NewCreation

Homily for Sunday 17 in Ordinary Time, Year B

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this, the homily for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Today we've switched gospels from Mark's Gospel to John's Gospel. We had left Mark's Gospel at the point where the feeding of the 5,000 is about to occur, and we've come straight to John's account of the feeding of the 5,000. So over the next three weeks we will be following St. John's version of this — the great treatise, John chapter 6 — of the sign, the sign which the Son of Man is giving. And in fact John's version shares a lot with Mark's version; there are lots of words in common, so it's very likely that John was using elements from Mark in his own account. But there are also some particularities to John, some little side references which indicate a different time of writing and an awareness that things needed to be explained for a different time, as we'll see in just a second. But the first thing that's different between John's and Mark's is that, if you remember Mark, who we've been reading up till now, Jesus has stayed in Galilee, in the region around Galilee. He hasn't yet gone to Jerusalem. Whereas in John's Gospel, Jesus has already gone up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Passover. He's already performed the cleansing of the Temple. He's already performed a number of signs in Jerusalem. The last one, in the chapter immediately before this one, being that of the beggar at the pool of the sheep gate, Beth-zatha — the man who'd been there for 38 years — and he enabled this person to walk. And this was one of the signs; it was one of the signs that people interpreted as a sign. So when it says here that people came from other places because of the things he'd done with sick people, this was one of the signs that they were talking about. And what was the sign? Well, for 38 years this was someone who had been almost the 40 years of the time in the wilderness, and was finally being given a chance to walk just before the 40 years were up, so that he could come into the kingdom, the promised land. So people have picked up that what Jesus was doing were not simply miracles, but there were miracles pointing towards something that God was doing — something historic, that there was an active communication going on, not just a wonderful thing, but a wonderful thing pointing towards God doing something big. That's what the signs are. So we have that in the background to what is about to happen now. In John's telling of the feeding of the 5,000, he has in common with Mark that Moses and Joshua are very much in the background — and not only, but we'll see other prophets as well — but also the sense that people were aware of this. So after Jesus has been in Jerusalem, he's preached, if you like, to Egypt, to the institutionally tough place. And now he went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. So now he's back in the north. He's gone across the sea, which is all you need to know: left Egypt, gone across the sea. A large crowd kept following him because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. The Sea of Galilee, also referred to by John as the Sea of Tiberias, which was a name to which it was given later. It means that people towards the end of the first century could work out what was being talked about. So Jesus, like Moses, has gone across the sea. Other people come along as well because of the signs. Jesus goes up a mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Well, this was actually what Moses had done initially. His first trip up the mountain was with his elders, and they feasted before the Lord. You remember that this was what Jesus had been planning to do with his disciples in Mark, taking them up to a place to give them some rest. But now they found that lots more people are coming. So now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. In John's Gospel, Jesus' ministry is carefully calculated according to the different Passovers that Jesus either was or wasn't in Jerusalem, culminating in the final one when he was. This is the second Passover. First Passover he'd been in Jerusalem before and performed the first of his signs there. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. So we have this in the background. We already have him acting mosaically, but now he's not going to perform the Passover in Jerusalem. He's now going to perform the Passover much more in the wilderness. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him — so when he looked up, there's always in the Hebrew Scriptures, particularly with the Abraham stories, that the looking up, the raising up of his eyes, is usually the sign of something prophetic to be fulfilled. So he looks up and he sees a large crowd coming towards him, and Jesus says to Philip — okay, so remember, Philip, Andrew and Simon Peter are the first three disciples Jesus meets in John's Gospel, then Nathanael comes along later, but the first three are these three, and they're the three who are going to appear in this Gospel, each with their slightly different personal characteristic. So Jesus says to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?" He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. So we have the testing in the wilderness. Though here it is the Lord who is testing at least one of his people, one of his leaders, to see whether he's actually going to understand what Jesus is doing. Remember Philip, Philippos, lover of horses, lover of strength. But he gives up pretty much immediately. "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?" Philip answered him: "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little." Actually, 200 denarii is what he said, but that would come up to about six months' wages or more, so not enough to provide food. There is possibly – just possibly – in the hint here a reference to the