Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 110

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 to test him,

because he himself knew what he was going to do.

Recently I pointed to the humorous stories which appear at the beginning and end of Saint John's Gospel. Today's passage in the middle of the same gospel also sparkles with comedy. The Trickster knows what he will do but he mischievously asks Philip, ""Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?"

Jesus' feeding of the large crowd in the wilderness has the same happy, carefree mood of the Wedding Feast at Cana and Doubting Thomas. It's a lovely gospel to hear in July, during a season of long evenings and summer vacations, when children (and some adults) lie in the grass and watch the clouds drift by, when the first fruits of the season are already coming in and the harvest of fall is promising. We can be forgiven if we hope the news cycle will hush up as politicians go on vacation and the dog days amble past.

Saint John tells us, "The Jewish feast of Passover was near." Passover is to the Jews like Christmas is to Christians, a huge event with many layers of meaning and memory. Just to say the word evokes feelings of nostalgia and hope. Song, smells, taste and sensations come to mind; every conversation or accidental encounter is touched with a hint of the feast. Nothing bad can happen during the Passover. Even enemies are hailed with friendly holiday greetings during the festive days.

So this incident of John 6 did not and could not happen at any time of year; it had to be Passover when Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. We're remembering Exodus and the forty-year honeymoon of God and his people in the Sinai Desert. The Lord provided water from a rock, bread from the dew and flocks of birds from the sky. Their clothes never tattered; their shoes never wore out.

This banquet in the wilderness is described as a sign not a miracle -- "When the people saw the sign he had done" -- so we should not misconstrue it as Jesus' demonstration of power. Twentieth century preachers, eager to show that Jesus is God, would use these "stranger-than-science miracles" as proof of Jesus' divinity. That misses the point.

Jesus fed the people in the wilderness as the Lord had fed the exiles in Sinai. It was an act of kindness and generosity typical of our God, and a further proof -- if we must use the word -- of God's mercy.

The people demonstrate a partial understanding when they conclude, "This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world." The Passover and the superabundance of food has aroused their memory of an ancient promise​ made to Moses, found in the Book of Deuteronomy:

A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you from among your own kindred; that is the one to whom you shall listen.

After Jesus' death and resurrection this banquet in the wilderness, with its aura of an unending holiday, blossomed into the Eucharist. John 6 establishes the connections between the one incident and our daily ceremony. The Catholic never feels so close to heaven as when we celebrate the Mass. The Lord has invited us, and the Spirit has drawn us, to the Table which God has prepared for us. We need to bring only an appetite for the Word.

Unlike the synoptic gospels which say that Jesus "gave the fish to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds," John says that  Jesus "distributed them to those who were reclining." The disciples do not act as mediators in this story, but Jesus personally gives each man and woman "also as much of the fish as they wanted."

It takes nothing from the sacramental ministry of the church to remind us that Jesus personally addresses every one of us. He calls each one by name even as he saw Nathaniel under the fig tree, called Lazarus from the grave, and commissioned the beloved disciple to "Behold your mother." No one should hide from his gaze in the crowd of his disciples, supposing that the Lord might let anyone slip past him. Although he certainly heals people by the thousand as they come to him from every direction, he also personally attends to every woman and man.

The extraordinary abundance which flows from the boy's donation of "five barley loaves and two fish" assures us of God's superabundant generosity. If your god is so busy managing the universe and the affairs of the world that he has no time for you, your god is too small. Our God, the Father of Jesus knows and cares intensely for each one of us. "His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches over me."

It is good to remember this carefree, summer picnic that Jesus took with his disciples and friends, and the wit of our Savior as he queried the slow-witted Philip.