XVII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, Year B
2 Kings 4:42-44; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-5
The liturgy of the Seventeenth Sunday of Year B presents to us God’s concern to satisfy the “hunger” of all his sons and daughters. It invites us to open our hearts to sharing, to fraternity, to responsibility for the “hunger” of our brothers and sisters. For in the first reading, the prophet Elisha orders the loaves that were offered to him to be distributed to the people around him. With his gesture God wants to teach us sharing, generosity, solidarity. Similarly in the Gospel, Jesus offers the disciples and the crowd the “sign” of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. His gesture “opens the eyes” of the disciples and makes them realize that only the logic of sharing, of gratuitousness, of generous giving, of humble service can multiply the “bread” that satisfies the “hunger” of the world. Only in this way can a more humane, more solidary, more fraternal world be born. At a time when many parts of our planet are ravaged by hunger and drought due to the El Niño phenomenon, sharing is an imperative.
In both texts it is clear that God uses men to intervene in the world and to bring his gifts to the world.
Elisha’s gesture of sharing is certainly an antidote to selfishness, hoarding, greed, self-relinquishment, which is the trend of today’s world. It is a gesture that announces a new world, a transformed world, a world of solidarity, a world built in the style of God, a world where all the sons and daughters of God have a place at the table of life and hope. It is the world defended by Pope Francis in Fratteli Tutti.
Some of those who witnessed the multiplication of the loaves and fishes are aware that Jesus is the Messiah who was to come to give his people life in abundance and they want to make him king (verses 14-15). But Jesus does not accept it. He did not come to solve the world’s problems by establishing a system of authority and power; but he came to invite people to live in a logic of sharing and solidarity, which becomes a gift and humble service to our brothers and sisters. It is another lesson for any leader, especially one who is at the service of the Gospel, not to give in to lofty proposals that can distract or distort the mission to which he has been entrusted by the owner of the harvest.
In the second reading, Paul reminds believers of some of the demands of Christian life, the basis for a true Christian community. He recommends to them, in particular, humility, meekness and patience, attitudes that are not combined with schemes of selfishness, pride, self-sufficiency and prejudice against their brothers and sisters. He goes further, asking the brothers to care for each other, to support and help.
The Church in Africa defined itself as the Family Church of God. What is typical of a family is precisely the mutual concern of the members of a family. In today’s language, it can be said that it is an invitation to synodality, which we are all called to embrace because it is the Church of the Third Millennium.
The community born of Jesus can only live in unity and communion. Only by living together can they give a consistent witness to Christ and to the commandment of love. ‘By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another’, says the Lord (Jn 13:35). Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to find Christian communities wounded by divisions, tribalism, regionalism, rivalries, envy, jealousy, irreconcilable divergences, influence games, etc. This is because the members of the community have not yet discovered the foundations of their faith.
In order for unity to be possible, Paul recommends humility, meekness and patience to the recipients of the Letter to the Ephesians. Because they are attitudes opposed to the schemes of selfishness, pride, self-sufficiency, prejudice in relation to brothers and sisters.
As mentioned above, Jesus’ concern for the “hunger” of that crowd that follows him, reveals God’s concern to give all his sons and daughters life in abundance. However, despite God’s generosity, the gifts He makes available to us do not always reach everyone’s table. This is due to the fact that some men and women, out of selfishness and greed, take the gifts that belong to all the sons and daughters of God.
The “bread” that Jesus has distributed to the hungry crowd refers to something more than the material bread that satisfies our physical hunger. Those people who run after Jesus to satisfy their “hunger” are those men and women who, every day we meet on the paths we travel, and who, in some way, are deprived of what is necessary to live a dignified life… Those “who are hungry” are those who are exploited and wronged and who cannot free themselves; they are those who live in solitude, without family, without friends and without love; they are the ones who have to leave their land and face a culture, a language, a foreign environment in order to be able to offer subsistence conditions to their families; they are the marginalized, abandoned, segregated because of the colour of their skin, because of their social or economic status, or because they do not have access to the education and cultural goods that the majority enjoys; it is the children who suffer violence; they are the victims of the global economy.
Jesus addresses his disciples and says to them, referring to the hungry crowd: “Give them something to eat yourselves”. Thus, the responsibility of Jesus’ disciples to satisfy the “hunger” of the world and to break the “bread” that satisfies the hunger for life, for justice, for freedom, for hope, for happiness from which men and women suffer.
People went after Jesus “to the other shore” because they were a people marked by oppression, who wanted to experience liberation, a situation of many of our time. They go after Jesus because they have already realized that only Jesus will be able to help them overcome their condition of misery and slavery. It is a lesson for our time, with many offering misleading solutions.
In the search for answers to the hunger of those people, Jesus involves the group of his disciples. Today he involves his followers, us.