story of Achan in the book of Joshua, who, when he's about to be stoned for having taken of the Lord's stuff and all his relatives are out to stone him with stones at the behest of Joshua, who needs his troops to be re-moralized to carry on his movement into the Holy Land, just before that he's asked what he's stolen. He said, amongst other things, 200 shekels of silver. Why is there a hint that Joshua is in the background here? Well, because the solution after poor Achan is stoned to death – in other words, one has died for all – is that Joshua divides his troops at the Lord's instruction into two: the bulk of them who are sent away, and 5,000, or as it says "about 5,000," which John quotes very exactly, who go and hide behind Ai and prepare for the war. They're prepared to take the city of Ai, where previously the chosen people had failed. So the 200 denarii and the "about 5,000" – there's just a suggestion that we're in the presence of much more than Joshua here. Joshua needed to engage in a lottery and scapegoating to find out who had stolen something. That person gave his life, was stoned for everybody, so they could then carry on. They were then divided into the majority and the 5,000 men who were ready. Just a hint that that's going on here. Philip answered him: "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little" – saying, basically, although I'm the strong guy, I've got no idea how to cope with this. But one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him – so that's the other who was at the beginning of it. Andrew, remember: Andreas, vir, manly – that's what it means. "There's a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish." In other words, manly man has to point to a boy who's mysteriously got the goods. There's a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish – that's the number seven. The number seven is the number of perfection. And of course there's the hint here from the story about Elisha, which is our first reading in today's Mass from 2 Kings 4: "A man came from Baal-shalishah bringing Elisha the man of God bread from the first fruits, 20 barley loaves and fresh grain in the ear. Give it to the people to eat," Elisha said. But his servant replied, "How can I serve this to a hundred men?" "Give it to the people to eat," he insisted, "for the Lord says this: they will eat and have some left over." He served them, they ate, and had some left over, as the Lord had said. said. In other words, the barley loaves, which appear very rarely in Scripture, they appear here, and it's precisely to do with there being much more than is needed. The abundance of the Lord is shown in the giving of the barley loaves. So more than Joshua, more than Elisha is here. Jesus says make the people sit down. First of all, they were a crowd, ochlos; now they are the people, anthropos. Fairly soon they will be men. That's the term, and the other synoptic Gospel brings this out specifically: it was five thousand men, to say nothing of the women and children. That also suggests the military preparation in the background of the Joshua story. "Make the people sit down." Now there was a great deal of grass in the place. So two points here. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he makes me lie down in green pastures." So here is the Lord literally making people lie down in green pastures. But also, "there was a great deal of grass in the place." The place was always also a standard word for the Temple. And remember that Jesus has already foretold the end of the Temple. He's not celebrating the Passover in the Temple. He's celebrating the Passover back in the wilderness. He's fulfilling the original purpose of the Passover, and he's going to be showing what it all means. And he's taken them to a place and he's having them lie down. They are reclining. This is the position of free people, not slaves. Free people reclined when they eat. Here they're reclining in a non-sacrificial place in order to be fed. So they sat down, they reclined, about five thousand in all. And these are men. So: from crowd, to people, to men. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks he distributed them to those who were seated, so also the fish, as much as they wanted. Interesting: in John's Gospel it's not that he blesses them, breaks them, and then hands them over to the disciples to do the distributing. Here he is the distributor; he distributes them himself. And I think that John is making the point here that it's he himself who is distributing himself, and that that's, if you like, what is going to be worked out in the rest of the chapter — what is this real distribution that's going on, who is distributing, what does it mean? "When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, 'Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.'" So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. So the five barley loaves, which have replaced the five pillars of the Law, they have been eaten, the fragments have filled people, and they've filled twelve baskets. The whole of the people of Israel has been filled, has been satisfied. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world" — meaning, this is the one whom Moses told us would come into the world. Moses had prophesied that one would come after him who would be able to do things like atone, which Moses was unable to do. So the crowd has got that. But when Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, so immediately the people of Israel fall into the idolatry of the golden calf: they idolatrise Jesus, and so Jesus withdraws again to the mountain by himself. Moses's second trip to the mountain by himself. Jesus is reenacting Moses, the beginning of the Passover, as he's about to teach people about the bread of life: greater than Joshua, greater than Elisha, the one whom Moses had promised. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Spirit. Amen.