Jul

(17th Sunday OT B) The Feeding of the Multitude

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

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.

Mark 6:35-44
View in: NAB NIV KJV NJB Vulg Greek

35And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came to him, saying: This is a desert place, and the hour is now past:

36Send them away, that going into the next villages and towns, they may buy themselves meat to eat.

37And he answering said to them: Give you them to eat. And they said to him: Let us go and buy bread for two hundred pence, and we will give them to eat.

38And he saith to them: How many loaves have you? go and see. And when they knew, they say: Five, and two fishes.

39And he commanded them that they should make them all sit down by companies upon the green grass.

40And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds and by fifties.

41And when he had taken the five loaves, and the two fishes: looking up to heaven, he blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave to his disciples to set before them: and the two fishes he divided among them all.

42And they all did eat, and had their fill.

43And they took up the leavings, twelve full baskets of fragments, and of the fishes.

44And they that did eat, were five thousand men.

John 6:1-15
View in: NAB NIV KJV NJB Vulg Greek

1After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is that of Tiberias.

2And a great multitude followed him, because they saw the miracles which he did on them that were diseased.

3Jesus therefore went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples.

4Now the pasch, the festival day of the Jews, was near at hand.

5When Jesus therefore had lifted up his eyes, and seen that a very great multitude cometh to him, he said to Philip: Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?

6And this he said to try him; for he himself knew what he would do.

7Philip answered him: Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little.

8One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, saith to him:

9There is a boy here that hath five barley loaves, and two fishes; but what are these among so many?

10Then Jesus said: Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. The men therefore sat down, in number about five thousand.

11And Jesus took the loaves: and when he had given thanks, he distributed to them that were set down. In like manner also of the fishes, as much as they would.

12And when they were filled, he said to his disciples: Gather up the fragments that remain, lest they be lost.

13They gathered up therefore, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above to them that had eaten.

14Now those men, when they had seen what a miracle Jesus had done, said: This is of a truth the prophet, that is to come into the world.

15Jesus therefore, when he knew that they would come to take him by force, and make him king, fled again into the mountain himself alone.