Food, glorious food

(John 4:31-38)

This passage sits in the middle of the story of the woman at the well, at Sychar. Before it, the woman has left her jar and headed off to tell all her neighbours about “a man who told me everything I ever did.” After this passage the Samaritans are believing, originally because of the woman’s testimony, and then because of their own experience of Jesus, during the two days He stays with them.

But the bit in the middle of this sandwich is… all about food. And it is interesting that the story of the woman begins with Jesus asking for a drink and never getting it, but instead offering a drink of living water to the woman; and now, when He has sent the disciples off to buy food, He doesn’t seem to eat any. But there is one tiny bit which we may be reading incorrectly; and it might just matter. Here is 31-34 in Greek:

Ἐν τῷ μεταξὺ ἠρώτων αὐτὸν οἱ μαθηταὶ λέγοντες· Ῥαββί, φάγε. ὁ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· Ἐγὼ βρῶσιν ἔχω φαγεῖν ἣν ὑμεῖς οὐκ οἴδατε. ἔλεγον οὖν οἱ μαθηταὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους· Μή τις ἤνεγκεν αὐτῷ φαγεῖν; λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Ἐμὸν βρῶμά ἐστιν ἵνα ποιήσω τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πέμψαντός με καὶ τελειώσω αὐτοῦ τὸ ἔργον.

‘In the middle of all this (the disciples wondering what He wanted with a woman, and the woman heading off to the city), the disciples asked Him saying, “Rabbi, eat!”‘

‘He said to them, “I have meat (meat as opposed to drink, not necessarily part of an animal) to eat, which you do not know.”‘ (“know by reflection”, so could be taken as “you haven’t worked this out yet.”)

‘Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Someone didn’t bring Him something to eat, did they?” (“did they” implied by structure using μή)

And here is the bit I am talking about:

‘Jesus said to them, “Things to eat, for me, are just in order that I should do the will of the one who sent me, and that I should finish His work.”‘

Before I explain why this might be significant, let’s make the obvious point: if Jesus wanted to say “my food is to do the will of Him who sent me etc”, He would have said something like βρῶσιν ἐμοῦ …, which is literally ‘my food/meat’. Ἐμὸν βρῶμά is unnecessarily complicated, and reads much more like “with respect to me, what is eaten is in order that…”

And of course, most English translations suppress the ἵνα (“in order that”).

So what I think Jesus is saying, is not “doing what God wants is better than eating to me”, but rather “the whole point of food is so I (and you) can get on with the job we’ve been given.” The first option sounds very pious, but have you tried it? For a start, how long would you be able to keep doing what God assigned you to do if you just stopped eating food, permanently? Not long? Then “doing the will of God” probably isn’t your actual food.

The second option, and which I believe Jesus was actually saying, is actually a fundamental principle of the Kingdom. Not just food, but every good thing that is ours in the Kingdom is, yes, ours because God loves us as His children; but in an instrumental sense, it is given to you so that you can get on with the (wonderful, exciting, satisfying) assignment He has given you. Food; healing; provision; prosperity; revelation; you name it, if you thought it was an end in itself, you are missing the point.

But just a minute. Didn’t Jesus say “I have food to eat which you don’t know”? Yes He did, and yes, I totally agree that He is saying that something in His conversation with that deeply thirsty woman, and in what is already happening as a result of that conversation (crowds heading out to the well from the city) is both satisfying (a food word) as well as being “as sustaining as food” to Him. And that is the subtle but important point I think we need to take from this passage. Jesus is saying “I get joy and satisfaction out of pursuing My assignment, so if I don’t need to eat at this precise moment – well isn’t that why I eat in the first place, so I can get on with doing things that will please the One who sent Me and so I can finish His work?” Which is all about joy and satisfaction. I fear that we have used our minor misreading of the text as yet another spur to embrace self-denial and – ultimately – self-righteousness.

1st person: “You seem to be doing it really tough!” Second person: “Oh, well, my food is to do God’s will…”

And one more thing: τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πέμψαντός με, “the will of Him who sent me” is actually not about “the plan of Him who sent me” (which would be βουλή) but rather “what He will willingly, gladly endorse”.

So before we tackle the last part of this passage, let me summarise: was Jesus tired, thirsty and hungry? Yes, yes and yes. Would that stop me enjoying the moment? Most days I can think of, yes I would be grumpy, at least until I got some water. Did it stop Jesus going with the joy. Not at all. And as we will see, He even has a joke at the disciples’ expense.

Verse 35: “Don’t you say that, ‘it is yet four months and then the harvest comes?’ Behold I say to you, lift up your eyes and see the fields that are white for harvest.”

As has long been recognised, the “fields” Jesus is referencing are the ones between Sychar and the well, now flooded with people making their way out (in the heat of noon) to see this man who might be the Messiah.

“Already the reaper draws his wage and gathers fruit for eternal life, in order that the sower can rejoice with the reaper. For in this the word is made true, that one is the sower and another one is the reaper.”

Notice this is all about a) wages and b) joy. Jesus is seeing joy and reward before His little team; this is going to be a great experience for them. And because (I would guess) they were exhibiting puzzlement as they desperately tried to catch up with what was going on, He makes His joke.

“What is so hard to understand about this – I have set something in motion here (I sowed) and you are going to harvest it (all these people headed our way). Just like I sent you to get food from the city. Someone else did all the hard work to produce the food, and you just have to go to town and come back with a bag of sandwiches!”