Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jan 30 2025

Looking More Deeply

Each Gospel presents this event with its own unique details. Philip and Andrew play a special role in John’s account. Each looks at the same situation, but their focus differs. Philip sees the immensity of the crowd and the impossibility of feeding so many, but Andrew spies a boy with five barley loaves and two fish, and senses another possibility. So much depends on where you direct your gaze.

The first half of John’s Gospel is called the Book of Signs (John 1:19 — 12:50), recording a series of events, beginning with the miracle at the marriage feast at Cana, that reveal God at work in Jesus. This feeding is the fourth sign, serving to remind us that the God who once fed Israel with manna in the desert is now feeding people through Jesus. But not only food for the body is involved here.

However, earthly food is what captures the crowd, leading them to recognize Jesus as the prophet Moses predicted, then to acclaim him as king (Messiah)— the long-awaited leader who would bring them freedom. Jesus flees from the crowd and this understanding of who he is.

This fourth “sign” continues to speak to us. It signals God’s desire both to nourish us and to satisfy the deepest hungers of the heart. Also, it reminds us that Jesus continues to work with what is at hand, even when neither the quality nor quantity seem adequate. Finally, this event will lead to a deeper appreciation of who Jesus is and why he came.

Consider/Discuss

Do you tend to see problems (Philip) or possibilities (Andrew)?
What are some of the ways God feeds you?

Responding to the Word

Nourishing God, you continue to feed us, often in surprising and unexpected ways. Help us to be attentive to our true hungers and to turn to you for the bread that will satisfy them. May we also recognize the hungers of our world and respond to them in the spirit of Jesus.

Jan 30 2025

Scripture Study for

Elisha directs that bread and grain be given to the people who have gathered at the shrine. Those who ministered at the shrine objected, because the bread was intended for cultic use. Elisha insisted, and one hundred people were fed by a mere twenty loaves. The miracle is the result of the words spoken by the Lord through the prophet. The original intent of the story is uncertain. It cannot be a reference to the manna in the wilderness, where God miraculously fed the multitude, for there the people took only what they needed and nothing was left over. This miracle reveals the bounteous generosity of God.

From prison Paul admonishes the Ephesians to lead the kind of life that has resulted in his own captivity. Rather than deterring them from following his example, his imprisonment demonstrates the price he is willing to pay for having been invited into a life of Christian virtue. He insists that only such a life is worthy of the call that they too have received from God. All the virtues he proposes are relational and foster community harmony. This is the kind of conduct that engenders peace within the community and provides the members with the inner dispositions needed to preserve the unity that comes from the Spirit.

Jesus took the barley loaves and fish, gave thanks, and distributed them. The eucharistic reference here is obvious. Once again the crowds were overwhelmed by Jesus, following him to the other side of the lake in order to witness his exceptional power. They were not disappointed. They now recognize him as more than a wonder-worker. He is the long-awaited prophet like Moses, the one who will usher in the messianic age. The event took place at the time of the Passover, the feast that coincided with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, feasts that celebrated the saving events of the past and looked forward in hope to the final age of fulfillment.

Jan 27 2025

Seeing with Eyes of Amazement

Grass? That word jumped out at me when I first read today’s passage from John. Grass? In Israel?

When I look out of my window, I see green. I see grass, rich green grass. I see the dark green of spruce, the rich green of maple, the forest of green in the woods of oak and walnut and cherry. The region in which I live is in the rain shadow of Lake Michigan, and bursts with the color green on the first day of August. Water is abundant. All is vibrantly green.

I don’t recall that depth of green when I visited Israel, especially not in unirrigated places. So it startled me to read “there was a great deal of grass in that place” (John 6:10). I asked a Palestinian friend about that. She said, “That would be very unusual. Maybe a few places in early spring?”

The author of John writes in multiple layers of meaning, often frolicking with witticisms that we don’t comprehend in translation. So why the “grass?”

I looked up the Greek word used for “grass” . . . and surprise! Grass wasn’t something that you mowed to play soccer. This Greek word means “fodder” or “hay”—something that you feed to animals.

Clever, isn’t it, that Jesus would tell them to recline on the “fodder” when he is about to feed them?

Our God is surprising. Philip did the math—a hundred days’ wages wouldn’t be enough. How can we feed these folks? (Elisha’s servant asks the same thing: “How can we do this?”)

