BIBLE STUDY #53
EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
JULY 31, 2011


Reading 1
Is 55:1-3

Thus says the LORD:
All you who are thirsty,
come to the water!
You who have no money,
come, receive grain and eat;
Come, without paying and without cost,
drink wine and milk!
Why spend your money for what is not bread;
your wages for what fails to satisfy?
Heed me, and you shall eat well,
you shall delight in rich fare.
Come to me heedfully,
listen, that you may have life.
I will renew with you the everlasting covenant,
the benefits assured to David.

The Word of the Lord

Reading II
Rom 8:35, 37-39

Brothers and sisters:
What will separate us from the love of Christ?
Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?
No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly
through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities,
nor present things, nor future things,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature will be able to separate us
from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Word of the Lord

Gospel
Mt 14:13-21

When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist,
he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns.
When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd,
his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.
When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said,
“This is a deserted place and it is already late;
dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages
and buy food for themselves.”
Jesus said to them, “There is no need for them to go away;
give them some food yourselves.”
But they said to him,
“Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.”
Then he said, “Bring them here to me, ”
and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass.
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven,
he said the blessing, broke the loaves,
and gave them to the disciples,
who in turn gave them to the crowds.
They all ate and were satisfied,
and they picked up the fragments left over—
twelve wicker baskets full.
Those who ate were about five thousand men,
not counting women and children.

The Gospel of the Lord

Reflection

Jesus public ministry began when John the Baptists’ ministry ended (see Matthew 4: 12-17). Now with John’s death (a prefigurement of Jesus’ own death), Jesus begins a new phase in his ministry. He is more withdrawn from public life because he is withdrawing from danger: the leadership is looking for ways to kill him, but it isn’t his “time” yet. This is reminiscent of the “hour” in John’s Gospel, referring to the hour of his passion and death. When it is time, Jesus will deliberately go to his passion and death in Jerusalem.

After chapter 13 with all the parables that we have been hearing recently, Jesus withdraws from teaching the crowds and begins to focus on the disciples. He is more concerned with the formation of the disciples and therefore the nascent church. He is preparing them for life after He rises and ascends to the Father.

When Jesus hears of John’s death, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place. Why? Was it to grieve over his cousin’s death? Or maybe to get a break from the crowds what always seem to follow him at this point in his ministry. That won’t last, though; at his death, there are only a hand full at the cross – the rest are in hiding or trying not to be noticed.

While Matthew seldom attributes emotions to Jesus, he is described as showing compassion for the crowds after disembarking from the boat. In his compassion, Jesus heals the sick.

These healings remind us of the future kingdom in its fullness: there will be no more pain, sorrow, or suffering. In the kingdom, all is made new, a promise of things to come.

The disciples approach Jesus with the problem of feeding all these people. It is late and they want to send the people away to go and find food. But Jesus in his grief and tiredness still wants to do something. Being a disciple is not always easy, nor does it always fit into our planned schedule. We still need to do what we can, regardless of its inconvenience or difficulty. Like the man walking the beach after a bad storm and throwing starfish that had been washed up ashore back into the ocean before they withered in the hot sun. Another man approached him and said, “Most of these fish will wither before you can throw them back. What difference can you make?” The first man picks up a starfish shows it to the second man, and says, “To this starfish, a lot.” We can’t change the world, but we can always help people.

Jesus knows what he wants to do and tells his disciples to take care of it. “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” It’s at this point that people begin to misinterpret this feeding story. They want to take the miraculous out of it and make it into a nice human interest story of sharing with each other. Some people have suggested that the crowd was so moved by Jesus’ compassion for them that they shared the food they had with each other, which turned out was enough to feed everyone. Another theory states that Jesus’ fed the spiritual hungers of the people instead of the physical.

