Week 5 (Year 4, NL)

Instead of glorifying the past, what if we treated the present as precious?

Offering the elements to the unbaptized can be seen as a development and not a revolution, but it is a significant change. Is it a good one?

The lectionary has focused our attention on bread for a very long time. One might think that five barley loaves transformed into a feast plus baskets full of leftovers would be news enough, but Jesus goes on to talk about the bread for another 36 verses. He would be a dream interview for today's 24-hour news shows, with their incessant need for commentary on the latest attention-grabbing headline.

Perhaps we should not be too hard on the people who ate their fill on the mountain and chased Jesus down on the other side.

Jesus offers signs of life in the midst of death.

Reconciliation requires relocation. To see the effects of our food choices, we have to get close to the land.

We all live out our lives in the wilderness.

Which would you rather do, contemplate belief or consume the flesh and blood of Jesus?

It made a lot of sense for Jesus to use the metaphor of animal sacrifice—at least, it did in the first century.

What is manna? Is it a Hebrew pun on mah hu, or as Everett Fox suggests, “Whaddayacallit”? Is it mountains of sweet insect excrement, as proposed by some scholars, or the stuff of legend?

For decades, my students have failed to grasp the resurrection of the body as an article of faith.

When my daughter was in grade school, her teacher included a unit on table manners. The rule that amused me was, “When served food, you should never ask, ‘What is this?’” I don’t think I’ve asked that question aloud, but I’ve certainly thought it, especially at potlucks.

Thou shalt not be ridiculous. Paul says, "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil." When Paul wrote that wonderful sentence he probably was sitting in an upper room in Athens. It was late at night, quiet, and all the fools were asleep.

God has become clear in the person of Jesus.