Standing Under the Scriptures
August 7, 2011

“Let us boldly go where we have never gone before.”

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

As previously announced, for the next several Sundays we will not be meeting to consider a passage from Scripture; hence no reading for this Sunday. Instead we will be joining Dr. Scott Johnson’s class on early Christian doctrine. We will however reconvene (the Lord and our new rector willing) on September 11, the Sunday when the regular services (8:00, 9:00, and 11:00) resume. There are various reasons for this suspension, also as already indicated. One is the excellence of Scott’s class, in which some of our members have already shown their interest. And the respite will afford me a chance to turn to some of my badly neglected personal affairs. In the interval these weekly notices will also be suspended---unless Scott says something that strikes me as needing to be brought to the attention of its addressees.

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In view of its importance, the Feeding of the 5,000 (Matthew 14.13-21) was a fitting reading for last Sunday prior to our sojourn in Dr. Johnson’s class. The feeding of a multitude is Jesus’ only miracle (in Greek, sign or work of power) to be recorded in all four Gospels. We noted also that it appears twice in both Mark and Matthew, for a total of six times. And surely this points to its centrality in the Gospel tradition. As for why it was accorded this position, we recognized its eminence as display of supernatural power. But we thought that this aspect of an event taking place far away and long ago would not by itself be a sufficient explanation. Accordingly we focused on the Eucharistic connotations of the Feeding. We saw it also as pointing to major implications of the Eucharist for us.

The story, which follows immediately on Jesus’ learning of the death of John the Baptist, is familiar. Jesus withdraws by boat to a desert place, we supposed to pray. But crowds follow him there on foot, evidently by going around the end of the Sea of Galilee. And his compassion for them takes precedence over his need for solitude, which he puts aside to minister to them.

There follows Jesus’ exchange with the disciples out of which the Feeding comes. After he has ministered to the crowds for the rest of the day, the disciples urge him to dismiss them, so that they may in the surrounding villages buy for themselves something to eat. (We were not sure whether the disciples were motivated more by their concern for the crowds or by their own desire for a respite.) Jesus however directly counters their proposal: “They need not go away; you give them something to eat. (The position of the “you” in the Greek sentence reinforces the emphasis.) The disciples object, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” Jesus then makes probably his crucial statement: “Bring them here to me.” And “taking the five loaves and two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.” This we saw as an explicit Eucharistic action, such as is performed in the consecration prayer of our liturgy still today. Nor are we the only ones to have seen it in this light. Early Christian art portrayed the Feeding as a symbol of the Eucharist. An example of this is to be found (I have been told) already in the catacombs of Rome. Herein we saw the further significance of the Feeding: its conveying the wonder of the Eucharist, that even a small quantity of bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ suffices for all participating, that indeed it leaves a surplus to be shared with others. The passage fittingly concludes, “And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.”But the Feeding conveys more than the superabundance of the Eucharist. In the disciples’ very human response to the necessity of the crowds we saw essential lessons for us. They rightly perceived the need of the crowds for food. But they looked to the crowds to meet their need themselves. People, not least ourselves, regularly see a need but expect others to fill it. Jesus however calls the disciples, and us, to account: “You give them something to eat.” Taken aback, they protest the gross insufficiency of the loaves and fishes available to them. We too are wont to protest our insufficiency for a given task even when we have perceived its necessity. Jesus’ response to the disciples is simply, “Bring them here to me.” This should not be taken, we felt, as saying, “Never mind, I will do it for you.” Its meaning is far deeper. This is that however insufficient the means available to us may seem, and from some standpoints actually be, in the power of the Holy Spirit which Jesus brings to bear on them they will suffice. Therefore we are to proceed with what we are called to do, however unpromising the prospects seem to be.

The early church surely had this Eucharistic understanding of its vocation. In the face of the most daunting obstacles and with the slenderest of apparent means it spread the gospel throughout the Roman world, and beyond. In our own situations we should have it too.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted