Homily for Sunday, 29 July 2018

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Kings 4:42-44; Psalm 145:10-11, 15-16, 17-18; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15

This homily was given at St. Joseph's College, Edmonton, AB, Canada. 

How often have we heard the same basic story or account of an event take on variations in smaller details over time, while still preserving the main point or truth, the more often it is re-told? Those of us who are parents, older siblings, aunts, uncles, or otherwise relatives or caregivers to young children: When we read that bedtime story for the fiftieth time, might we not improvise a small variation, or perhaps add voices to various characters in the story, which we had not added the previous forty-nine times we had read the story? I have done this when I have cared for small children, especially now my niece and nephews. Anybody among us who is a teacher: Have we ever varied some details of our teaching, each time we teach the same material, to direct greater attention toward the main point we are teaching? Have teachers ever used this technique with any of us when we have been students?

The basic structure of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes account we hear today from John’s Gospel is old and frequently-repeated. Even within the Gospels, the multiplication of the loaves and fishes appears twice each in Matthew and Mark, once in Luke, and once in John. It must have been especially memorable among the earliest disciples of Jesus, because this is the only one of Jesus’ miracles to figure in all four Biblical Gospels. And yet, each time it appears in the Gospels, some details of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes differ slightly from other accounts of the same event: In two variations of the account, four thousand men, in addition to women and children are fed; in others, Jesus feeds five thousand. In two accounts, the disciples bring seven loaves and “a few small fish,” whereas other versions specify five loaves and two fish. John’s Gospel has not Jesus’ disciples but a boy bring the loaves and fish to Jesus.

And this multiplication of food motif is not limited to the Gospels. We hear of a similar event today in the second Book of Kings, in which Elisha orders his servant to feed “a hundred people” with the “twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack.” I wonder: When Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes to feed thousands, would the people he fed have said, “Wait, is this not like what Elisha did years ago, only there are more people here than when Elisha fed the hundred, and today Jesus started with fewer loaves than Elisha did, and a few fish”?

Would the people Jesus fed have recognized him through the multiplication as a kind of prophetic miracle-worker, like Elisha but maybe even greater than him? With the many repetitions in the Gospels of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, would Jesus have multiplied the loaves and fishes only once, or several times, whenever he had great crowds following him who had become tired and hungry and were out of food? Why the differences in detail of this multiplication of food motif, from 2 Kings to the Gospels, and from one Gospel to another? Are these differences in detail, while maintaining the basic structure of the story each time, due to the different Biblical authors arranging and then re-telling this event in their own way and each for their own purpose or to their own particular audiences?

I would answer “Yes” to all these questions, but then what does it matter if details change from one account of a feeding of the multitudes to the next, as long as a central truth or message is present across the many versions of this story? And if there is a central truth or message across all the repetitions of this multiplication of food event in our Scriptures, what is it?

Let me suggest that a key starting point for us in drawing a consistent central message; a central truth from the multiplication and feeding episodes in 2 Kings and in John is that both events begin with a free gift from God. In both cases, even what appears to be insufficient food for the size of the crowd is already God’s gift to the people; to us, before the food is miraculously multiplied.

If we think in logical, mathematical terms, might we be tempted to question why, in 2 Kings, twenty loaves would not be enough for one hundred people? After all, this would be one-fifth of a loaf per person. Depending on how large and dense the loaves were, should this not have been enough to satisfy one hundred people? And yet, in John’s multiplication of the loaves and fishes, we have the opposite problem if we think mathematically: Five loaves and two fish would give each of the five thousand people one-thousandth of a loaf of bread and one-twenty-five-hundredth of a fish… Unless they were big fish, it would seem that God was being mighty stingy with the people following Jesus that day!

But, if we think in these mathematical terms, we lose track of the key truth of both multiplication and feeding accounts: Both are centered not on the multiplication and feeding actions of Elisha and then Jesus, but on God’s free gift that is present beforehand, so that the multiplication of food and feeding of the people can take place at all.

In the historical context of 2 Kings, the man who brings “food from the first fruits to Elisha” is most likely somebody concerned with bringing an amount of food, the “twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain,” set by the religious custom of Israel as the appropriate amount of one’s food stores for a sacrifice to God. Somebody recognized as godly, like Elisha, would be the ideal person to offer the servant’s food sacrifice to God.

Surprisingly to Elisha’s servant and maybe to us, though, Elisha asks his servant not to offer his food, which in fact is God’s gift to him, back to God through Elisha as a burnt sacrifice, but to the hundred hungry people. Only when Elisha’s servant trusts God enough to obey Elisha does the initially small amount of food the servant had been carrying become more than enough to feed the one hundred people. In other words, whenever we receive a free gift from another person, or especially from God, we are given the responsibility in turn to use this gift for the greatest good possible, not only for ourselves or in religious devotion or worship (as good as devotion and worship are), but for one another, especially those most vulnerable and in need of our material goods, our presence, and our service.

Our use of the gifts we receive for the greatest good, especially of one another, necessitates growth in trust toward the gift-giver, in this case God. As we pray in our Psalm response today, God opens his “hand to feed us; [to] satisfy all our needs.” And although God could feed and satisfy us all by himself, God chooses to give us the freedom and the ability to receive God’s gifts and then to make them even more abundant for one another. We then become the gift from God to one another.

This movement from initial gift or “first fruits,” to the gift recipient trusting in God, to the gift being multiplied beyond our wildest imagination, to our becoming the gift is shown as much in our reading from John today as in 2 Kings. In John’s Gospel, the Apostles Philip and Andrew take the place of Elisha’s servant of 2 Kings. Philip and then Andrew size up the crowd and their amount of food. Of course, the amount of food is too little for the size of the crowd, until Jesus rhetorically and yet ever-so-gently draws Philip and Andrew beyond their purely logical thinking toward trust that God will miraculously satisfy the five thousand people. And then Jesus makes Philip, Andrew, and his other disciples his greatest gift to the people. Jesus gives his disciples a central part in his miracle: “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.”

Insofar as we trust in God to “satisfy all our needs” and ultimately to bring us to salvation, God gives us a part in his sustaining, saving miracle of which this Eucharistic celebration is a sign, a sacrament. In this way, God sends us forth to be his gift, to gather in the abundance, so that nothing and nobody may be lost.

Homily for Sunday, 26 July 2015

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Kings 4:42-44; Psalm 145:10-11, 15-16, 17-18; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15

How many of us are familiar with Jesus’ miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish? I expect most of us are familiar with Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand. This may be the most popular miracle story in our Scriptures. Today we hear John’s version of Jesus’ feeding of the thousands, but this story is the only one of Jesus’ miracles told in all four Gospels.

Yet how many of us put some distance between ourselves and Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand? We would be right to think: This was a great miracle that Jesus performed! It was so important in fact that it is mentioned in all four Gospels; all four books of our Bible that center on Jesus’ life on earth. Jesus satisfied the hunger of thousands of people on that hillside in Galilee two thousand years ago. These people “followed [Jesus] because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick,” and they were healed and fed in a way greater than they ever imagined. And it all started with only “five barley loaves and two fish.” What an amazing event; a miracle!

But would we not be missing something were we to think of Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand as merely a great one-time event in history; a miracle that happened over two thousand years ago? We have many ways in which we can bridge some of the (at least historical) distance between Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand and our own time. Might we imagine ourselves as one of the people who witnessed Jesus’ miracle with the loaves and fish? When I was in seminary and worked as a children’s catechist in Toronto, one of my favorite ways of bringing familiar Bible stories alive for the children was to ask the children to imagine themselves as a person in the story. To make the activity fair, nobody could be Jesus or God; they had to “be” somebody else in the story!

So if you were on the hillside in Galilee when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish to feed five thousand people, would you have been one of Jesus’ Apostles? Can we imagine ourselves as somebody like Philip: Truthful; to the point; matter-of-fact? “Two hundred days wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little,” Philip says when he sees the multitudes and Jesus asks where they are to “buy enough food” to feed them. Or are we more like Andrew? Like Philip, we wonder how we will feed so many people with so little food. But, more clearly than Philip (although I have a feeling Philip, too, may have thought, knowing Jesus, that Jesus would somehow provide for the multitude), Andrew is open to any action that may help in this situation.

Andrew sees “a boy” with “five barley loaves and two fish.” He announces to Jesus that this generous boy is willing to give his loaves and fish to the hungry people. This might have been supper for the little boy and his family, after all. Andrew, like Philip, is cautious and practical: “What good are these” five loaves and two fish “for so many”? But Andrew, like Philip, knows that anything is possible with Jesus. And so faithful Andrew gives Jesus the boy’s loaves and fish and watches in amazement as Jesus prays to God in thanksgiving and the loaves and fish are multiplied into an abundant meal!

Or are we perhaps like the little boy who gives to Andrew the five loaves and two fish that are later multiplied? “Mom and Dad just sent me to the market to buy five barley loaves and two fish… And maybe a dozen eggs, a gallon of milk, and some vegetables… If I return empty-handed, Mom and Dad will be really upset and we’ll have no supper. But then Mom and Dad have said how much they like this Jesus. They have heard him speak and seen him heal the sick. And Andrew, Philip, and the other ten guys who work for him are really nice, too! Maybe I’ll give Mr. Andrew my bread and fish and see what happens. Mom and Dad won’t know any better if what I bring home are the leftovers”! Sure enough, the boy sees Jesus feed five thousand people from his five loaves and two fish. He is amazed to be the hero (he and Jesus, of course) to the hungry crowd. The Apostles send him home with as much leftover bread and fish as he can possibly carry. Mom and Dad are relieved as their son staggers in the door under the weight of the food, a bit late but safe and sound. Supper is on!

It is good for us, I believe, to put ourselves into familiar events in our Scriptures; especially in our Gospels as somebody in the Bible story. I have done this myself, at prayer, many times: “If I were this person, how would I have experienced the multiplication of the loaves?”, and so forth… But, if we stop at imagining ourselves as other people in these great events in our Gospels, could these events of which we hear in the Bible remain merely distant events in history? Even if we imagine ourselves as one of the Apostles; somebody in the crowd; the little boy perhaps, we could still hear this Gospel story as if it happened once two thousand years ago on a hillside in Galilee.

