A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Jesus crossed the Sea Of Galilee to the shore of Tiberias. A vast crowd kept following Jesus because they saw the signs he was performing for the sick. Of course, go this is not post resurrection. This is from our lord's life.
So Jesus then went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near. When Jesus looked up and caught sight of the vast crowd coming toward him. And Jesus said to Philip, where shall we buy bread for all these people to eat? Jesus knew well enough what he intended to do, but he asked this to test Philip's response.
Philip replied, not even with two hundred days wages could we buy bread enough to give each one here even a mouthful? One of Jesus' disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, remarked to him, there's a boy here who has five barley loaves and a couple of dried fish, but what good is that for so many? Jesus said, ask the people to sit down. Even though the men numbered about 5,000, there was plenty of grass for the mall to find a place on the ground. Jesus then took the loaves of bread, gave thanks, and passed the bread around to those reclining.
He did the same with the dried fish as much as they all wanted. When everyone had had enough, Jesus said to his disciples, gather up the crusts that are left over so that nothing will go to waste. At this, they gathered 12 baskets full of bread left over by those who had been fed with five barley loaves. When the people saw the sign that Jesus had performed, they began to say, this is undoubtedly the prophet who is to come into the world. At that, Jesus realized that they would come to carry him off to make him king.
So he fled back to the mountain alone. And this is the gospel of the lord. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Of course, I don't know why this particular excerpt from our lord's life was chosen.
A good guess is that in in a way, it complements the first reading. That is, with the book of the acts, we are being informed now of what happened after our lord's passion, death, and resurrection and how this his followers two things. First, they were absolutely fearless, and they rejoiced in suffering for Jesus. Fearless and were not I was going to say they were not afraid. That's that's not the way it was.
They were eager to suffer for the name of Jesus because that name had power. Power. And this particular incident from our lord's life is one of the most one of the more dramatic miracles, which some people try to eliminate, of course. But the fact is, you can't eliminate. This incident, there's no question about the text being authentic.
There's no question of what it says. It's not like our lord's talking about the bread or being begotten again and all that. This is perfectly clear. They started out with a few fish and a handful of bread, and they wind up with a lot more than they started with, and everybody was fed. I remember a few years ago, I gave a book review by a lady who was extremely devout.
Her father had been a minister. She was very sincere. It had to do with the well, that's in money for it. But anyway, in the course of the book, a young minister gets troubled about this is about thirty thirty years ago, but the young minister is disturbed by miracles. See, he had all these difficulties about trying to harmonize a miracle with the laws of nature and all that.
Now we don't even believe in the laws of nature. Remember what I said yesterday about the the present crisis as epistemological having to do with knowledge. Anyway, this the young minister who was being troubled in soul by this particular miracle of our lord went to an older minister to have have his doubts resolved. And the the older man listened patiently to the younger man and then told him that there was really no problem about it. That what happened really was this, it was a miracle of charity, a miracle of love that it's true that they they started out with only a few fish and some bread, but that Christ in some way indicated to the whole crowd, well, notice 5,000 men, not counted the women and children, that they should share their food with others who had no food.
And so those who had had foresight to bring food shared what they had with those who were who were negligent about bringing supplies. But the miracle was that Christ initiated the the movement of the multitude, which got them to share. Of course, there's the the miracle, the multiplication disappears, of course. You see, where where is that substantiated in the text? And you can't get out of the text.
I mean, this is a very clear statement. So I I feel I think possibly that this text, which is one which is one of the more dramatic of our lord's miracles, is simply to to reassure us, to bring home the divinity of Jesus Christ because miracles are a proof of his divinity. You don't need multitude of miracles. One or two good ones suffice. Here we have then the apostles after our lord's resurrection death.
And notice how this text of the of the multiplication of loaves and fishes, notice how that ends with the crowd, with Christ being fearful that the crowd would take him and forcibly make him to be king. Why did they want him to be king? Why did because they wanted to be fed for free. And so, you see, the idea of our lord's power and the exercise that he made obvious of that power was translated in his life into of into the expectation that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah to restore the physical kingdom of Israel. And that, of course, was all changed with the crucifixion.
That was the end of Jesus. And when they this argument in the satyrdom, you see, was is a very sensible argument. If if the work of Jesus is just in the same category as the program of the of his predecessors, leave him alone. If it's god's work, it'll succeed whatever you do. And if it's not god's work, it'll fail.
So leave the man alone. That advice, of course, is open to some questions. But the thing is it it it's a pragmatic approach to a problem. And so when you put these two readings today together, you get the idea, first of all, who is Jesus Christ? Where is his kingdom?
Where is his power? And above all, the exercise of that power in his name in his name. No priest, no minister has any right to speak as a Christian except in the name of Jesus the Lord. It used to be that the name of Jesus, and not so many years ago, that it it certainly was received with more external signs of respect than it is today. It was plenty of people with at the name of Jesus would bow their heads.
That's a prayer. You see, that's an external gesture. It's like it's like genuflecting before the Eucharist. We know the physical actions. What are they worth?
They're just physical actions. But to see, they can be they can take the imprint. They can give be given the quality of a true act of worship if we depending on how we deal with them. And so when you put these two readings together this morning, the impact is terrifically strong that we know who Jesus is. He's not just a good man.
He's the son of god. And in his name, all things are possible. He is indeed not just the son of Mary. He is god's divine son, truly the messiah. In the name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit.
Amen.