Jesus on Bread of life

The WORD in Other Words by Fr Joseph Miras SVD (Canada) for Tuesday in 3rd Week of Easter

Food is always a relevant issue. It affects almost every aspect of human life. Recently, in Nigeria, the advertisement “Mummy. Teacher. Taste Master” raised the level of discussion on the relationship between food and gender in a society where men are the masters of the home.

Another issue on food and rights was in EU where the court ruled that the taste of food cannot be trademarked or cannot be copyrighted because taste is subjective..

In Tanzania, food, economy and government intervention hugged the limelight when the president ordered the army to buy all the cashew nuts produced in the country because private companies refused to pay the price tag fixed by the government.

In the Philippines, the rising prices of food because of inflation and food security are issues Filipinos face in their daily grind.

If food touches on almost all aspects of human life, did Jesus include these concerns when he made his Bread of Life Discourse? Or did he bring it up to another level?

Jesus must have been talking about an issue –- food — that had implications for many aspects of human life. But it was not obvious. The range of its implications came only on continued reflection by believers. 

The Bread of Life discourse might not be on the level of ordinary discourse where the concerns are more mundane, like hunger, rights, equality, access to food, etc., as indicated by the cases mentioned above.

We might say that the Bread of life Discourse was more theological (on a different level of abstraction) but did not necessarily mean higher discourse. It is just the nature of abstraction (and in many levels) that all rational beings go through.

It means our doctrine of God affects the way we interpret our daily activities while acknowledging that our daily activities affect our understanding and doctrine about God.

How does God affect our daily lives and how do our daily lives affect our experience of God?

– Source : The WORD in Other Words, Bible Diary 2020