17th Sunday of the Year, B

     One of the most disturbing tendencies of modern-day biblical scholarship, at least until very recently, isthe attempt of many to explain away the miracles of Jesus.  The description of miracles in the New Testament, these scholars claim, is the writer’s way of explaining or portraying a deeper, spiritual truth.  In this case in today’s Gospel story of the multiplication of the loaves of bread and the fish, these biblical scholars claim that the people heard from Jesus such wondrous words of sweetness and light that they willingly turned to their neighbors and shared their food so that everybody had enough.  That was the miracle of the feeding of the vast crowd of people on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.  Or so we are told.

     Now sharing one’s food and drink with those in need is a very good thing.  But motivating people to do so is not a miracle and cannot really be called one.  Feeling compassion for one’s neighbor and acting on that compassion does not require the miraculous; on the contrary, it is very natural, quite human to do this.  Closing our heart to those in need, to the hungry, the homeless; turning our back on the poor and destitute is, as we so often call it, inhuman.  Greed, selfishness, avarice, self-centeredness and self-obsession are not natural to us.  They are unnatural; that is, they are sins.  No, being kind to neighbors is not a miraculous act.

     Nevertheless, our modern-day, up-to-date, Bible scholars are on to something.  They know that the miracles of Jesus are not, were not meant to be, an end in themselves.  They are, as today’s Gospel tells us, signs Jesus was performing.  Now signs do point to something else -- they give directions, point to a law or regulation, give warnings.  They are not used for mere decoration; they only have relevance in what they point to.  And so Jesus’ feeding of crowds at the Sea of Galilee, as good and right and compassionate as that was, points beyond the miracle of multiplying the bread and fish to feed thousands of people.  Jesus did this miracle, as He did all His miracles, as a sign -- a sign of who He is, what His mission is about, and what He wants to do for us.

     If this miracle in today’s Gospel had been an end in itself, if all that Jesus had wanted to do was feed the hungry (and He certainly did want to do that), then He would not have fled from the people when they were trying to make Him their Bread King.  But He would have none of it.   The people, their stomachs full, misinterpreted this miraculous sign.

     Some of the modern scholars also mistake the meaning of the sign -- saying that the miracle was in the sharing of the bread and fish.  For to them this is the essence of religion anyway:  feeding the poor, healing the sick, providing shelter for the homeless.  But this is not the essence of the Christian religion.  Doing such good works is required of all people everywhere whether or not they are Christians.  How much more so are such good works required of Christians who follow the Savior who had such rich compassion on the hungry, the poor and outcasts.  But these things we are called to do are the sign.  Like the sign of Jesus’ miracle, these works of mercy to the needy speak of the abyss of the mercy of God; the work of feeding the hungry is a sign of the satisfaction of that deep heart-hunger that can never be met by loaves and fish; the good work of providing shelter for the homeless declares to the needy and the giver alike that there is a home for all in God’s family united in Christ.

     Jesus really multiplied the loaves and fish, because He had compassion on those who were going without, and because He wanted to meet a much deeper and more eternally significant need:  the need of the human heart for God, for divine healing, forgiveness, and joy.  No, Jesus refused to be the people’s Bread King, but He would be the King of their lonely souls.  He would be to them, and us, so much more than a Bread King.  But He will not be the Founder of a religion that merely seeks to meet temporal needs.  He will not be the worker of pseudo miracles.

     Years ago I watched on television one of those A&E biographies.  This one was about one of America’s most famous and wealthy heiresses.  In her lifetime, she lavished over 50 million dollars on herself.  (Talk about a plentitude of loaves and fish!)  But she was never happy.  With marriage after marriage, she sought in vain to end her loneliness.  She learned by hard experience what Jesus had said so long ago -- “Life is not in the things we possess,” and “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

     We can learn from her sad life the same lesson:  that there are deeper needs to the human soul than food and shelter can satisfy.  We can learn in our laudable and necessary attempts to help the poor and hungry that God wants to do a much deeper and profounder work in them (and in everyone) than can be done merely through meeting temporal needs.  But, those good works that we are called to do still are the sign of God’s own work and may be the very means God uses to accomplish His own, deeper, work.  And that work, ultimately, is the giving to us all the Bread of Life, the feeding of the human person in his or her heart of hearts, the Eucharist at this Holy Mass.

     The Church has ever seen in this miracle of feeding the five thousand a sign that points to the Eucharist.  Here at this Mass, at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, we gather together some bread and wine that symbolize the gifts we bring to God’s house, our own loaves and fish.  God graciously accepts these our offerings and “multiplies” them so that they – the Bread and Wine – come back to us the very Body and Blood of Christ which nourishes us with the life of Christ Himself.  The bread and wine become signs of the reality of Christ’s Real Presence, here with us, reserved here too at all times in the Tabernacle, the sign and the very means of His giving us Himself, His own life, to meet that need which only God can meet.  And that is a miracle.