July 28, 2024 – The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [Year B]

Fr. Michael Brungardt

2 Kings 4:42-44; Psalm 145:10-11, 15-18; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15

Beginning today, and for the next several weeks, the Church proposes the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. John 6 is a pivotally important chapter, because it is the chapter that contains and is centered on what is known as the “Bread of Life Discourse.” And if we’re going to focus on this one chapter for five weeks, we need help to focus our attention, or we could miss what’s going on. We need to put ourselves in the right mindset to hear and understand what is said.

So think about it this way. In our life we have a lot of things that we need, many other things we perceive as “needs.” And some of these things are very good, very important! But often, we run into needs that, no matter what we try, we can’t quite seem to satisfy them. And so we try more things. And more things! But over and over, there is an impossible need we can’t quite fulfill.

For example, every year a priest is required to make a retreat—this is a concrete need. A retreat is simply a time of prayer and reflection, a time to rest and refocus. There are monasteries and retreat houses all over the country for just this purpose. There are even retreat houses on beaches! (The sacrifices we priests make for the people by going to these places are indeed great!) And I’ll admit: I’ve been to one. And I’m sure many of us have gone on beach vacations to California or Florida or the Gulf.

But here’s the thing: as beautiful and amazing as those getaways are, they don’t solve anything. It didn’t solve anything for me. Yes, it is nice! But pretty soon, the “nice” and the “amazing” wears off. The weather being seventy-five and sunny every day isn’t that great. The food is good, but eventually it’s just food—we have food here. The ocean is incredible, but then the salt gets annoying and the beach just leaves sand everywhere. And eventually it ends and you go back to your real life.

Here’s the fact: even if everything were great, everything in life were in order, you didn’t want for anything—even if everything were amazing, that doesn’t mean we would be happy. Everything being amazing doesn’t solve the need we feel for happiness, for constant newness, for true and lasting peace. We’re restless. Even if we could give ourselves everything, one thing after another, day after day, year after year—even up until the day we die…we know there is something missing. It’s an impossible situation.

Ok, with this in mind, now take a look at our Gospel reading for today. We are told that the setting for this scene, and for the entire chapter is Passover. And that isn’t some accident. That’s not a throwaway line. That’s the key. All of this is happening at Passover. And what is Passover, the Jewish Feast of Passover? Passover is the Jewish feast that celebrates (and in fact re-lives!) all of the events of the Exodus from Egypt. There they were, stuck in Egypt as slaves for over four hundred years. And if you are the free labor force for the Empire of Egypt (the greatest military superpower of the world), what do you think the odds are of you walking out of Egypt are? Slim to none. Impossible, I’d say. I’d say you’re stuck in a bit of the ol’ impossible situation! But against all odds, they walk free. The Lord gives them freedom.

And that is why the story of the Exodus is the Biblical key for understanding our own situation of being stuck in the condition of sin: we’re stuck in this impossible situation. And that the Lord will indeed respond! But how? Keep that in mind the next five weeks.

So back to the Gospel today. Here are five thousand men, and they are hungry, famished. But all they have are five loaves and two fish. Here’s an ol’ impossible situation. And in this impossible situation, in an unforeseen, unpredictable turn of events, there is food enough to go around. The need is satisfied. Yes! Jesus is responding to that basic human need they have, but as we will discover in the next weeks, he is prefiguring a response to something much deeper, a hunger much more profound.