17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
2 Kings 4:42-44 Ephesians 4:1-6 John 6:1-15
In today’s Gospel we re-join the ‘large crowd’ that followed Jesus even to the ‘other side of the Sea of Galilee’. We have been hearing Mark’s account of the activities of Jesus these Sundays. But today we read from the Gospel of John. Both Mark and John along with the other evangelists, Matthew and Luke recount the miracle of ‘The feeding of the five thousand’. St John goes deeper than the others in his description and interpretation of this, the most famous of the Miracles of Jesus. Saint John sets the time and scene: ‘Jesus climbed the hillside’; ‘It was shortly before the Jewish feast of Passover’. So many of the great events in the history of our salvation occur on a Mountain and in many of these stories we hear how God feeds his people with his word and with bread. Our first reading today tells of how Elisha fed a hundred people with loaves sent by an angel of the Lord. Passover was the greatest feast in the Jewish year, commemorating the Exodus, when under the leadership of Moses the Hebrews passed from slavery to freedom.
The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes took place on a hill, recalling Mount Sinai where Moses met with God. The question put to Philip by Jesus ‘Where can we buy some bread for these people to eat?’ is similar to a question put by Moses to God. (Numbers 11:22) Because the people complained to Moses and asked for food, God fed them with Manna. The people following Jesus did not ask for food: they came because of his words and the signs. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, fed them because of his compassion and care. While Moses led the people from slavery to freedom in the first Passover, the feeding of the five thousand was to prefigure another Passover meal, the institution of the Blessed Eucharist. Saint John seems to have this central event of our Salvation in mind when he describes the miracle in today’s Gospel. The word Eucharist is taken from the Greek language and means “to give thanks”. The narrative today tells how Jesus began: he ‘gave thanks’.
The story of the Last Supper, as told by John, is somewhat different to the story told by Matthew, Mark, Luke and Paul. Instead of describing the meal and the actions of Jesus with the bread and cup, John describes how Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. To give thanks is an action! The Eucharist is an action. In the Eucharist which we celebrate at Mass we are fed by Jesus himself, served by Jesus himself – and we are, in turn, sent out to serve others.
There are many symbols and signs in today’s Gospel reading which direct us or suggest to us the way we might live having been taught and fed with the words and actions of the Lord. St. John tells us that it was with ‘barley bread’ that the crowds were fed. Barley bread was really the food of the poor. We are prompted to serve and feed the poor amongst us and to do it in the way that Jesus did. He escaped the adulation of the crowd because they wanted to make him king. Our actions – action of giving thanks and of service to each other is to be done quietly and without notice. Our greatest act of thanksgiving is to share whatever we have received without our meriting it.
It is, as St Paul says in today’s reading, to ‘Bear with one another charitably in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience’.