“And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise the fishes as much as they would.”
In John 2:13 it is written:
“The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.”
Some of the most memorable events of that trip to Jerusalem are recorded for us in the 2nd and 3rd chapters of John’s Gospel: There is the first account of Jesus cleansing the Temple & his declaration that his body was the only lasting Temple; here is his mysterious conversation with Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, in which he spoke of the New Birth, the Holy Spirit and the Kingdom of God. And who can forget that it was in that conversation with Nicodemus that Jesus compared himself to the serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness? He left Jerusalem, dodging Jerusalem’s ruling class and in the 4th chapter we have his conversation with the woman at Jacob’s well and then he returned to Cana where he healed the son of a government official. After that Jesus returned to Jerusalem for another feast (not the Passover), and we have the account of the healing of a cripple man by a pool they called Bethsaida. The Pharisees were offended that he had healed the man on the Sabbath and Jesus seemed to almost go out of his way to pick a fight with them maybe because that sort of deed revealed his identity. It was at that point that the Pharisees began a program of harassment against Jesus because, in their words, “he made himself equal to God.” He left Jerusalem and at some point went to the “other side of the Sea of Galilee… and a multitude followed him.” And then we have this textual information: “Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand,” which is evidence that one full year has elapsed between John 2:13 and the 6th chapter of John – which contains the Gospel for this Sunday.
Well, that is certainly appropriate given that next Sunday is The First Sunday of Advent, and thus we mark the passing of a whole year in the life of this little catholic parish of the Church of God.
I have pointed out in the past, that we, the Church of God, mark time differently from the world, and we are about to embark upon a new Church year in just a few days. While other nations and kingdoms and cultures have fixed the rhythm of their life to the waxing and waning of nature’s seasons, or to the fiscal year, we have taken our common rhythm, not from nature, or our earnings, but from the historic Life of Christ himself. So we begin with Advent, which centers upon the Nativity of the Son of God, always aware that presupposed and surrounding our celebration of Advent is the Incarnation. It might seem natural if we begin Advent with the Man of Heaven descending and entering the natural world, we would end the year with the Ascension of our Lord back to Heaven and his Father – but we don’t. Why not? Because the story doesn’t end with our Lord’s ascension – 10 days after that the Father sent the Holy Spirit and the Church was born. Frankly, since that time we have been living in the last days and the Church to fulfill her Christ-given mission:
“Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost…”
When that work is done to the pleasure of God then the fullness of time will have come and Christ, the Man of Heaven, will again descend from his Father’s abode, and the world, as we know it, will come to an end.
“Day of Wrath! O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophets’ warning,
Heav’n and earth in ashes burning!
O what fear man’s bosom rendeth
When from heav’n the Judge descendeth
On whose sentence all dependeth”
Christ will return to judge the living and the dead, and then to celebrate what is foreshadowed over and over again in the Gospels: the great Marriage Feast of the Lamb. Then we will be together to serve our Lord in a new earth which also raised from corruption to incorruption. At our Lord’s 2nd Advent, ours will be a universe at peace with our Creator; a peace, a state of being that may best be understood as Prayer. Being at Prayer will grow into Being Prayer itself. The prayers of the saints are working a wonder in us: forming us and shaping us into a state of being one great Eucharistic Prayer to the Blessed Trinity. That is in process right now.
We are, after all, what we eat and we are becoming what we do – individually and as a community. After Christ’s judgment of the living and the dead, the distinction between Being and doing will fade as the children of God actually become the habits, the virtues, and the charity, and especially as they become the Eucharistic Prayer they learned to pray. Then we shall be all His. No entangling loyalties will ever tempt creation to disloyalty. No blood-shedding will stain our lives again.
