If I ask you to imagine a life of abundance what comes to mind? Since I’ve had time to think about it, and I’ve just sprung the question on you, I’m going to answer for myself. As I imagine a life of abundance I imagine a five bedroom house on Canandaigua Lake. There’s be a large lawn sloping gently to the lake. In the water I’d have a dock with a motorboat on one side and a sailboat on the other. I’d have a garage big enough for my cars and an oversize bay for a camper. I’d also have an upstairs room in the garage which I could use as a wood shop.
A life of abundance would have enough cash reserves so that I wouldn’t have to worry. While I know I’d have to have a decent job to I’d also have enough leisure time to enjoy the water and some exotic travel. Let’s throw into the image a perfect spouse, perfect children, and a perfectly behaved dog.
Oh, and I would want to be able to eat what I wanted, whenever I wanted, and still have the buff figure of a body builder.
An abundant life would include no medical problems and no medical emergencies either.
Maybe I’d go for an airplane too. That might be fun!
Okay, that’s about it. All I need for that image to be true is for you to increase my salary about thirty-fold. (Shouldn’t be a problem I figure!)
We haven’t gotten to John 10 yet, but there we will hear Jesus say, “I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Somehow though, I don’t think my vision of an abundant life is what Jesus meant! There it is part of the Good Shepherd Discourse, but I think I can apply it here.
With Jesus’ ability to feed thousands with just a couple fish and several loaves of bread, plus his ability to walk on water, you think he’d be well positioned to provide abundant life. But what is abundant life?
At first thought a life of ease and relaxation sounds like it would be abundant. But I don’t think it would be. I remember being in elementary school and it was the first time we had field day. The whole day was given over to field day events. There were no classes. My favorite part of the school day was recess. I thought it’d be great to have a whole day with nothing to do but participate in the couple events I had to be in, and then play on the playground otherwise! The day turned out to be tedious and long. I discovered the only way recess was fun was because it was a break from class. But endless time on the playground really wasn’t all that fun.
The Netflix series The Good Life explores, among other things, what an existence of constant fun and leisure would be. And it eventually gets around to recognizing that endless fun is not fun at all.
Jesus says that he is the Bread of Life. He says that whoever comes to him will never be hungry and whoever believes in him will never be thirsty. This is, of course, not to be taken literally, but yet it can be quite literal. Jesus envisions a community for his followers where they do care for each other’s basic needs. And a life of abundance is not one where there is abundant food and drink. It is one where there is an abundance of worth and meaning.
Like many of the discourses in John’s gospel, the Bread of Life Discourse seems to meander all over the place. It is also filled with intricacies. Let’s try to aim for the thrust of it though.
The crowd follows Jesus after the miraculous feeding. They don’t seem to know about him walking on water. Why are they following him? Because they want more bread! They figure this Jesus guy is a good thing! Getting food in those days was a lot harder than going to a grocery store and buying it off the shelf. It was harder than making everything from scratch too. It meant planting seed. Raising the crop. Fending off predators. Backbreaking labor to harvest the crop. Then there was threshing the crop, another labor-intensive act. Then there was hauling and storing the grain. Then grinding the grain. Finally the ground grain could be used to bake something. A loaf of bread was A LOT of work! If you met a guy who could cut out most of those steps, you’d surely follow him!
The crowds follow Jesus because they want more bread. But Jesus tells him they are following him for the wrong reasons. Following Jesus is not about a short cut through life’s work. Following Jesus is about finding meaning in life’s work.
When Jesus says, “Do not work for the food the perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” They reply, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” The crowd and Jesus are using the same words but with different meaning. The crowd is thinking about the performance of works. Jesus is talking about the work of God. Which he explains, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
That’s not particularly clear. People get mixed up with it easily. It easily becomes a statement that believing in Jesus is an act of intellectual acceptance of a fact; even if that fact is supernatural. But in practice there’s nothing supernatural about believing Jesus’ is God’s definitive revelation to the world.
The practice of believing Jesus is the Son of God is living in a way that recognizes God’s love and grace as supreme. It means living in a way where you know your value is held surely and safely by God. You are not driven by peer pressure to fit in or be acceptable. Being acceptable to God is enough. It also means seeing the value in other people and the creation. If we are made in God’s image then we must treat each other as such. That means that greed and manipulation and deceit to get ahead are not acceptable.
Have you ever bought or sold something in Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, or any other similar platform? You know that lies and deception are often part of it. People pass off second rate goods at a premium price. Flaws are hidden and deceptions are complex. On a few occasions I’ve called people out for their lies, right to their faces, and they don’t look the least bit embarrassed for being caught. It’s just part of it all. If they can get away with it they will. If they get called out, well then they’ll wait for someone ignorant to come along and profit from them. But none of that is honoring the value of other people. None of that is ever the work of God.
The work of God will bring about a life of abundance, but it will not be a life of an abundance of luxuries. It will be an abundance of value, purpose, and sense of identity. The work of God is often hard, very hard. It can be stress inducing. It can mean setbacks. It can mean overcoming problems and obstacles. But you all know that nothing worth having ever came easily. While works do not win us a ticket to heaven, works will affirm our value.
Think about highly successful people, especially those who have risen through the ranks of their field. All of them have made mistakes. They have had setbacks. The path has not been easily. But they have learned from their mistakes and gained wisdom. Through wisdom they have gotten ahead.
Believing in Jesus is not a means to move up the corporate or social ladder. But it is a sure way to feel like a worthwhile person.
I want to wrap up with a slight shift in focus, but it is also one of abundance. You’ll remember the first of Jesus’ signs was turning water into wine – an abundance of excellent wine. Here we have Jesus multiplying bread into an abundance to feed a multitude. Jesus also says about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. That sounds absolutely disgusting and cannibalistic! But our brains should be taking us to holy communion.
In the early church communion was not a scrap of bread and a tiny shot glass of wine. It was a meal shared among the community of believers. It was a tangible expression of their togetherness and their dependence upon Jesus. We’ve lost that in our communion practices, but in those days it truly was a meaningful nourishment for their bodies.
May we find such nourishment in our lives – literal nourishment for our bodies, emotional nourishment for our minds, and spiritual nourishment for our souls, which will give us life abundant.
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