The land around the Sea of Galilee where Jesus spoke told the crowds “I am the bread of life” was good farmland then, and it’s good farmland now. In Jesus’ day, Herod the Great and his son Herod Antipas, Galilee’s rulers then, appreciated this fertile land and created a network of roads and cities – Tiberius, Sepphoris and Caesarea Maritima on the sea– to export goods from Galilee to the rest of the world.

“I am the bread of life”,  Jesus says.. I am the source of your blessings and everything that is. God the creator works through me.  Moses asked for bread for his people journeying from Egypt.   “I am the bread of life” for all creation as it makes its journey in time, Jesus says.

Jesus makes a divine claim as he feeds a multitude. The crowd  wants to make him king, (John 6, 15) but the kingship they see doesn’t approach the kingship that’s his. It’s much too small; Jesus rejects their plan.

In a commentary on Jesus as the bread of life, the early theologian Origen says that Jesus calls himself bread because he is “nourishment of every kind,” not just nourishment of our bodies, but of our minds and souls and, beyond that, creation itself.

“Give us this day our daily bread.” We pray, not just for ourselves, but for creation.