July 26, 2015

17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

2 Kings 4: 42-44; Ephesians 4: 1-6; John 6: 1-15

Am I aware of the gifts God has blessed me with? Am I grateful? Do I realize that my gifts are to be shared? When I look to share my gifts am I just looking in certain areas that I know I am talented or do I let the Lord surprise me with making me aware of ‘more’ of His gifts? When I begin to give in these areas that I’m unsure of, I am very dependent on God to ‘do His miracles’ and I am the willing sharer. I have found that the deep truth in this last sentence has brought me consistently closer to God’s love for all His people and specifically how He is using me to be His instrument of love and care. The readings help me understand God’s gifts and my sharing of these gifts.

The first reading from the second book of Kings depicts a ‘miracle’ time in Elisha’s life. Elijah picked out Elisha when he was plowing the fields to be his attendant. The interesting story of Elijah being taken up to heaven in a ‘flaming chariot’ in a whirlwind and Elisha picking up his mantle and continuing his mission of prophecy is found in 2 Kings chapter 2. Today Elisha is brought twenty barley loaves as an offering. He was serving God at a time of drought in the Israel. God had withheld rain from the land so that the kings would turn back to Him. Elisha was preaching that God was the source of all good and the sustainer of all His people. Today, a person brings these loaves from a place bearing the name of the Canaanite god Baal. It seems that this person realizes that he owes thanks to the God of Elisha for providing the first fruits and the fresh grain. Elisha reflects on the graciousness of God and is about to share these loaves when a servant objects saying that the loaves are so small and will not be enough for so large a crown. Elisha uses this opportunity to teach them and me that as long as they rely on God first, they will lack nothing. All one hundred people are fed and leftovers are gathered.

Jesus said repeatedly that what I have been given as a gift I should share as a gift. Paul is in prison where he is writing the Ephesians to encourage unity among them and to build up their faith. He shares that all people are called to live in peace and to practice every virtue. He provides a strong dose of reality to us when he preaches patience and living with each other in love. We are to be one in Christ…to be Christ to others. This unity just doesn’t happen, we have to work on it. It’s a question I have to ask myself all the time, how am I reaching this goal in my life? God has chosen each person to be Him to the world. To do this I have to be humble, gentle, patient and understanding. No matter how small or large my gift, am I using them to build up Christ? Are my gifts making a difference in showing others how to live in love?

Jesus, as always, brings out this gift-sharing in a wonderful way. John’s gospel shares an incredible miracle that relies on a young child’s gifts which strengthen my faith and sharing. Regardless of who I am or what little I have, I should never think that I have nothing to give. God fills every void.

A little background: the feeding of the multitude is the only miracle (John prefers the word sign) that is found in all four Gospels. (Matthew 14: 13-21; Mark 6: 32-44; Luke 9: 10-17; and here in John 6: 1-13). Matthew and Mark include an additional feeding miracle while Jesus is in Gentile territory. John’s gospel today includes interesting details. The loaves are made of barley, just as in the story from Elisha today. The people are told to recline which is the position one would take at a dinner table. The Synoptic Gospels envision a picnic where all sit. The event looks back to a time during the Exodus where the Hebrew’s are fed in the desert. It also looks toward the Last Supper and the establishment of the Eucharistic meal. Now John does not depict the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, rather, later in this chapter, he will present Jesus as describing Himself as the bread of life (John 6:22-59). “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is My flesh for the life of the world.”

I found a very interesting reflection on this gospel in Living the Word, “St. John Chrysostom, who lived in the last half of the fourth century, raised an interesting question in connection with the feeding of the multitudes. Why didn’t Jesus simply create food out of thin air rather than multiply the food that was there? After all, the bread and fish were pretty simple fare, lowbrow food—not unlike saltines and canned sardines. Could Jesus, who in John’s Gospel is depicted as the one through whom all things were made, not have conjured up something more exciting for the gathered multitude? Chrysostom responds to his own question, saying that it was because Jesus wished to use, ‘the creation itself as a groundwork for his marvels (Homily 42 on the Gospel of John). Rather than create something anew, Jesus takes what is already at hand and transforms it by multiplying it. And in doing this, Jesus is teaching us two things.

First, he is reminding us that creation itself is already miraculous, Jesus works miracles not to convince us that God can, on occasion, do extraordinary things, but to awaken us to the fact that God does an extraordinary thing—holding our world in existence—all the time. The ongoing existence of our world is the greatest of God’s mighty acts, and the miracles of Jesus should reinforce this truth and not undercut it.

Second, he is showing us that the way God works in the world is not by discarding the ordinary realities of creation and substituting for them something new and different, but rather by taking what is already at hand and transforming it. As an old adage of Catholic theology puts it, grace perfects and does not destroy nature. Just as Christ use the simple food provided by a boy to fee the multitude, so too he can use the simple substance of our daily lives to do His work in the world. We might look at our lives and ask, like Andrew in today’s Gospel, ‘What good is this for so many?’ But today’s Gospel shows us that it is good enough, if Christ takes it and blesses it.”

So I reflect on:

• Do I appreciate the miraculous nature of my daily life? Am I grateful for all the miracles I witness and am a participant in each day? What hinders me from seeing these miracles?

• When have I seen God use ordinary things and events to do something extraordinary?

“Do I realize that Eucharist is possible only when:

• self defers to community
• serving others is exalted over being served
• differences dissolve and the common and shared are honored above all else?”

Sacred Space 2015 shares:

“I enter in imagination into this amazing scene. I share Philip’s puzzlement; I watch the little boy as he gives up the lunch his mother made for him. I gaze at Jesus as He prays, then as He breaks the bread and the fish. It takes so long to feed everyone, but He is smiling as He works.

Jesus fills my empty and grubby hands, too, and I look into His eyes and thank Him.”