Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 18, 2021 – Jeremiah 23:1-6; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34

I’m sure you figured out what’s the most famous opening and closing of a story in history, and that is “Once upon a time” and “They lived happily ever after.” When I was studying Greek in high school we read the famous epic, The Odyssey. And every now and then you’d come across this line, “And then the early born rosy fingered dawn appeared.” And we liked when that showed up, because we wouldn’t have to translate that line after the very first time; it was a giveaway. But the author used it (this mysterious unknown author) every time a new episode in the story was about to begin. So it was a standard opening to an episode.

That’s what we have in today’s gospel. We have a standard opening that the gospel writers inherited in the tradition before the written gospels. And the standard opening was this: “He was moved with pity for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd and so He ____.” That’s where it ends. Fill in the blank.

Today’s gospel says, “… and so He taught them many things.” Matthew’s gospel says, “… and so He healed all those who were sick among them.” Luke’s gospel says, “… and so He had them recline in groups and He multiplied the loaves and fishes for them.” Each one of the gospels uses the same opening line to begin a different kind of episode. The important thing, that we’re going to talk about later, in this standard opening, is Jesus’ reaction to His own pity or compassion. The Greek word that’s used for pity or compassion is ‘having a pain in your stomach.’ In other words, He was moved physically - physically upset - to see how needy, how broken people were.

But right now I want to answer the second question I asked you. What do you think comes next in the gospel after Jesus teaches them many things? The answer is the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. That comes right after Jesus spends the day healing in Matthew’s gospel. And it’s the basic story in Luke’s gospel.

The story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes was so important for the early Christian community that we find it told six times in four gospels. Whenever it’s told, it’s told through the lens of the upcoming story of the Last Supper. According to each story, Jesus takes the loaves, blesses them, breaks them, and gives them. Those four verbs - to take, to bless, to break, to give - are found in the narrative of the Last Supper. You hear me say them in the consecration every time I say Mass. They’re kind of hidden in the rest of the words, but listen this morning and you’ll hear those four verbs.

So we would expect then, that next Sunday, since they’re reading from the book of Mark, we would read Mark’s account of the loaves and fishes story, but we’re not going to. All of a sudden, our lectionary switches for the next three or four weeks from reading constantly from Mark’s gospel to reading from John’s gospel. Why did the church decide to make that switch when the story is found in all four gospels? It’s because of what we find in John’s gospel and what we don’t find in Mark’s gospel.

When you turn to the stories of the Last Supper in Matthew, Mark and Luke, the words that Jesus speaks could be misinterpreted as a metaphor. “This is my body, broken for you. This is the cup of my blood, the cup of the new covenant, shed for many.” He’s explaining what will happen when He is crucified the next day, but it could just be metaphorical. And, in fact, there are probably more Christians in the world, more denominations of the Christian church, that do not believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist; it’s just a metaphor. You could come away from the other gospels and convince yourself that it’s just a metaphor. However, what John is going to do, is he’s going to get rid of the story of the Last Supper, except for the washing of the feet. And, in its place, he’s going to tell the story of the Eucharist right after the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, the famous ‘Bread of Life’ speech that takes up almost all of the sixth chapter of John, which we’re going to begin next week.

 John divides his speech into two halves. First Jesus talks about Himself as the bread of teaching, the bread of Word. And then he stops and talks about himself as the bread of Eucharist. Truly, truly present, body and blood, soul and divinity, in the bread of Eucharist. And, to be absolutely sure that we understand what’s going on in John’s gospel, John tells us that after Jesus spoke these words some of his closest followers walked away. They could not accept this concept. The only other place in the New Testament will we find such an explicit insistence on the real presence is in the First Letter to the Corinthians by St. Paul. And St. Paul is writing twenty years before the gospels are written. He tells the story of the Last Supper exactly the same way that Matthew, Mark and Luke tell it. But then he comments on the story in such a way, that he leaves no doubt in our minds that St. Paul understood Jesus to be truly present in the bread of Eucharist. So that’s why we’re switching for the next couple of weeks.

Now to get back to the introduction to today’s gospel. Jesus responds to His own compassion.
I just cancelled my subscription to the National Geographic magazine. I’ve had that subscription for over forty years, because in one parish where I worked, a very generous parishioner bought me a subscription as a surprise Christmas gift, then every year he renewed it for me, without my asking. And, after he died, his wife continued to do it. And I loved the National Geographic. It had some of the best pictures in the world. But at this point in my life I am simply overwhelmed by photographs of the destruction of the natural beauty of the world, the threat of extinction of species, the thousands, the millions of refugees and homeless people, the destruction of rural society, and the ongoing slums in all the major cities. It is exhausting to see. And for almost all of my life, I have comforted myself and reassured myself, with the understanding that we all do our part. We have Catholic Relief Services, we have the Catholic Near East Welfare Association. We have the Pope’s Peter’s Pence. We have all those special collections that we take up each year for missions in Africa, for Catholics here in America, among the Native Americans and people of color. We have the collection for Africa. We have the collection for the impoverished churches of Eastern Europe. But nothing ever seems to change, no matter how much money we throw at it. And it’s just exhausting.

So, Jesus suggests to the apostles, through the gospels, three things after they came back from mission. Jesus responds to His compassion across the gospel stories. He responds by teaching. He responds by healing. He responds by feeding. Those are the three actions He takes in response to His own gut-wrenching upset at the condition of humanity. Each of those things has a broad appeal. So, what I ask you to do during the week is give some thought to how you respond to your own compassion when you see things that upset you greatly.

Do you respond by teaching? Teaching is not just standing in a classroom and pointing at a blackboard. It’s the way in which you present yourselves in your everyday life that teaches other people how you respond to critical situations.

It is healing. You don’t have to be a doctor or nurse or a caregiver to heal. There are so many different ways people are hurting, so many different ways we can respond to their hurt, with some sort of healing word or gesture.

Feeding. We all love to feed people when they come to our house, but there’s so many different ways that we can feed the hungry - not simply those that are hungry for food, but also those that are hungry for a whole host of other things.

This week, ask yourself, when you feel gut-wrenching anxiety about the condition of people or things in the world, how do you teach them? How do you heal them? How do you feed them?