For five weeks beginning today the Gospel at Sunday Mass will be taken from chapter six of Saint John, which recounts two miracles worked by the Lord Jesus and presents his teaching on how he himself is the Bread of Life. So please take time in this month to read and study all of chapter six of Saint John’s Gospel.
Our text today is the first fifteen verses of chapter six, and the scene is once again the Sea of Galilee. But in all of chapter five which leads up to our lesson today, Christ and the Twelve are in Jerusalem, and while they are in the Holy City, Jesus cures a man on the Sabbath who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. But instead of being praised by the Temple authorities for this work of charity, Jesus is sharply rebuked for violating the sabbath rest required by the Law of Moses.
The remainder of chapter five contains the teaching of Jesus on his true identity as the Father’s only begotten Son. But the words and deeds of the Lord arouse only contempt and rage among the leaders in Jerusalem, and so Christ departs the Holy City and returns with the Twelve to Galilee where our narrative begins today.
John writes: “Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.” Notice, the very same deed which aroused contempt in Jerusalem among religious authorities, namely healing the sick, brings forth devotion among the simple people of the fishing villages in Galilee. Then John tells us that “Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near.”
With these words about ascending a mountain at Passover and sitting down to teach, John is not simply providing location information; he is telling us that the Lord Jesus is the new Moses, which authorizes him to teach that the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath, thus correcting the misunderstanding of the Law by the Scribes and Pharisees. And the connection of these events to the Passover points ahead to the arrival of the Hour for which God the Son became the Son of Mary, the Hour when he will be revealed as the true Lamb of God by his suffering, death, and Resurrection.
John goes on: “When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, ‘Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?’ He said this (John assures us) to test (Philip), because (Christ) himself knew what he was going to do.”
Remember that for the past two Sundays we have been reading from chapter six of Mark’s Gospel about the Lord Jesus teaching the Twelve Apostles to be his missionaries and how they learned to teach and sanctify others in Christ’s name and with his authority. That very same sort of seminary training is now taking place in John’s Gospel, and the Savior is preparing the Twelve to be his ministers of the Bread of Life.
After Jesus asks about the food, Philip explains that even if a market could be found in the wilderness, it would still take more money to feed this crowd than an average man earned in over seven months. But then Andrew, brother of Simon Peter, speaks up to say that a boy in the crowd has two fish and five loaves of barley bread, even as he acknowledges that these modest means will avail them nothing. But the Savior, undeterred by these limitations, instructs the Twelve to have the vast crowd of thousands recline on the grass and prepare them to be fed by totally inadequate means, just as did the Prophet Elisha in our first lesson today.
At each step in this moment of grace, Jesus leads and teaches, but he does so only through the ministry of his Apostles. And this then is the pattern on which everything in the life of the Church depends. Christ alone is the Lord, Christ is the divine Word, Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Church preaches only Christ Jesus and him crucified and Risen, so that when the Church teaches, it is Christ teaching. When the Church acts, it is Christ acting in and through the Church. When the Church celebrates the sacraments of the new and eternal covenant, it is Christ uniting us to himself for the salvation of the world, in his Church.
This is among the many reasons why the notion of a solitary Christian is an impossible fantasy. One who will not be a faithful member of Christ’s Church cannot be a true disciple of the Lord Jesus. And that is why Saint Paul urged the Christians at Ephesus as we read today to bear with each other in love, patience, humility, and gentleness.
Paul exhorts them, despite their difficulties and disagreements, to preserve the unity of the Spirit in one Body, the Church, to which all Christians are called by the one Lord through one Baptism. And it is only in that one Church that we receive the Most Holy Eucharist which is foreshadowed by the magnificent sign in Galilee about which we also read today.
John tells us that “Jesus took the loaves and gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining and also as much of the fish as they wanted. When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.’ So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with the fragments …”
Friends, the grace of God is never just enough for us. His grace is superabundant and overflowing with love if only we will heed the Word of God and allow ourselves to be fed with the truth of the Gospel through the ministry of the Church. And notice: the collected fragments filled twelve baskets.
As the children of Israel were organized into Twelve Tribes founded on the Twelve Patriarchs, so the Church is the new Israel founded on the Twelve Apostles. And despite the many sins and failures of the Twelve and, even more, the sins and failures of the bishops and priests who stand in the apostolic succession, our communion with Christ is found only in full communion with his Church. And that communion, in turn, depends upon our willingness to be taught the Gospel and to receive the sacraments according to the mind of the Church which is the mind of Christ.
John concludes: “When the people saw the sign (Christ) had done, they said ‘This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.’ Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone.”
The signs or miracles of the Lord Jesus were given to us only to confirm the truth of his words and to reveal his divine glory as the true Son of God the Father. But Christ knew that our thirst for his dominion would easily turn from anticipation of his heavenly kingdom into a yearning for an earthly power able through signs and wonders to guarantee full plates and perpetual good health to all.
But that is not Christianity; in fact, that is the false gospel of prosperity which teaches that earthly bounty and blessings will come to all who love Christ and trust in the Holy Spirit. But the Savior himself promises his disciples in this life only a share in his Cross as a condition for sharing in his eternal glory on the Last Day, and the only sign to be given now is the sign of Jonah, meaning the suffering, death, and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Notice that for different reasons both the Jerusalem authorities in chapter five of John and the Galilee crowds in chapter six missed the full truth about Christ and his Kingdom. Those in Jerusalem held Jesus in contempt, while those in Galilee revered him, but both groups failed to understand the truth of who the Lord is, why he came among us, and what his kingdom is. And that is why, after the crowd had been fed, the Savior left them just as he had earlier left Jerusalem. Then he once again sought solitude, for his Hour was approaching but had not yet fully come.
As we can see all around us, it is still very easy for people to be offended by the Lord Jesus and his teaching or to misunderstand him and look for what cannot be found in him, and both of these temptations are perennial challenges for all of us. But Christ, whose Body we must eat and whose Blood we must drink to have everlasting life, will not soften his words for our comfort.
At Mass over the next four Sundays, be prepared to hear hard sayings. We will read the Bread of Life discourse and see the challenge this teaching presents to us as we seek to surrender our minds and wills in the obedience of faith to the Gospel, the Good News of the Word made flesh, the one alone who is the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation, the divine Redeemer of the human race, the same yesterday, today, and forever: the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the text of my homily for 28 July 2024, the 17th Sunday of the Year.
Fr Jay Scott Newman