The liturgy of the 17th Sunday (OT B) bypasses the expected Mark 6:35-44 and offers for reading John 6:1-15 instead. John 6:1-15 is a rewriting of Mark 6:35-44. John gives the narrative of the feeding of the multitudes a twist by making it an introduction to the Discourse about the Bread of Life. Not only that, John rewrote it in a way that signals to the reader the relationship of the event to the Eucharistic meal. Further, John makes explicit the Messianic connection to the event of the feeding, and through this, to the sign hanging on the cross of Jesus presenting him as the King of the Jews.
Relevant Articles
- Why We Are Reading John 6 And Bypassing Mark’s Feeding of the Multitude
- The Sign of the Well-Fed Multitude
- To Be Church: Living in Unity (Ephesians 4:1-6)
- The Testing of Faith (R. Stedman)
- A Sermon on John 6:1-15
- More Catholic resources on John 6:1-15
Guide for Reading the Text
After analyzing the sentence flow you have created for John 6:1-15, compare the Johanine account of the feeding with that of Mark. Use the table found here.
1. John rewrites Mark’s narrative of the Feeding of the Multitude in John 6. In John, the feeding of the multitude introduces the discourse of Jesus about eating his Body and drinking his Blood. If the liturgy chooses to present the Johanine account over Mark’s multiplication of the loaves for the 16th Sunday of OT B thereby breaking the continuous reading of Mark, it is because it intends a Eucharistic understanding of the event.
2. The Johanine account favors a eucharistic reading of the feeding of the multitudes. Mark 6:35-44 cannot be fully understood without reading the Last Supper account in Mark 14. In this Sunday’s reading, John sends out signals that the event be seen in relation to the Eucharist.
- John uses the word eucaristeo, which means “to give thanks”. This is the word from which we derive the word “eucharist.”
- Jesus, not the disciples, distribute the bread as he does in the Last Supper accounts of the Synoptics (in John, there is nothing similar to the meal described in Mark, Matthew and Luke because he puts it all in chapter 6)
- Jesus commands the disciples to gather the “fragments.” Here he uses the word sunagw, from which is derived synaxis sunaxiV, the “Collect” of the Mass.
- the word “fragment” itself — klasma, klasma — is the technical term in early Christian literature for “host”, the piece of bread received in communion.
3. In the Gospel of John, there is no “Last Supper” that is similar in presentation to the ones found in the Synoptic Gospels. It is because the evangelist intended John 6 to take the place of the Institution narrative.
4. John’s account of the feeding of the multitude is related to the Messianic expectation. The people want him to be king (John 6:15).
Comparing the Readings
The first reading from 2 Kgs 4:42-44 coincides well with the Gospel reading. It is about a man’s kindness to the prophet Elisha and how that gesture of kindness became an occassion for feeding a hundred people. Twenty barley loaves from a man of Baal-shalisha was distributed to feed a hundred and there was still something left over. It does not matter that the episode is taken from the Old Testament’s equivalent of a fioretti of Elisha (like the fioretti of Saint Francis). The point of the narrative is that a hundred men are fed because of an act of kindness to a prophet. When one puts the narrative side-by-side with the miracle of feeding five thousand from five loaves and two fish, one begins to realize not only that Jesus is greater than Elisha, but also that the Eucharist, when lived authentically by Christians, can solve the problem of hunger. Five thousand can be an insignificant number compared to the number of people in the world today who are hungry. But just remember that five thousand was fed from just five loaves and two fishes given by a boy. How many for example can be so transformed by the eucharist that they too can give up their five barley loaves and two fish so as to feed five thousand? To the economic analysis of Philip and Andrew, Jesus had an answer: “He knew what he was going to do (John 6:6)” writes John. The Church has always been convinced that that purely economic solutions are not enough. Jesus Himself is the Bread of Life who has come to give eternal life.
Suggestions for the Lesson
The liturgy of the 17th Sunday selects John 6:1-15 over the expected Mark 6:34-44, but this does not mean that we should abandon the sequence of themes already established with the readings from Mark. Thus, after the return of the Missionaries (16th Sunday), we are made to look at the narrative of the feeding of the multitude from the point of view of evangelization. The goal of evangelization is after all that those evangelized be brought around the table of the Lord and themselves become the means by which invitations to the Lord’s table are given out. The apostles return from their work bringing with them the multitudes that Jesus taught and fed. This is the refreshment of the apostles: to see the Lord teaching and feeding the men and women they have brought along.
1. One need not concentrate on the miraculous aspect of the stories. One can also begin from the fact that in both stories of feeding (one by Elisha and the other by Jesus), someone’s kindness becomes the occassion of the feeding of a number of people. Transformed by God, a small act of charity can go a long way.
2. The Christian community described in Acts 4:34 is a eucharistic community: “there was no one needy among them.” They were in a sense like those who were fed by the Lord: “they were all satisfied”. Those who fed from the Eucharistic table should themselves become the occassion for a social transformation, like the barley loaves and fish that the boy surrenders to Jesus.
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