2Kgs 4, 42-44 / Eph 4, 1-6 / John6, 1-15
How
about going on a picnic? With today’s
gospel reading from John, the Church is inviting us to begin a kind of summer picnic. The picnic will be in Galilee and our host
will be Jesus. Till the fourth Sunday of
August [August 26] – for five consecutive Sundays – we will be hearing the good
news from one, single chapter of John’s gospel – the sixth chapter. The chapter begins with the multiplication of
loaves – what we have just heard. John
then uses the story to introduce a profound and extended reflection on the
Eucharist and on Jesus as the Bread of Life.
We’re
going to be hearing lots of food imagery on the picnic. Food, in fact, is the most common of all
biblical images. God’s goodness is
described as a feast, God’s displeasure as a famine and our penitence as a
fasting. Israel is described in the
Bible not as some picturesque spot but as a land flowing with milk and
honey. Jesus was born in Bethlehem which
translated means “house of bread” [beit-le-hem]. And Jesus calls on us as disciples to be salt
– giving flavor to the food of life. So
the Scriptures and the food network share much.
Since
we’re going to be on this picnic for some time, I think it would be good for us
to adjust some of our expectations. For
example, it would be wrong to expect Chippendale chairs and fine china on a
picnic. On picnics we sit on the ground
and make due with paper plates. In just
the same way it would be good for us to get to know the thought and language
John will use in chapter six. Then we
will be able to hear with better understanding and will come to have the right
expectations. We won’t be expecting
Chippendale chairs when Jesus is inviting us to sit on the grass.
A
critically important idea throughout John’s gospel, and especially in the sixth
chapter, is the word sign. John
tells us the crowds are following Jesus because of the signs he is
performing. The multiplication of loaves
is described by John as a sign. So
we need to understand what a sign is if we’re going to understand what
Jesus is doing in the multiplication of loaves.
What’s
a sign? For the Jews, as for John, a
sign is any sensible reality – something concrete – which makes present to me a
transforming experience of God’s presence.
Through the sign God’s real presence becomes accessible, available to me
– in the change, in the transformation I experience myself undergoing. I come to experience/know God as the God-who-is-changing/transforming-me. And I come to experience/know myself as where
God is actively at work.
Through
concrete things like bread and wine, like spoken words and body gestures – God
becomes present to me as actually reshaping me, renewing me, recreating
me. And that is what miracle
means in the Bible. Miracle
literally means “to bring to wonder and awe.”
A miracle happens when we experience wonder and awe at God’s
powerful, transforming presence in life – in my life and in the lives of
others.
It’s
very important to emphasize that miracle is not magic. I say very important in order to understand
the gospel of John but also very important in order to understand what we do here
at Eucharist every Sunday. Magic affects
the surface of things. Miracle
transforms what is innermost. Magic
entertains – is cheap entertainment – and costs us nothing. We watch and are amused. Miracle engages us – is costly engagement –
and costs us dearly. We take part and
are changed. Unless it costs, it isn’t a
miracle. In sign and miracle I encounter
the intimate yet insistently challenging presence of the Living God.
So
on the picnic in Galilee over the next weeks look for the signs and ask
yourself some questions. For example, in
today’s reading the multiplication of loaves is worked by Jesus as a sign – but
how? How is it a sign? We are not dealing with magic but with a
miracle. So how is God encountered in
the sign – in the miracle of the multiplication of loaves? Where is God’s challenging presence in my
life? What interior transformation is being
brought about within me? Remember the
beginning of our transformation is becoming aware of our need for it.
Many
questions – but the answers can come only from us and from our lives – not from
any homily or catechism. The answers
come from our own deep-down living.
During
these next weeks let Jesus earn his reputation as a “miracle-worker”. Let this become our expectation: how is Jesus bringing us to wonder and awe in
our own lives?
Fr. Pat Earl, SJ
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