Prepare with spiritual nourishment

July 23, 2006 -- 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

By Fr. Michael Stubbs

	Fr. Mike Stubbs

Before we eat a meal, we have to set the table. We place on it the plates, knives, forks, spoons and glasses, that will enable us to eat. Similarly, in order to receive the spiritual nourishment available through Scripture, a certain preparation also must be made. The correct setting must be laid out on the table of the Lord's word.

Sunday's gospel reading sets the scene for the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. At the same time, the gospel reading does not go on to describe that miracle. Instead, it leaves that task for the following Sunday. This Sunday, we focus upon setting the scene. There are several ways that the gospel reading accomplishes that.

First of all, the gospel reading relocates Jesus and the apostles to an unnamed deserted place. Jesus' concern for the apostles prompts the move. He invites them, "Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while." Their relocation will provide a motive for the miracle, since there they can not buy the food needed for the crowd.

The reference to this isolated spot somewhere on the shore of Lake Galilee also alludes to the Exodus experience of the people of Israel centuries earlier. They had traveled for forty years through the desert under Moses' leadership on their way to the promised land. Admittedly, the lush greenery of the Galilee countryside may not remind us of the arid wasteland of the Sinai peninsula through which Moses and the Israelites wandered. On the other hand, the same Greek word is used to indicate the two places. The word usage establishes the link.

By alluding to the Exodus event, the gospel reading creates the expectation that this large crowd which has gathered around Jesus as the newly reconstituted people of Israel will undergo a similar experience. In that way also the gospel prepares us for the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. Just as the people of Israel were miraculously fed manna in the desert during those forty years, so also now will the new people of Israel be miraculously fed through the multiplication of the loaves and the fish.

In addition, an editorial comment explaining the apostles' fatigue foreshadows the miracle which will feed them and the crowd. "People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat." Because of Jesus' miracle, the apostles will have that opportunity to eat.

But Jesus' hopes to find a place to relax do not materialize, insofar as people learn of their travel plans and arrive there beforehand. When Jesus sees the huge crowd, he is moved with pity for them, for, as the gospel reading tells us, "they were like sheep without a shepherd." The gospel's comparison of Jesus to a shepherd also points us in the direction of the miracle. After all, a shepherd feeds the flock by leading them to pasture.

But before Jesus performs the miracle to feed the crowd physically, he provides them with spiritual nourishment. "He began to teach them many things." In that way he shows them, "that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD." (Deuteronomy 8:3)

It is only at that point that we are ready. The table is set. We are prepared for the feast that awaits us in next Sunday's gospel.

(Fr. Stubbs, a priest of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, has a master's degree in theology from Harvard.)