Read: John 6:35-51

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. (v. 37)

The table is a place of family. It is a place of belonging. By welcoming others to our tables, we extend this belonging and sense of family. By sharing our food with others, we offer life and love, just as Jesus did on the hillside.

Often, those who most need this sense of belonging are those who don’t otherwise receive it. In the Gospels, Jesus demonstrates this truth by specifically welcoming the lonely, the outcast, and the unwanted. These folks are still around us today. They also are our neighbors and need the welcome and love of God. But do they have a place at our tables?

We cannot offer the gift of belonging to folks on the edges of society if we do not know them. We cannot know them if we have no way of interacting with them. Welcoming the folks who most need our welcome means going out of our way to see people who have been pushed to the margins. It means taking the time to talk with the man on the street corner who asks for money or to get to know the new refugee family in town or the woman with a disability who pushes grocery store carts. The people who most need our welcome first simply need to be seen. What a gift, then, to get to know someone, and to make them an honored guest. —Amy Curran

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for the gift of each other.

Read: John 6:15-35

Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. (v. 35)

I have a friend who often struggles to get by from week to week. She relies on the generosity of others and an extensive knowledge of the food bank delivery times to provide her with her daily food. In spite of this, she consistently shares her food with me and others. She has never failed to make a cake for any of her friends on their birthdays, and often comes to parties with a special meal that she has made with vegetables she has been given. My friend teaches me every day about the joy that comes from trusting God’s abundance. Though she doesn’t have much to share, she shares what she has with great gusto.

Trusting God’s abundance may look like sharing food. It may look like sharing time, money, or other resources with folks who need it. Perhaps it looks like refusing to buy into the mentality that we must purchase the cheapest option, and instead look at which products have been fashioned without harming the earth or those who made them. No matter what form it takes, the invitation to trust God’s abundance is an immense privilege. We are like the people on the hillside, well-satisfied with good things, yet with baskets of leftover bread that we can share with our hungry neighbors. Every time we share out of this abundance, loving people as Jesus does, we spread life. —Amy Curran

Prayer: Jesus, help me trust in you and freely share your abundance.

Read: John 6:52-69

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (vv. 68-69)

There are moments in life that leave us changed forever. One such moment for me was a potluck meal I attended a few years ago. The room was crowded, and half of these new friends experienced one kind of disability or another, though this didn’t seem to matter. I was amazed at the way everyone welcomed one another and me. There was a gentleness and a permission for everyone to be exactly who they were. I knew that I needed this community in my life. These people soon became my closest friends and neighbors, and my life has never been the same.

After witnessing the miraculous meal, the disciples understood that their lives would never be the same. This meal and Jesus’ offer of eternal life had changed everything. Similarly, for us, the Communion meal changes everything. Once we become Communion people and have tasted the fullness of life, once we recognize that we belong to God and to one another, our way of operating in the world changes. Because we ourselves have been transformed, our daily life is also transformed.

Being Communion people means seeing and responding to the world in light of the fullness of life we have been offered. Tomorrow, we will explore the particularities of this change. —Amy Curran

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for inviting me into the fullness of life. Remind me always that you alone have the words of eternal life.

Read: John 6:1-11

So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. (vv. 10-11)

Just as the people on the hillside sat and ate together like family, we who share the Communion feast become one family around the Table. When we receive the body and blood of Jesus, we become part of the body of Christ, which is the church. We are members of this body with one another—we are made one family in Christ. When we receive this feast together, we are given the gift of one another.

In order to truly flourish, people need to belong to a family. We need to be known deeply by others, and also loved for who we are. We also need the security of being cared for by others as well as the purpose of caring for others. We need a sense of belonging, or we will feel adrift in the world.

Jesus knows what we need. He knows that our need for belonging is just as deep as our need for physical nourishment. Communion is, for us, a celebration of belonging to one another as well as to God. When we receive Communion, we are adopted into the ever-growing family of God. At this table, we recognize that we have been given spiritual brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Through Communion, we receive the spiritual nourishment of belonging to God, and we also receive the emotional nourishment of belonging to one another. —Amy Curran

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for inviting me, and all of us, into your family.

Read: John 6:51-59

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. (v. 56).

In the story Les Misérables, the single mother Fantine is faced with the challenge of providing for her young daughter, Cosette, despite very limited means and opportunities. Fantine’s story is one of deep personal sacrifice of everything she has, ultimately including her life, all for the sake of the little daughter she loves so much, simply because Cosette belongs to her.

The strength and depth of a mother’s love is perhaps one of the closest parallels we can draw to the depth of God’s love for us. We are a hurting, wounded people. We are plagued by loneliness and fears, insecurities and disappointments. We need spiritual healing and nourishment in order to experience fullness of life. In a word, we need to belong.

