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St Joseph's - Thame

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

For those of you who are eagle-eyed and eagle-eared, you have probably

spotted that we have changed Gospels. Year B is of course the year when we

read our way through the holy Gospel according to Mark, but it’s the shortest of

all the Gospels, and that gives us the opportunity to insert some readings from

John. St John’s Gospel is different from the other three: Matthew, Mark and

Luke are sometimes referred to as “synoptic” Gospels – which means seen with

the same eye (think of optic referring to vision). You can place their Gospels

side by side and they will at times describe the same incident or the same

parable using very similar words, like seeing with the same eye. John’s Gospel

is rather different, and it dives so much deeper in our getting to know Jesus.


One of its big characteristics is that it so emphasises the divinity of Christ. It is

the Gospel that begins with the prologue: “In the beginning was the word”,

which we hear read at Christmas time. When you read today’s Gospel, you see

that Jesus knows what He is doing, He is in control of the situation, and the

Gospel writer puts in certain details to help the reader to keep up, such as

where Philip is asked: “Where can we buy some bread for these people to

eat?” But he explains to us: “[Jesus] only said this to test Philip; he himself

knew exactly what he was going to do”.


St John’s Gospel is also one that particularly makes the case that the author was

an eyewitness (and perhaps with a good and rather detailed memory as well).

He names the different people involved, rather than just saying, e.g., a man said

to Jesus... He also situates what happened in a particular geographic location,

once again sometimes with details. If you have a look at the previous chapter,

chapter five, the scene is set. It says: “Now at the Sheep Pool in Jerusalem

there is a building, called Bethzatha in Hebrew, consisting of five porticos”

(John 5:2). I remember when I was at seminary, someone said he had been

reading a book in which it said that certain scholars had questioned how

accurate this was. They had thought that having five porticos was an unlikely

architectural design. But the Lord was to scatter the proud-hearted, as later

archaeological discovery showed the remains of exactly such a place, with five

porticos. St John had been there – the scholars had not. Similarly with today’s

Gospel: where would there have been a place with a big enough amount of

grass to seat five thousand people (or more)? A possible answer: a big

meadow on the eastern bank of the Sea of Tiberias called el-Batihah.


The scene is set and the miracle is performed, and St John is giving us the

detail to say, yes, this really happened, and you can go and visit the site if you

want to. But there’s more detail yet. No little crumb goes to waste, and that’s

not just the multiplied bread and fish. We are told: “It was shortly before the

Jewish feast of Passover”. So what? If you’re a Christian, a few bells should

start to ring.


When was the Last Supper celebrated? At the time of the Jewish feast of

Passover. What did Our Lord do? He took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and

gave it to His disciples. Yes, he took, gave thanks, broke and gave. Did you

spot those words earlier? “Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and gave

them out to all who were sitting ready” – in other words, there is Eucharistic

language buried here in the text, and over the next few weeks Our Lord is

going to expound on the Eucharist, describing Himself as the Bread of Life.


And here’s another detail – this applies to other books in Scripture, not just the

Gospel according to John – parallels are drawn. At the end of this section, the

crowd recognises Jesus as the Messiah, but then He has to escape from them –

they’ve got completely the wrong idea of what it’s all about. They are thinking

of a messiah-king, who will come and beat up all the Romans, and re-establish

the kingdom of Israel. The salvation Our Lord has come to bring about is not

about political situations and who owns which piece of land and who pays tax

to whom. It’s about salvation from sin and death, and it’s going to result in

Christ’s Death and Resurrection, not in a riot that leaves Pontius Pilate and his

men in a big pile, and puppet-king Herod sent packing. In a few weeks’ time,

as we get to the end of looking at John 6 (spoiler alert!) we will see the crowds

turn away, because their idea of who Jesus should be does not fit with who He

really is and what He wants to give them. He is not a political saviour, neither

does He want to go along with people’s misinterpretations of Judaism. They

need to learn, and some of them find it a hard lesson to learn.


So at the start of this chapter, we begin with ordinary bread, and finish with

Christ the living Bread. And that’s what happens each time we gather, and a

priest takes, give thanks, breaks and gives. St John knew what He was writing

about – because He had been there and seen it for Himself.

 

Curious about exploring things further?  If you would like to ask further questions about the topics raised in these homilies (or maybe think it wasn’t explained too well!), please feel free to e-mail Fr Michael at stjoseph.thame@rcaob.org.uk

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