I’m not sure where people come up with these ideas, because it is not supported by the text. The problem with reading your own ideas into scripture is that we lose the actual meaning of the passage as it was intended by the author. It was Matthew’s intent to have a miracle story where God intervenes for his people. There are plenty of examples in the Old Testament, but I’ll give two: 1) God feeding the people in the desert with manna Exodus 16, and 2) Elisha feeding 100 men with 20 loaves of bread in 2 Kings 4. These passages don’t express the idea of sharing food or of it being only spiritual food, but they do express God’s care for the people in their hour of need. In both instances they were in the desert, it seemed an impossible task to accomplish, and the people picked up the leftovers. Jesus used lesser food to feed a lot more people with a lot more leftovers. Matthew is depicting Jesus as being greater than all the prophets, one of his favorite themes. He is writing for a mainly Jewish-Christian audience, and it was an important theme in his community. Remember, Jesus is the new Moses, so for Matthew, whatever Moses and the prophets can do, Jesus can do better.

This passage is also a reminder to the reader of Jesus messiahship. When the messiah arrives, there will be peace and plenty. Multiplying the loaves shows God’s bountiful love and indicates that Jesus is the one longed for so long by so many people.

There is a very obvious Eucharistic theme here, also. The idea of Jesus looking up to heaven while blessing and breaking the bread has been included in Eucharistic Prayer 1 (Roman Cannon) used at Mass, but the idea of looking up is not in the text of the institution of the Eucharist on the night before Jesus died.

Jesus looking up to heaven, blessing, breaking, and distributing the bread are very liturgical and cultic in nature, and in fact have been preserved in our own Mass format. We don’t normally use the Roman Canon, so there won’t be a looking up to heaven, but see if you can identify the blessing, breaking, and distributing at Mass (in that order also). The bread is blessed during the consecration, it is broken right after the sign of peace, and distributed almost immediately thereafter.

For the earliest believers in Matthews’ community, these loaves of bread did anticipate the greater gift of Jesus body and blood, soul and divinity, in the Eucharist, and which also anticipates the final banquet in the kingdom. Remember, we describe heaven as the ‘banquet of life Christ has prepared for us’. It is not the banquet of life we prepare for ourselves through sharing, but the banquet of life Christ prepares for us. When we look at this passage only as sharing, we leave out Christ – never a good thing to do. Even worse, are we replacing Christ with ourselves?

The number of people fed (5,000, not counting women and children) and 12 baskets of bread left over, show us God’s bounty that can never be exhausted. This is reinforced in the first reading. All are welcome, there is no cost, and we shall dine well at God’s table, a table that gives life. Isaiah is inviting all those who find worldly things to be lacking to come and be fed with the food of God’s grace and presence.

It is also important to note that it was the disciples who distributed the bread. Jesus provides us with the bread of life, but it is up to us to bring it to others.

That’s why we push the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) in the summer and early fall. This program is for those who want to become full members in the church, so it is for the unbaptized, people of other Christian denominations, and for Catholics who haven’t yet received eucharist and/or confirmation. We are like Isaiah, and inviting people to God’s banquet. We are inviting people to “Come to me (God) heedfully, listen, that you may have life”. We are inviting people to share in God’s ‘rich fare’. Obviously, most people in these categories won’t be in church on Sundays, so it is up to all of us to invite them to the banquet. If you know of anyone, please make the invitation.

If some people hesitate at your invitation because they are not sure of they believe in God, tell them that God believes in them. St. Paul tells us that in the second reading. There is nothing we can do to make God stop loving us; in fact there is nothing we can do to lessen God’s love for us one iota. I think that people doubt God’s love because they have been hurt by others who withdraw their love. If you have never felt (or seldom feel) unqualified love, it’s hard to believe that it exists, but it does!

God has shown that it does exist time and time again. Scripture is full of examples of God’s love, culminating in the sacrifice of his Son, who left us the Eucharist to guide us, refresh us, and nourish us on our way back home.

I think attending Mass and receiving the Eucharist is paramount in growing in the Christian life. It is central to who we are as disciples. God gave us this great gift. Let us recommit ourselves to regularly (and I would hope weekly) attending Mass and receiving communion.



Fr. Phil