Homily: 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
Friends,
this week we step aside from the Gospel of Mark for a few weeks and take up the
Gospel of John. We do this for two
reasons: 1) because the Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the Gospels and so it
is difficult to fill the 34 weeks of Ordinary Time with readings from his
gospel without repeating any parts; and 2) so that we can hear the pivotal chapter
six from the Gospel of John, known as the “Bread of Life” discourse. This year, as we continue our National
Eucharistic Revival, we should attend even more diligently to this gospel
passage as it reminds us of and invites us to deepen our devotion to the truth
that Jesus, the Son of God, is truly present to us in the celebration of the Eucharist
and in the species of the Blessed Sacrament.
This
passage opens with the recounting of the multiplication of the loaves and fish
(also known as the “feeding of the five thousand”). This passage is very familiar to us as it is
recounted in each of the four gospels.
In the context of our Eucharistic Revival, certainly we should hear this
story with a “Eucharistic” sense: that the feeding of the multitude with what
appeared to be too little food is a sign that points to the Eucharist, which is
multiplied to feed the faithful throughout the world. This is an enduring interpretation of the
sign that Jesus performed. I would also
like to invite us to consider something that might enhance and deepen our
understanding of this sign. And so, let’s
take a look at it.
Near
the beginning of this passage, as John is setting the scene, he notes what time
of year it was. He said “The Jewish
feast of the Passover was near”. I
believe that this is significant because both the sign that Jesus performs and
the teaching that follows it are intended to re-contextualize the ministry of
the Messiah for the Jews. Let me try to
explain.
The
Jewish feast of Passover is the feast of deliverance. We remember from the book of Exodus that the
Passover was first celebrated when the Hebrew people were enslaved in Egypt and
Moses had been called to lead this people out of slavery to return to the land
of their forefathers. Pharaoh, the king
of Egypt, refused to let them go and so God sent a series of plagues (or
afflictions) on the Egyptians to demonstrate his power. After nine of these afflictions, Pharaoh
remained obstinate and refused to set the Hebrew people free. The last affliction would be the death of the
first-born son of every family and of all the livestock in Egypt. The Passover sacrifice and meal was
established to set apart the Hebrew people from the Egyptians and save them
from this last affliction. Once this
affliction descended on the people, Pharaoh quickly relented and drove the
Hebrew people out of Egypt so as to prevent any further affliction. Thus, the Passover sacrifice and meal was
established as the feast of deliverance from slavery into freedom and new life.
At
the time of Jesus’ ministry on earth, the ancestors of those ancient Hebrews,
the Jews, looked for a Messiah who would be a great king, like King David, who
would destroy all of their enemies and establish them as a proud and royal
nation once again. Jesus came in human
flesh, however, not to re-establish an earthly kingdom, which would be the most
dominant and prominent on the earth, but rather to establish a new feast of
deliverance—a new Passover—which would set all people free not from worldly
powers and dominations, but from the spiritual powers of sin and death, caused
by sin.
Therefore,
Jesus performs this sign of the multiplication of the loaves and fish while “the
Jewish feast of Passover was near” so that, as he prepares to teach this
pivotal teaching about salvation—that is, that one must eat his flesh and drink
his blood in order to have eternal life—it might be seen in the context of the
Passover sacrifice and meal: the sacrifice and meal that led to the deliverance
of God’s chosen people from slavery and into new life. Is this making sense? I’ll say it again: Jesus performs this sign
and gives this teaching at that specific time of the year (that is, near the
feast of Passover) in order to show that what he will offer will be a new feast
of deliverance—a sacrifice and meal that will lead those who partake in it to
pass over from death into new life. Can
you see now why the Church wants to be sure that we hear this passage? It is one of the most important of the
Gospels!
With
all of this in mind, we can then take another look at the miracle of
multiplication that Jesus performed. As
I said at the beginning, certainly we should see this miraculous multiplication
as a symbol of the Eucharist: God taking what appears to be insufficient (simple
bread and wine) and multiplying it to give life to the multitude (the life of
Christ by transforming it into his Body and Blood). In other words, that this miracle is a
foreshadowing of the Eucharistic meal that we all share. In the coming weeks, as we continue to read
this passage, we’ll see that there is something missing from this that keeps it
from being a “new feast of deliverance”.
In fact, Jesus will name it as he continues with his teaching: saying
that the people were coming to him because Jesus gave them “free food”. The missing piece is the sacrifice.
As
I said about the Jewish feast of Passover, it was both a sacrifice and a
meal. In order for Jesus’ “new feast of
deliverance” to be the same, it has to be more than a meal: it also has to be a
sacrifice. In the first Passover, the
sacrifice was an unblemished lamb. In
the new Passover, Jesus is the Unblemished Lamb who will be sacrificed on the
cross. This sacrifice is what makes
possible the meal from which we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus that
delivers us from sin and death and frees us to enter into the perfect and
eternal life of happiness in heaven. As
we will see, the Jews will misunderstand this because they think that the
Messiah will be a powerful earthly king, instead of a sacrificial lamb that
will make possible the true deliverance of humankind. We are invited to re-center ourselves on this
truth and reflect upon it over these next weeks, so as to renew our devotion to
this central truth of our faith and lead others into this saving faith.
Friends,
it’s no accident that our National Eucharistic Revival has been developing over
these past years as we approached these pivotal readings, and it’s no accident
that the National Eucharistic Congress concluded just last Sunday. These have been planned to point to the
truths that are revealed to us in this passage from the Gospel of John so that
we might be renewed in our devotion and inspired to witness to this truth in
our lives. Let us, therefore, boldly
embrace these weeks and allow God’s Spirit to inflame our hearts with love for
Jesus in the Eucharist once more: so that we might be his fervent witnesses now
and receive the fullness of its reward in heaven.
Given in Spanish at St. Joseph Parish: Rochester, IN – July
28th, 2024
No comments:
Post a Comment