Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity X) yesterday (4 August 2024). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Oswald (642), King of Northumbria, Martyr.
Later this morning, I have yet another appointment in Milton Keynes University Hospital in connection with ongoing monitoring of my sarcoidosis. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 14: 13-21 (NRSVA):
13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ 16 Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ 17 They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ 18 And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ 19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
This morning’s reflection:
The feeding of the multitude is the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels (see Mark 6: 30-44; Luke 9: 12-17; John 6: 1-15), with only minor variations on the place and the circumstances.
In the verses immediately before this morning’s reading, Saint Matthew tells of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist, who was executed after he denounced Herod Antipas for marrying his brother Philip’s wife, while Philip was still alive (see Matthew 14: 1-11).
The disciples of Saint John the Baptist took his body and buried it – a foreshadowing of how his disciples are going to desert Christ at his own death and burial – and they then go to Christ to tell him the news (verse 12).
When Jesus hears this, he takes a boat and withdraws to a deserted place. But the crowds follow him on foot around the shore and find him, and when he comes ashore there is a great crowd waiting for him. He has compassion for them, and he cures the sick among them (verses 13-14).
But a greater miracle is about to unfold – perhaps even two greater miracles.
This is a story of a miracle, but which miracle?
The multiplication of the five loaves and two fish is a miracle in itself, of course. But we might consider how there is another miracle here too.
Saint Matthew places this story in a section in his Gospel about training the disciples for their mission. So, perhaps, Christ is teaching them about how they can do this.
Christ tells the people to sit down – well, not so much to sit down as to recline (ἀνακλίνω, anaklíno, verse 19). They are asked to recline on the grass as they would at a banquet or at a feast – just as Christ reclines with the disciples at the Last Supper.
In verse 19, we have a reminder of the feeding of the people in the Wilderness (see Exodus 16), but also a foretaste or anticipation of the Last Supper (see Matthew 26: 20-29), the Eucharistic feast, and of the Messianic banquet at the end of time.
Christ takes bread, looks up to heaven, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them to distribute it among the people
The feeding with the fish also looks forward to the Resurrection. The fish is an early symbol of faith in the Risen Christ: Ichthus (ἰχθύς, ΙΧΘΥC) is the Greek word for fish, and can be read as an acrostic, a word formed from the first letters of words, spelling out ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ (Iēsous Khristos Theou Huios, Sōtēr), ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.’
In verse 20, we are told all ate and were filled (see Exodus 16: 15-18, Numbers 11: 31-32; Elisha’s food miracles, II Kings 4:42-44; cf John 6: 31-33, Revelation 2: 17). In Apocryphal writings, II Baruch 29: 8, a Jewish pseudepigraphical text thought to date from the late 1st century CE or early 2nd century CE, also connects the feeding in the wilderness in Exodus 16 with the Messianic age.
There is yet another level to the story in verse 20. The disciples get everyone to work together with a common purpose. All are filled, and yet much is left over: a basket for each disciple. Each of them has a mission, telling the good news of the infinite abundance of God's love and the kingdom in which all can eat.
Whether they are Birthdays, baptisms, weddings, anniversaries, graduations, retirements, or parish celebrations, we all enjoy a good party. Parties affirm who we are, where we fit within the family, and mark the rhythm of life and the continuity of families and communities.
It is not only the eating or the drinking. It is very difficult to sit beside someone at the same table after a funeral, or to stand beside someone at the bar at a wedding, and not to end up getting to know them and – as is said in Ireland – getting to know ‘their seed, breed and generation.’
Families share names, share stories, share memories, share identities, share anniversaries. And that is not all in the past. These celebrations allow us to express and share our hopes for the future too … is that not what baptisms and weddings are about in every family – hope for the future, hope for life itself?
In this story, the disciples have failed to buy or produce enough bread for a meal. Christ responds not by sympathising but by demanding great generosity (see verse 18).
