Living in the Spirit

August 14, 2021

Scripture Reading:
John 6:51-58
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.’

My themes for these devotions are wholeness, oneness, and justice, and they feed each other. Wholeness is crucial to attaining oneness and universal justice, which will become more and more a reality as we grow in wholeness toward oneness. However, I have a strong sense that none of that can happen unless and until we divorce ourselves from the castes in which we find ourselves but, in most cases, do not perceive as existing.

Caste is a division or class of society comprised of persons within a separate and exclusive order based variously upon differences of wealth, inherited rank or privilege, profession, occupation*.

The bread of life discussed in the above scripture was familiar to the Jews. The manna from heaven, which appeared after the Exodus from Egypt, was lifesaving. The Jews that heard him challenged his saying this because they knew what he was saying was outside of the boundaries of their separate and exclusive order of life. Jesus was describing a path to follow when seeking a relationship with God that made the religious leaders of the day very uncomfortable. It was not a new path. It was as old as the Exodus, but it did not fit well in the system they had carved out over the centuries.

The history of the Israelites is much like our history today. We slide into creating separate and exclusive order based on our desires that gradually drift away from God’s will for our lives and create those ugly castes. Such systems tear at the very fiber of God’s love and our ability to love like Jesus. We need to return to being nourished by the bread of life to sustain us as we serve Christ in making a world ruled by love.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us for getting so caught in the ways of the world that we forget who we are and whose we are. Make us whole, make us one.  Amen.

*https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/caste

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.