The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe

August 1, 2021  •  Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Saint Paul’s Within the Walls, Rome

Text: John 6:30: “So they said to him, ‘What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you?”

Last Sunday, just as we were gathering here for worship, the New York Times published the news of the death of the American physicist Steven Weinberg. Professor Weinberg was one of the most accomplished scientists of our age; he wasn’t just a winner of the Nobel Prize, but more than that was a scholar who wrote books explaining big, complicated ideas in ways that those of us who aren’t physicists could understand. 

His best-known book appeared under the title The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origins of the Universe, which is just what it says it is—a history of the first three minutes of the universe following the creative event of the Big Bang. 

The obituary in the New York Times describes his accomplishments very plainly: “Dr. Weinberg’s stature in physics would be hard to overstate.” But toward the end of the obituary, it also says this: “Dr. Weinberg opposed religion, believing that it undermined efforts to seek and discover truth.” 

His view was that there was no cosmic plan, no meaning, no purpose to the universe; just physical forces. “The more the universe seems comprehensible,” he wrote in his book, “the more it also seems pointless.”

In his study of the forces that bind together the physical universe, and that were set in place at the moment of its creation, Dr. Weinberg found no traces of any transcendent meaning or intentional purpose. And because he did not find them, he decided that they did not exist. 

I have recounted his story to you in such detail because Professor Weinberg is an example in our own day of the question that crowd poses to Jesus in the gospel we just heard. The question that crowd demands an answer to—it is the question that the world around us is asking us today. 

Let’s just remember for a moment what led up to the moment we heard about today. Jesus has been getting a reputation. People who come to him are getting healed. They are finding hope. They are telling their neighbors and friends. More people come. Pretty soon there are thousands of people gathering around, looking for something to believe in. They are desperate. They are poor. They are hungry.

And what happens? He tells everyone to sit down; he blesses a tiny amount of food scrounged from what little his followers had brought with them; and everyone gets as much as they can eat. They’re amazed. And as soon as it happens, Jesus and his disciples leave, separately, under cover of night.

 The least surprising thing in the world about this story is that those thousands of people decide to figure out where he’s gone, and chase after him. They are hungry; if they listen to him, they get fed. They are hurting; if they touch him, they get healed. They want more. They’re ready to make him king. They go running after him.

And what happens next is a confrontation—a confrontation that happens right now, in our own day, every time someone asks you—why do you go to church? 

Jesus looks at those people and knows they aren’t there because they believe in him; they’re there because they were hungry, and they got fed, and now they’re hungry again. They want to know where they can sign up for more bread. 

“What must we do to perform the works of God?” That question means, “Tell us what we have to do to get more bread!”

Jesus and that hungry crowd end up talking past each other. Because his answer isn’t one they like at all. His answer is simply this: What you have to do is believe. What you have to do is have faith. 

And what they ask in response is: Why should we believe in you? What are you going to do to get us to believe in you? How about an endless supply of bread? Hey, remember, that’s how Moses got people to believe in him... how about you?

That crowd of people around Jesus are asking for evidence—just like a physicist. They want proof, just like Professor Weinberg. If all this means something, if you really want us to believe in you, give us something. 

You see immediately that what those people have in mind is a transaction—bread for belief. How much more true is that in our own day, when the meaning of everything is measured in terms of its value in the market? How much more true is that today, when the things we make meaning out of are material possessions and designer brands and luxury goods? 

At least to judge by the things people will stand in line for in Paris, what people believe in today isn’t God; it’s Louis Vuitton and Cartier. What people believe in today isn’t a God of love who has brought the whole universe into being as an act of love, and who intends for us to be reconciled to each other in love; no, they believe in Apple and Google and Facebook and Instagram. 

Those are the things that give them what they’re hungry for—prestige, and standing, and information, and influence. It’s a transaction. We understand transactions.

The people passing by the doors of this place this morning instead of coming in to be with us, this is their question for us. 

Why should I believe in all that? What will I get in return? What’s in it for me? That is the question we all live with.

I can tell you as someone who has been a pastor of churches that more often than not this is a little bit how even those of us in the church approach our faith. I want my child to have a good chance of getting into a good college, so please give them a mission project to take part in. 

Have any of us ever done the same thing? I want to improve my social standing by going to the same church with J. P. Morgan. I want an enriching cultural experience, so I’ll go to the church with the most beautiful art, or the loveliest music.

What sign will you give us to believe in you? What do we get out of it? We should not be disheartened that they ask us this. They asked Jesus the same thing.

What we believe, and what we teach, is not really any different from what Jesus teaches to that crowd around him. We are still saying the same thing, giving the same answer.

Our answer is this: We believe not because of what we have received in return; we believe in God because God is God. 

As Christians, we have a different way of saying that: we believe in God, because God is love, and we have known love. 

We believe because we see the world, and the universe, and all our lives, as something in which we, thank God, are not the whole focal point of meaning. We see this life as being about something greater, something more significant, than merely ourselves.

And we see everything around us bearing the traces of God’s hope for us, God’s love for us—the parents who have loved us, the friends who sustain us, the partners who embrace us, the colleagues who challenge us.

We don’t believe in God because of what we get in return. We believe in God because God is God, and we are not. 

Now, of course, there are still hungry people—people who need bread. There are still desperate people—people who yearn for hope, or dignity.

And the fact that we believe in God because God is God, and not because of what we get in return, doesn’t mean we are not called, as God’s people in the world, to feed the hungry and show respect to all people. 

In fact, we do all of that, not because of what we get in return, but because we know it has been done for us already. Because we know that what sustains us in this life of faith is the bread of life that Jesus has given us, bread made through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. 

The bread of life is the love that bears our grief and makes our joys, the love that heals our wounds and reconciles us to those we have wronged. 

Because we have received that bread, yes, we feed the hungry and we give hope to the desperate. 

And when we do that, we show the world how a faith in things beyond evidence, in love that needs no proof, has changed our lives—and we invite others to join it with us. Amen.