The disciples gather up what is left over. Gathering is an act of reverential economy towards the gifts of God; but gathering also anticipates Christ gathering all to himself. The amount that is left over is a sign of the outpouring of God’s generosity. There are 12 baskets – one for each tribe of Israel and one for each of the 12 disciples. God’s party, the Eucharist, looks forward to the new Israel, not the sort of earthly kingdom that the people now want but the Kingdom of God.
Christ puts no questions of belief to the disciples or to the crowd when he feeds them on the mountainside. They do not believe in the Resurrection – it has yet to happen. But he feeds them, and he feeds them indiscriminately. The disciples wanted to send them away (verse 15), but Christ wants to count them in. Christ invites more people to the banquet than we can fit into our churches.
The Revd Albert Ogle, who was once a priest in Dublin and studied at the Irish School of Ecumenics. He now lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and recalled this story on Facebook last week:
‘One of the bishops who participated in the irregular ordination of the first 11 women priests in the Episcopal Church was Bishop Daniel Corrigan. I met him in Santa Barbara many years ago and he told me this amazing story about connections and memory.
‘The Episcopal Church has a long history to Scotland and Corrigan found himself as a 15 year old serving with the US Naval submarine unit, off the coast of a remote Scottish island where the locals lived in cave houses. Corrigan and the crew had been submerged for days and without food, decided to knock on one of these creaky wooden doors in the dead of night.
‘He recalls how a very tall gaunt figure appeared at the door in lamplight to greet the strangers who were covered in oil and grime from the submarine. They wanted something to eat. She turned away from them and the next thing he remembered was seeing her return to the door with a large round loaf, like a priest at the Eucharist.
‘This impression of priestly generosity and open invitation remained with Corrigan all his life and it was this seminal experience for him to agree to ordain the Philadelphia 11, 50 years ago today.
‘I am sure the enigmatic generous Scottish woman had no idea what her kindness would release into the world. Keep loving and being generous. You never know who or what you might be feeding.’
We often describe this morning’s Gospel story as the Feeding of the Multitude, or the Feeding of the Five Thousand. But how many people are there?
Verse 21 tells us that there were ‘about five thousand men,’ but adds also, ‘besides women and children.’
If there were 5,000 men there that day, and one woman and two children for each couple, we are then talking about the feeding of 20,000 people, or the population of a town like Wexford, Celbridge or Mullingar in Ireland, Berhamstead, Brownhills, Truro or Newquay in England, or Ierapetra and Agios Nikolaos in Crete.
Sir Colin J Humphreys of Selwyn College Cambridge, former Professor of Materials Science, in his analysis of the number of people in the Exodus suggests the number of Israelite men over the age of 20 in the census following the Exodus 5,000, and not 603,550. He attributes the apparent error to an error in interpreting or translating the Hebrew word ’lp (אלף), and he goes on to suggest the number of men, women and children at the Exodus was about 20,000. Both of his figures correlate with the figures for the feeding of the multitude in this Gospel reading.
When we invite people into the Church, we have so much to share – much more that the meagre amount people may think we have in our bags.
As we enjoy the feast, enjoy the banquet, enjoy the party, share the Eucharist, are we prepared to be open to more being brought in to enjoy the banquet and the party than our imagination allows us to imagine.
Today’s Prayers (Monday 5 August 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Understanding each other by walking together’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from the Right Revd Eduardo Coelho Grillo, Anglican Bishop of Rio de Janeiro.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 5 August 2024) invites us to pray:
Lord, we pray for the Church in Rio de Janeiro, for its mission and leaders, in particular its inter-faith work.
The Collect:
Lord God almighty,
who so kindled the faith of King Oswald with your Spirit
that he set up the sign of the cross in his kingdom
and turned his people to the light of Christ:
grant that we, being fired by the same Spirit,
may always bear our cross before the world
and be found faithful servants of the gospel;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Oswald:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of the Transfiguration:
Father in heaven,
whose Son Jesus Christ was wonderfully transfigured
before chosen witnesses upon the holy mountain,
and spoke of the exodus he would accomplish at Jerusalem:
give us strength so to hear his voice and bear our cross
that in the world to come we may see him as he is;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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