But this miracle of the feeding of five thousand was not just a one-time event two thousand years ago on a hillside in Galilee. It continues to take place among us here and now. What do I mean by this?

How many of us are connecting in our minds Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand with our celebration of Eucharist here and now? This connection would be quite appropriate. Yet what happens when we celebrate our Eucharist? Yes, we are witnesses to a transformation: By the power of the Holy Spirit Jesus becomes really and truly present under ordinary bread and wine on the altar. We celebrate a sacrament: Christ really present here is also a sign of what awaits us in heaven, when we will be with God forever. We speak of “the holy sacrifice of the Mass”: Christ offers himself to us in our Eucharist as the perfect memorial of his death and resurrection for us. We could even say that, when we celebrate Eucharist, a miracle happens. Gifts of bread and wine and also we are “consecrated” by God; made holy in and through this celebration.

But what also happens when we celebrate Eucharist? We offer something. I know, it does not seem like we offer much: Bread; wine; water; perhaps a money offering to support our parish and broader Church when the gifts (our “offertory”) are brought to the altar at Mass. We offer, if nothing else, our presence and prayerful participation as we are able in our Eucharist. Those who are homebound; who are sick offer their presence with us in spirit, and we as a community offer them our prayers.

This all does not seem like much of an offering. But here is our connection between the events of our Gospel, Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand, and this Eucharistic celebration. And so Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fish is no longer merely a one-time past event but is made present in action to us here. A few months ago, Pope Francis said this about Jesus’ miracle of the loaves and fish: It is indeed a miracle. Yet it is as much about the offering by the people: The hungry crowd; Jesus’ Apostles; the boy who brings the loaves and fish to Andrew… Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fish is the people’s “sharing inspired by faith and prayer.”

Is this not what we are doing here: “A sharing”; an offering “inspired by faith and prayer”? Sure, we may not think we are offering much: Our offertory gifts at Mass; our works of peace and justice; small acts of kindness to which we are called by our faith; our sorrow when we have sinned and our trust in God’s mercy especially through the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist itself… But our Lord Jesus asks us; invites us only to offer what we have; to give our best with God’s grace; to entrust what gifts we are able to give to one another and back to God in “faith and prayer,” and then not to be too surprised when God works miracles with what we offer.  

Homily for Tuesday, 15 July 2014– Memorial of St. Bonaventure

Tuesday of the 15th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 7:1-9; Psalm 48:2-3a, 3b-4, 5-6, 7-8; Matthew 11:20-24

Which are some cities we know that have notable or maybe even humourous nicknames or reputations? Paris is the City of Light; Rome the Eternal City; New York the Big Apple; New Orleans the Big Easy. Las Vegas is Sin City: “Whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” I have served as a Basilian in Colombia, whose capital, Bogotá, the third-highest-altitude national capital city in the world at about ten thousand feet, is said to be “2 600 metres closer to the heavens.” My native city of Edmonton is nicknamed “City of Champions” for its proud history in professional sports. We live here in Rochester, the Flour or Flower City, depending on whom we ask.

Our Gospel reading today speaks of two small Galilean fishing towns, Chorazin and Bethsaida, which had gained a bad reputation by Jesus’ time. Why they earned Jesus’ condemnation is not exactly known. The Gospel of Matthew only says that, although that “most of” Jesus’ “mighty deeds had been done” there, Chorazin and Bethsaida “had not repented.” And so Jesus condemns these towns for their lack of faith; lack of repentance in response to his miracles.

Once a bad reputation is acquired, it is hard to shake off. Today, Chorazin and Bethsaida are archaeological sites. At the entrance to one of one of the archaeological digs at Chorazin, Israel’s Department of Tourism plaque reads: “Welcome to Chorazin. This is the town that Jesus cursed.”

How two little fishing towns earned a reputation as the towns “that Jesus cursed” is unclear, except that they had a chance to witness Jesus’ miracles and the very presence and power of the Son of God among them had little effect on how they were living; how they failed to believe in Jesus; how they failed to repent. Sodom and Gomorrah, two larger and more infamous cities destroyed in the Old Testament, had not had the same opportunity to witness Jesus at work, and yet Jesus says that if they had had this chance, they would have repented and believed in him.

We as Christians have a chance to build a reputation for ourselves. We have known God’s presence among us in the Eucharist; in the other sacraments of the Church; in one another. In light of this, what will our reputation be as Christian faithful?

I doubt that we will ever have a plaque outside our city or parish that says “this is the place that Jesus cursed.” We might say of ourselves instead: Welcome to St. Kateri Parish. This is the community that Jesus has blessed. This is the community founded on love, responsibility, and service. This is a community of God’s people; a faithful and generous people; a people who cares for the disadvantaged; the suffering; the alienated; a people living in unity and charity.

What will our reputation be? We do not have Jesus performing miracles before our very eyes, but we still have a choice to make. Jesus is present among us nonetheless. How might we respond in faith as sisters and brothers in Christ?