Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time / Msgr. Owen F. Campion
The Sunday Readings
The Second Book of Kings is the source of this weekend’s first biblical reading.
The two books of Kings originally were one volume. At one point in the development of the Bible, they were divided into two books.
While these two books are historical, their purpose was religious. They attempted to look through the reigns of the kings to record and assess the fidelity of the nation to God. Prophets have a prominent role in Kings.
This weekend’s reading does not even mention a king. Instead, it recalls the life of Elisha, the prophet.
As an act of faith in and homage to God, a devout man brought the first products of the harvest to Elisha as a gift to God. These products were in the form of 20 barley loaves.
Elisha accepted the offering, but told the man to distribute the loaves among the people, who numbered about 100. The man was willing to oblige, but doubted that only 20 loaves would suffice for so many people. Nevertheless, he complied with the prophet’s instructions.
Rather than being insufficient, the loaves were plentiful enough to satisfy the crowd.
For its second reading, the Church this weekend presents a passage from St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians.
This epistle was directed to the Christian community of Ephesus, which in the first century A.D. was a major city in the Roman Empire and an important port on the Asian coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
Crowning the city was the magnificent temple of Diana, a Roman goddess. Throngs came as pilgrims to the great pagan shrine so the Ephesian Christians lived in a very important pagan religious center.
Understandably, Paul called upon these Christians to be strong in faith and not yield to the temptations that most certainly came from this context of the city.
St. John’s Gospel furnishes the last reading.
In this story, Jesus encounters a crowd on the shore of the Sea of Galilee near the ancient and still thriving city of Tiberias.
The Gospel notes that Passover was near.
The crowd was hungry. Philip, an Apostle, approached Jesus with this fact. The Lord ordered that food be found to feed all the people.
Another Apostle, Andrew, noticed that a boy had five barley loaves and a few fish. Jesus instructed the Apostles to distribute these loaves and fishes among the crowd, which numbered as much as 5,000 people.
Before the distribution, the Lord blessed this food.
The five loaves and few fishes satisfied the multitude. Indeed, after all the people had eaten, an abundance of food remained for another meal.
Reflection
The Church reassures us this weekend. God is never distant from us unless, of course, we distance ourselves from God by our own selfishness and sin.
God is with us yet today in Jesus, the risen Lord, so we humans are not totally helpless.
A man brought Elisha the loaves of bread. A boy produced the food for Andrew in the reading from the Gospel of John. Yet, in neither case, were these human provisions enough for all the people. However, God entered each story.
The connection with the Apostles and attention to their role in salvation are clear. The Apostles carry our concerns to Jesus as did Philip in John’s reading. By the same token, they convey to us all the gifts of the Lord.
The links between this event, recorded in John’s Gospel, and the Eucharist are many.
First, bread is the food.
Secondly, the meeting of the people on the shore in this story from the Apostle John happened near Passover. The Eucharist is the great Passover meal.
Next, Jesus gave thanks, the same gesture that occurs in all the accounts of the Last Supper.
Finally, all the people partook of the Lord’s gift of this food, and each person’s hunger was satisfied. The fact that much food was left over reveals to us the lavishness of God’s love and mercy for us. †