Prayer is at the heart of the heart of Jesus and therefore prayer is at the heart of the heart of his Church. Prayer is the means of our participation in the Life of God. Prayer is how we commune, communicate, the means of community with God and God’s people. Prayer embodies our trust and loyalty to God above anything else in this life. Prayer embodies and manifests our complete dependence upon God, as well as our unwillingness to set out on our own as though we already know what is good for us. Prayer is the way we know the will of God and prayer is the only way we will ever abide in the will of God. Everything Jesus taught Nicodemus, every promise he made the woman at the well, every healing, every act of mercy and forgiveness was either about prayer or was and is a result of prayer. And realize this as well, the conversations of Nicodemus, the woman at the well, his own disciples, the crippled man, and the man whose son was healed — each conversation is a prayer. The pure and unadorned exceptions are the conversations of the Pharisees that were neither conversations nor prayers, but rather accusations — self-justifying and self-congratulatory soliloquies.
But we are not as they. We are in the process of being fitted for Heaven – or not. We are what we eat and we are becoming what we practice. Therefore we receive the Body and Blood of Christ with thanksgiving and we practice prayer. We practice prayer privately and publicly – without ceasing.
And this brings us to our text for this Sunday:
“And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise the fishes as much as they would.”
There is more to learn from this one passage than we will know till we see Jesus face-to-face. But here I offer to you three self-evident lessons.
First of all, “When Jesus… had given thanks,” that is when Jesus had made Eucharist he provided for his disciples more than they could use up. The fact that Jesus prayed eucharistically, that he gave thanks, at the multiplication of the loaves and fishes was not unusual. That is the way he lived, so much so that, “giving thanks” was and is universally understood to mean that he prayed. And he prayed without ceasing. The child of God should then imitate Christ and give thanks in all things and before all things, especially before he or she blazes some trail thought to be important or necessary. All of our plans and actions should be laid before Christ in prayer repeatedly and with thanksgiving as we seek his will individually and corporately. That is why common devotions like novenas — intercessory prayers said for 9 successive days –- have been encouraged in catholic churches. As your priest I pray for you and our bishop and the other clergy of this diocese and I pray for this parish, everyday at Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. And at the daily mass Monday through Saturday I pray for you and your family by name before the Altar of God. And I know you pray for me. And I depend upon your prayers. One day I will stand before Christ to give an account of my sacerdotal activity in this parish and I will account for each of you by name as I would account for my own children. That is sobering indeed. But listen, my prayers for you will not take the place of your own prayers. My very real accounting in the Last Day of my shepherding this flock and each of you will not take the place of the personal account that you will give to Christ.
Secondly, there will always be that voice, sometime from within the Church itself, that speaks in purely natural terms, and declares “but what are they among so many?” From the natural point-of-view 200 denarii could not begin to feed 5000 men plus women and children; and from a purely natural point-of-view, 5 barley loaves would do even less. “But what are they among so many?” Within the life of the Church of God and within your life as a whole there will always be those voices that take account only of the breadth and height of the mountain and declare defeat. Till Christ returns the clamoring voices of catastrophic expectations will declare for this or that reason that our world has come to an end and the glory has departed. No, this world has not come to an end. It will end one day, but today is not that day.
Listen to what Jesus said:
“Truly, I say unto you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to yonder,’ and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you.”
And again:
“And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise the fishes as much as they would.”
This is the third and last point: Christ does not honor nor does he behave according to the standards of this world. He does not respect positions of clout and power in this world. Our world believes that one should cater to the powerful that possess social and political influence. “Win the powerful to Christ and they will influence other powerful persons to come to Christ. Think of what we could do then!” That is not the voice of Christ. Look, a sure short cut to going from being a somebody to being a nobody, in the eyes of this world, is to take Jesus Christ seriously and begin following him. Where were the influential persons that day by the sea of Galilee and all the other days of our Lord’s ministry? Where were the wealthy who came forth with open hands of generosity to feed this mass of people? I can tell you where they were — they were all busy at being a somebody in their own eyes and the eyes of this world. It was a little boy, a nobody with no power or influence at all, who offered up all he had a few loaves and fishes, who Christ used to move the mountain.
I have three words of pastoral advice for the new Church year: say your prayers and if you have not been saying your prayers start saying your prayers. Attend the Holy Communion every Sunday and during Advent try to attend the daily mass once a week. And finally, don’t base your life on the person who says, “but what are they among so many?” And instead of wasting your time trying to be a somebody, try being a nobody for the Kingdom of God.