would perish. And so they asked how to work rightly, to accomplish the works of God. No doubt they were trying to figure out how to rein things back in, to try to figure out how life might yet remain under their control, and not dependent on the food "which the Son of Man will give", and therefore on Jesus himself. Jesus was simply too unpredictable. He was difficult to pursue from place to place. He gave them bread, but would not let them make that bread their reason for following him. They most likely wanted to avoid realizing that the signs all pointed to his identity as the Son of God, the one on whom the Father set his seal. But Jesus nevertheless insisted on his own centrality.
Jesus answered and said to them,
"This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent."
This was as though he was saying that their work was not something meant to be under their control, neither in terms of perfectly providing for worldly circumstances, nor in terms of their spiritual efforts and pursuits. What mattered was not what they could do but was rather a work of God, that would be done by God in them, to make them believe in the one he sent. To receive this they would have to abandon their insistence on the primacy of worldly bread. They would also have to give up on the idea that the spiritual life was something that could be controlled, a mere series of actions by which the Father would be appeased, something always in their sphere of influence that did not require the mediation of Jesus himself. Instead, in order to receive the true bread that would satisfy unto eternity, they would need to accept belief in Jesus himself, who, as we shall see, is the true bread of life.
For we have heard him claim
that this Jesus the Nazorean will destroy this place
and change the customs that Moses handed down to us."
All those who sat in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him
and saw that his face was like the face of an angel.
When we threaten the supposed primacy of earthly things and the control people imagine they have over their lives it is often the case that we will be met with hostility. But because we are pursuing a different and higher good we need not meet hostility with hostility, respond to anger with anger, or violence with violence. We can be at peace, as Stephen was, even when the days of our earthly bread may be nearing their end. For like Stephen we too hope to enjoy the fullness of that banquet in heaven for all eternity. And this hope is enough to sustain us no matter what happens here below.
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