This blog follows the daily bible readings of the Catholic Church

 Reading 1, Acts 6:8-15

8 Stephen was filled with grace and power and began to work miracles and great signs among the people. 9 Then certain people came forward to debate with Stephen, some from Cyrene and Alexandria who were members of the synagogue called the Synagogue of Freedmen, and others from Cilicia and Asia. 10 They found they could not stand up against him because of his wisdom, and the Spirit that prompted what he said.

 11 So they procured some men to say, ‘We heard him using blasphemous language against Moses and against God.’

 12 Having turned the people against him as well as the elders and scribes, they took Stephen by surprise, and arrested him and brought him before the Sanhedrin. 13 There they put up false witnesses to say, ‘This man is always making speeches against this Holy Place and the Law. 14 We have heard him say that Jesus, this Nazarene, is going to destroy this Place and alter the traditions that Moses handed down to us.’

 15 The members of the Sanhedrin all looked intently at Stephen, and his face appeared to them like the face of an angel.

 Luke is writing years after these events, from a perspective which accepted the breach between synagogue and church as inevitable. For him, all accusations against disciples of Jesus, are either lies or misunderstandings. We also accept the missionary zeal of Christianity as right and natural. It’s hard for us to see how deeply offensive to Judaism was the inclusive mission of Jesus’ followers. Judaism was a religion for one people, including only those outsiders who wanted to be part of it. It was not missionary, nor did it judge outsiders by its own standards. If you wanted to be Jewish you took on the yoke of the covenant, and were judged by its standards, but gentiles were judged by their own lights. The Sanhedrin guided the community of faith with the overriding priority of preserving the covenant people. The Christian gospel probably sounded hysterical and presumptuous to them: disruptive in its sectarian stance; narrow in its exclusive reference to Jesus; blasphemous in its devotion to one other than God. They might have seen more clearly, if their own power had not been at stake.

Theologian Hans Kung who has examined Christianity from the viewpoints of Judaism and Islam

 Imagining their own faith and practice from the perspective of another religion, is a good exercise for all believers.

 Gospel, John 6:22-29

22 Next day, the crowd that had stayed on the other side saw that only one boat had been there, and that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples, but that the disciples had set off by themselves. 23 Other boats, however, had put in from Tiberias, near the place where the bread had been eaten.

 24 When the people saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into those boats and crossed to Capernaum to look for Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’

 26 Jesus answered: In all truth I tell you, you are looking for me not because you have seen the signs but because you had all the bread you wanted to eat. 27 Do not work for food that goes bad, but work for food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of man will give you, for on him the Father, God himself, has set his seal.

 28 Then they said to him, ‘What must we do if we are to carry out God’s work?’

 29 Jesus gave them this answer, ‘This is carrying out God’s work: you must believe in the one he has sent.’

Simone Weil, who carried out the work of God in her life and writing

In chasing Jesus as the multiplier of bread, the crowd was confusing material and spiritual food. The concept of spiritual food is of great importance today when even within churches material things, events, programmes, are often accepted as the bottom line, the nitty-gritty. Christianity does not decry the material: a religion of incarnation must take the material world as seriously as God. But the material should be open to the spiritual, and can indeed be the vehicle for the Spirit.

 Jesus says here that obtaining spiritual food involves work. What is this work? We must be careful with translations of the answer. Jesus literally says, “This is the work of God, that you put your trust in the one he has sent.”

 There is a sort of work which cooperates with God in building trust in Jesus. This includes material and practical living, but also reflection on it, by meditation, prayer, bible study, devotional reading and worship, both alone and with other believers. All such work has the one goal, to increase trust in Jesus. Any other aims or results are spurious.

 Doing this “work of God” is vital for the church in every generation.