Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

This story of the feeding of the five thousand begins with Jesus hearing of the death of John the Baptist.  And he withdraws to a deserted place, to be by himself, to pray. There was a bond there to be sure.  It was John who had sent word from prison, asking Jesus if he was the one who was to come.  And Jesus sent word back, quoting the prophet Isaiah, whom we heard today.  Jesus sent the message that the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and blessed is the person who doesn’t find him a stumbling block.

But then the crowd shows up, needy, sick, and eventually hungry.  Matthew tells us that his heart was moved with pity for them.  He sees the longing in their eyes – for a better life, for relief from their poverty.  He sees the desires they bring with them out to the desert.  And he starts to touch them, to pray over them, to cure them.  And suddenly the day is nearly over and the disciples come to him.  The people should be sent away, they say to him.  It is late and they need to get to a town to buy food.

But Jesus says something strange: “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.”  They must have wondered.  What could he be thinking?  “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.”  But Jesus knows there is more than that here.  He has moved from prayer to service.  He has looked into the face of the people and seen the hungers of their heart.  He has remembered why he has come.  The Father has sent him and he has work to do.  He and the Father have work to do.

So he takes the bread and the fish and blesses them.  Then he starts breaking the bread, and handing it out, breaking it and handing it out to the disciples, who passed it to the men present, who passed it to the women and the children.  And five thousand were fed that day, not counting women and children.  It is the inner movement of the story that speaks to me today: from prayer to service.

We come here to church every Sunday.  Another kind of transformation takes place.  We hear the Word of God speak to us as God’s people.  Today, we hear the invitation sounded through Isaiah: “All you who are thirsty, come to the water!... Heed me, and you shall eat well…. Listen, that you may have life.”  Bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ.  And we, despite our fears and failures, grow ever so gradually into what the Word of God promises we already are: the Body of Christ for the life of the world.  From prayer to service.

Prayer carries us into service of the world, a kingdom embodied in Jesus Christ, yesterday, today, and forever.  We sing out today in the passionate proclamation of Paul: What will separate us from the love of Christ?  Nothing, nothing, nothing!  Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things….  Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is a promise of God’s eternal love for all of humanity.  But it is also a call for the disciples of Jesus, the church gathered in his name, to continue the work of Jesus and his disciples to feed all who are hungry, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, to find lands for the displaced.  When this is done, the reality of God’s light might shine into the darkness of a refugee camp and the love of God into the hearts of people who thought they were forgotten.  God forgets no one.

Rev. Paul A. Magnano

Pastor