GOING BEYOND THE SURFACE
John 6:35,41-51
Sometimes we reach conclusions about people too soon. I remember hearing a sermon one time on the scripture passage “by their fruits you shall know them”. The preacher pointed out that people like to judge others when they first meet them by their looks, by the way they are dressed, by where they come from, and who they are with. That is rather like judging a tree only by it’s branches or it’s leaves and not by it’s fruit. The buds and leaves may be the first things that come forth from a tree in a particular season but the fruit is one of the last things. We often pride ourselves with our ability to judge others by first impressions but it is much more important to wait patiently to see their fruits. As the common expression goes: “You can’t tell a book by it’s cover”. You have to go deep enough into what’s written in the book to really know what’s it’s like and make some kind of judgement on it. Similarly we don’t really know people by merely looking on the surface of their lives but going deep enough to see the meaning of their lives.
This is true when I was counseling full time. In the first interview with a person I rarely found out who they really were. It was only after many counseling sessions that I began to get a glimpse of the real person behind the many masks they wore. It took a great deal of listening with what I would call “the third ear”, that is listening beyond what they were saying on the surface and hearing the feeling and the message that they were conveying behind the words. Sometimes my first impressions were found to be true but often they weren’t and certainly they were never the whole truth of a person’s life. There was always a danger of reaching conclusions too soon.
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In the Gospel today we read, “Then the Jews began to complain about him (Jesus) because he said, ‘I am the Bread of that came down from heaven.’ They were saying, “Is this not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say ‘I have come down from heaven’. (John 6:41-42) The Jews here represent all of us who do not want to go beyond the words spoken to the meaning behind the words. In this story they were content to say that they knew his mother and father so how could what he was saying have any truth to it. I am aware that we do not choose where we are born and who our mother and father are but we can choose how we live our lives. It seems to me that they reached conclusions too soon about Jesus and were not concerned with how he lived his life or they would have seen that his life was like bread bringing life to those who would take it.
If we are to go beyond the words in this passage we have to ask questions: What does Bread mean here? What does it mean to say that this Bread has come down from heaven? What is the meaning for me?
Bread From Heaven to me means the activity of God in the world. We see in Jesus the activity of God which is to give life to the world. After all, bread is considered to be the staff of life, that which feeds us, that which gives us life. When we pray “Give us this day our daily bread” it means all that we need to live. When we say we eat the bread that Jesus talks about here if means taking unto ourselves his way of life. Then we are the ones that are to bring life to others and to every situation that we find ourselves in. We do it by the way we live and die just as Jesus did it by the way he lived and died.
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If people who are to find out who we really are they will have to go beyond the surface of our lives. It is not enough to say to me, “I know your mother and father and so I know who you are”. You need to look at my life to see what lies at the centre of it, to see what motivates me, to see the meaning behind my words and actions. Then you might have a small glimpse of who I am.
We sometimes only see our own lives on the surface. We don’t know who we really are. It is one of the great maladies of our time. It came out for me very potently in a story I was reading this week from Chicken Soup for the Soul At Work. It was written by Helice Bridges and entitled The Blind Man. Helice tells the story of a man who shared a powerful story of his life while they sat together waiting for a plane at LaGuardia Airport.
The man said that he was asked by his secretary to drop a package off at the Blind Institute. As he arrived there he was mistaken for a volunteer in a particular program that they were running and before he could explain that he was only dropping a package off he found himself sitting in a row of sighted people with a row of unsighted people across from them. They were all asked to get to know the people who sat across from them by touch and also by imagining what kind of a person they were. They were told to decide what they wanted to know about the person. Who are they? What are their thoughts? What kind of dreams they might have? Here’s a quotation from this mans perspective:
“Dreams? Did this young man across from me have dreams? Why should I care? He s nothing to me. I’ve got two teenage kids—I don t even know their dreams. Besides, all they ever think of is cars, sports and girls. We don t talk much. I don’t think they like me. I don t think I understand them. My wife—well, she does her thing and I do mine.
“I’m perspiring and breathing hard. The instructor tells us to stop. I put my hand down and sit back. ‘Now, he goes on, ‘this is the last part of the exercise. You will each have three minutes to share with each other the experience you had getting to know your partner. Let your partner know what you were thinking and feeling. Tell them what you learned about them. The sightless person will go first.
“My partner’s name was Henry. He told me that at first he felt left out because he didn t think he was going to have a partner for the evening. He was glad I was able to make it on time. He went on to tell me that he felt I truly had courage to take the risks to emote and feel. ‘I was impressed, he explained, ‘at the way you followed the instructions despite how resistant you were to them. Your heart is very lonely and very big. You want more love in your life but you don t know how to ask for it. I admire your willingness to discover the side of you that truly makes a difference. I know you wanted to bolt out of the room, but you stayed. I felt the same way when I first came here. But now I m not as afraid of who I am anymore. It’s okay for me to cry, feel afraid, panic, want to run, shut down from others, hide out in my work. These are just normal emotions that I am learning to accept and appreciate. You might want to spend more time down here and learn who you really are.
“I looked across at this young sightless Henry and wept openly. I couldn’t speak. There was nothing to say. I had never known a place like this in my entire life. I had never experienced this amount of unconditional love and wisdom. The only thing I remember saying to Henry was, ‘Your hair is brown and your eyes are light. He was probably the first person in my life whose eyes I would never forget. I was the blind man; it was Henry who had the vision to see who he was….
“I haven’t told anyone, not even my secretary, that I (now) go to the Blind Institute two nights each week. I can’t explain it but I actually think I am beginning to feel love for people…
“I know I have a lot of learning to do if my sons are going to respect me. Funny, I’ve never said that before. Kids are suppose to respect their parents, or at least that’s what I’ve always been told. Maybe it goes both ways. Maybe we can learn how to respect each other. For now, I’m beginning to respect and love myself.”
(Jack Canfield, Mark Hansen, Maida Rogerson, Martin Rutte and Tim Clauss Chicken Soup For The Soul At Work, HCI, Deerfield Beach, Florida 1996, p. 275)
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Let us resolve not to make conclusions about Jesus too soon, or about other people, or about ourselves. There’s so much more about their lives and ours that we have only begun to get in touch with. To go further you have to go beyond the surface.
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