Gift & Hospitality
John 6:35–40
Everyone likes to preach or write about certain kinds of things. As a priest, especially when I was in a parish setting, I was invited to preach every day, maybe just for two minutes. But every gospel passage does not evoke the same sentiment to preach. There are certain passages — parables, certain encounters of Jesus — that give me a lot of content and I am normally happy to preach on them. There are others, sometimes teachings, sometimes especially from the gospel of John with its long discourses, that are beautiful but not ones I am a great fan of preaching on.
Since I am in a retreat center these days and have taken the option to celebrate and preach at the daily masses, the gospels are given by the Church. You cannot choose the gospel you like. And so I come to today’s gospel.
Jesus said to the crowds, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst. But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” (John 6:35–40)
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This is not the type of passage I am most keen to preach on. So I had to prepare a little more, looking through the commentaries. And two aspects struck me.
The first is the saying of Jesus: I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never hunger. There is a certain aspect of giving here. Jesus gives himself totally in the Eucharist and in many other forms to each one of us. That giving on the cross, the giving of his own life, the entire Paschal mystery, the entire life of Jesus — all of it symbolized in the Eucharist. The point is not about the symbolism, but that Jesus gives.
The aspect of absolute gift.
The second aspect is where Jesus says that everyone the Father gives will come to him, and he will not reject anyone who comes to him. Coming to Jesus is a certain aspect of grace, of the Father drawing us, but it is also an act of faith — I choose to go or not. And the remarkable thing is that whoever comes will not be rejected.
This is an absolute hospitality.
So in the first aspect, there is absolute gift. In the second, absolute hospitality. Now normally, giving and receiving go hand in hand in a certain way — I give, and somebody else receives. But here there is something slightly different. It is Jesus who gives, and Jesus who receives. And both are unconditional. In the very act of giving itself, there is already a reception. And in the very act of reception, there is also giving. An authentic act of giving involves an authentic act of reception too, and here both come from the same person, in the same direction. This is so beautiful. It is not two separate processes. And this, I think, is a beautiful model for various relationships — gift and hospitality coming together, not in opposite directions, but in the same direction.
Can our relationships slowly acquire this dimension? Some of us are good at giving. When giving is authentic, hospitality is automatically part of it. Some of us are good at hospitality. The giving automatically comes with it. And in the cross, both are very much evident. Even in my favorite parable, the parable of the Prodigal Son, there is the father giving — the inheritance, the feast — and the father receiving, welcoming the son back. And if you look more closely, at the very moment the father receives the son, he is also giving. Two acts at different points of time, yet also at the same moment.
Think also of a mother and a child. A mother caring for her child — it is a giving, and it is also a receiving. I often hear one complaint from children against their parents: my parents gave me everything, but they never really received me (they use phrases like they never received expressions of love and so on). Perhaps this is not said to create guilt or shame, but there is an invitation here to see that interconnection between hospitality and gift — in the same act, in the same direction. And I think in that way, our gifts become more authentic. Our hospitality becomes more authentic.