Using Eucharistic language, the Lord’s abundance was unexpected. He worked through an unlikely person: an unnamed little boy. Jesus’s unwillingness to be king was unexpected, too.

When you look at grass, think how astonishing God is: “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs” . . . in totally unexpected ways.

Consider/Discuss

As we head into a month of Bread of Life discourses, we will see Jesus continually doing the unexpected—feeding five thousand people, walking on water, ducking away from those who would make him king, calling himself the Bread of Life, making his supposed followers grumble at his audacity as they walk away. God’s ways are not our ways. Even more, God’s ways seem to be radically different from our expectations. How could we cultivate an “eyesight of amazement” this month, allowing the Holy Spirit to surprise us in ways that we might not expect?
In what unpredicted ways has God met your needs or answered your prayers? Who has helped you to “pick up and get going,” even someone whose help you did not expect?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, what an adventure it is to follow you! You take us places we never imagined we might go. You have worked through people whom we never would have expected. Thank you for keeping us alert and attentive to your ways, always hoping, always wondering how you will feed us today. Give us this day our daily bread, with baskets left over! What are you going to do today, God?

Jan 27 2025

Scripture Study for

The books of Kings contain several stories of the prophets Elijah and Elisha providing for the destitute. During a drought, Elijah ensures that a widow’s jars of flour and oil will not go empty until the drought ends (1 Kings 17:9–16). Elisha performs a similar miracle for another widow, filling all of her vessels with olive oil for her to sell (2 Kings 4:1–7). Here we have a multiplication of barley loaves. All of these stories point to the providence of God, particularly for the needy. The role of the prophets is necessary, however, for it is through them that God provides for “the widow and the orphan,” a care that God insists throughout scripture is the job of all Israel.

In last’s week reading, Paul spoke of the reconciling action of Christ, who reconciled Jew to Gentile and both to God, creating “in himself one new person” and bringing peace. Paul now returns to the theme of unity and peace. The church does not exist for itself but has a mission to announce God’s plan of salvation in Christ, which requires that Christians reflect the unifying and reconciling work of Christ by their behavior toward one another. Others must be able to see that the church, though made up of very different people, is “one body” (not a collection of individuals), animated by one Spirit, motivated by one shared hope in the one God and the one Lord, Jesus Christ.

For the next few weeks, the Lectionary departs from Mark in favor of John’s account of the feeding of the five thousand and the Bread of Life discourse. As Jesus heals the sick, he attracts a huge crowd, whom he intends to feed. Whereas Philip had noted that they would never have been able to buy enough to feed all the people, Jesus feeds them so well that there is plenty of food left over. The people rightly understand at least one implication of what Jesus has done, which is that he is no ordinary wonder worker, but “the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world” (see John 1:9). He will soon explain to them an even more astounding—and difficult— truth about who he is.

Jan 15 2025

In Search Of: A Wise Heart

If God were to offer you your heart’s desire, what would you ask for? Solomon did not request health or wealth. Nor did he ask God to remove his enemies— either those inherited from his father or those acquired when he was given the crown at a very young age. Solomon asked for wisdom, for a heart that understands or listens. Such wisdom included the ability to judge justly and to distinguish right from wrong. God was pleased.

The gift of wisdom allows the heart to see; the letter to the Ephesians refers to “seeing with the eyes of the heart.” And wisdom brings the ability to hear the word of the Lord even when spoken in the sound of silence, as Elijah did. Such seeing and hearing lie at the heart of the first two parables. Seeing God’s reign is likened to finding a treasure in a field or seeking a most valuable pearl—when one sees where it is hidden or hears where it can be found, one gives all one has to make it one’s own.

The heart can spend many years and look in many places for happiness. We can bypass the kingdom again and again, going off into various dead ends, cul de sacs, and blind alleys. Paul reminds the Romans that all things work for good for those who look to God. God, who has predestined us to share the image of the Son, wishes to give us the wisdom needed to discover where the kingdom is hidden.

Consider/Discuss

What is your heart’s desire?
Have you asked for that wisdom that is a gift of the Holy Spirit?
Of the different parables you have heard these last three weeks, which one speaks most to your heart?

Responding to the Word

Remembering that “the revelation of [God’s] words sheds light” (Psalm 119), ask God to give you the wisdom needed in your life to seek out the divine presence and to respond wholeheartedly to that presence, so that God rules in your heart, mind, and spirit as you grow into the image of Jesus Christ.