Through Communion, we celebrate and receive the gift of God’s abundant love. This love is strong enough to raise Christ from the dead, and it is also strong enough to resurrect our dead and dying souls. As Communion people, we can trust that God’s powerful love is working on our behalf. Our belonging to God is a gift rather than something we earn. This means we can bring our deepest hurts and sins to God without fear, knowing that we are God’s beloved children. We can come to God as we are—with the hope that we are being transformed and renewed by the power of God’s love. Through Communion, we receive the gift of God’s mother-love. —Amy Curran

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for making me your beloved child.

Read: John 6:38-51

I am the living bread that came down from heaven . . . And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (v. 51)

“You are what you eat.” With this familiar quip, we recognize that what we eat is important. Without food, our bodies cannot continue to operate. The nourishment we receive from food literally renews us, allowing our bodies to function. We are dependent on food for life. In a curious way, our continued life requires the “sacrifice” of plants and animals. If not for the harvest of a tomato or a carrot or the death of a chicken, our life could not continue.

The Communion feast operates for us in similar ways. As we receive the body and blood of Jesus into our bodies, we receive the gift of Jesus’ life into our souls. This is an unfathomable mystery, but also a beautiful reality. Just as our bodies die without the renewal that comes from food, so also our souls are prone to death. We need the renewal that the resurrection provides. When we receive the body and blood of Jesus in Communion, we receive this renewal. By taking the resurrection into our bodies, we receive newness of life where before there was only death.

When we receive Communion, we receive the love of God in the form of bread and wine. Miraculously, this small meal infuses us with the life and love of God. It is our spiritual food. —Amy Curran

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for giving me spiritual food to eat.

Read: John 6:15-38

I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. (v. 35)

The hungry crowd that Jesus filled is feeling hungry again. It is the next day, and they are looking for Jesus. They want him to be their king so he can provide them miracle bread every day. The people want their physical hunger satisfied, but Jesus wants to provide more. Jesus invites the people to look more deeply at their need. While their physical need for food is real, he also wants to fill them spiritually.

Jesus offers his own body as the means for the people to receive full life. This is confusing for the crowd; they later call it a hard teaching (v. 60). Today, we know that Jesus was talking about Communion. In celebrating Communion, we receive Jesus’ body and blood in the form of bread and wine. “I am the bread of life,” Jesus says. Just as our food gives life to our bodies, so Jesus gave his life so we can experience fullness of life in our entire being. This means that celebrating Communion is the way we can receive and remember the fullness of life Jesus offers. The miraculous meal on the hillside points to this Communion feast.

The people were right: it is difficult to fully understand how Jesus’ body and blood can provide deep nourishment for us. We will explore this mystery tomorrow, looking at the way this spiritual feast provides us fullness of life. —Amy Curran

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for being my bread of life.

Read: John 6:13-15

So they . . . filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves. (v. 13)

It is tempting to seek power or security so we can feel safe from want or worry. The crowd in John 6 succumbed to this when they tried to make Jesus king by force so he would continue to feed them. We’d never do anything like that today when we feel insecure and unsafe, would we? Yet sometimes aren’t we afraid that if we don’t keep as much power, money, or food for ourselves as we can, we will be left wanting?

Our fear of scarcity can keep us from sharing God’s love. Often, loving others well requires a personal sacrifice, such as sharing a meal with somebody in need or giving an afternoon to offer support to someone. This can feel difficult because it requires us to trust that there will be enough time, energy, or resources left to meet our own needs.

As Communion people, we are invited to see the world as a place of abundance rather than scarcity. When we receive the bread and wine, we are reminded of God’s abundant love for us and that his love will not leave us wanting. This means sharing what we have with others because we trust that God can provide more than enough. It also means receiving what we need from others because God’s love is passed from person to person just as the broken pieces of bread are passed from hand to hand. —Amy Curran

Prayer: Jesus, teach us to trust your abundance by giving and receiving your love without holding back.

Read: John 6:8-13

So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. (vv. 10-11)

At home growing up, my family grew raspberries in our backyard. Because there were five of us, the berries felt like a rare commodity. When my siblings and I picked them together in the mornings, it became a race to find the best berries and eat them before the others could. Scarcity has a way of turning companions into competitors.

There were many people on the hillside. There was not enough food to go around. The temptation would have been to see the other people as competition for scarce resources. Instead, Jesus has the people sit around the “table.” He breaks the bread and has them pass it to one another. They become common guests at Jesus’ feast. Rather than becoming a competition, the people become a community.

On the hillside, a necessary part of receiving the abundant gifts of God is also sharing those gifts. What would have happened if some had not continued to pass the bread, hoarding it instead for themselves or their families? That would have been an inappropriate response to this abundant provision; it is not okay to deprive others who are at the table. God does provide abundantly, but this abundance cannot be received by all if some refuse to pass along the gift. —Amy Curran

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for paying attention to my every need. Please help me recognize ways I can pass along the gifts you have given me.