Today's passage from Exodus was used only a few weeks ago. God fed the Sons of Israel in the desert and this is interpreted as a test of their resolve to follow the laws given to Moses; to support the Covenant. 

St Paul speaks directly to the point. He knows that the newly converted are not going to change overnight. They have followed the way of life of their fathers; the culture of Hellenism is part of their being although the Jews among them had followed the Law given to Moses. What a mixture of peoples there  must have been in Ephesus; not only of peoples but also of religions and philosophy.

 The beginnings of the Church there was indeed a "mustard seed". A mustard seed deeply resented by the religious professionals to be found there. Today St Paul would recognise the same Pagan Way of Life as the dominant aimless culture of most of the peoples of all our world and not just of the megacities which have replaced those of the Roman world that he knew and travelled on his missionary journeys.

St John, our Theologian, has Jesus, probably the only true realist the world has seen, first he tells  the crowd the direct truth about themselves; then he tells the truth about  himself . He is the very being of God. Nothing more  is necessary in our lives than to recognise Jesus for what he is and to share in this "isness". Thus we will be able to live lives ordered to the "the Way the Truth and the Life" and eventually see and be overcome by the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.