17th Sunday of Ordinary Time
2 Kings 4:42–44
Psalm 145:10–11, 15–16, 17–18
Ephesians 4:1–6
John 6:1–15
“The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.”
The Lord intends something for us that is beyond our understanding. He knows us. We do not really know ourselves and what we need unless we learn to desire the kingdom of God. This desire leads us to a deeper approach to life, inspiring us to reach for something beyond what we are experiencing at any given moment. Wants give way then to the longing for the reality that is in us, and from that perspective, we see better what we need. Awareness of God’s providential love for us gives us a perspective that will not be given any other way. God loves us. God loves us immensely. God loves me. That love is divine love. We are fed and nourished by the hand of the Lord. He gives us all that we truly need.
As human beings, we have needs that are physical, pertaining to life as creatures who are part of all that exists materially. We also have emotional needs, feelings and desires that are more personal, pertaining to our interactions with other persons and all creatures that live with us. Finally, we have spiritual needs pertaining to a more elusive part of ourselves, our capacities to know, to remember, and to choose, faculties that are proper to us as spiritual beings in the material world.
Our basic drives as human beings move our whole persons, body, mind and spirit. They impel us to seek delight, to express our personal identity and to esteem ourselves in our own uniqueness as spiritual beings. These are touched by the divine love of the Shepherd, whose hand feeds us. The feeding that God offers goes to the heart of these needs. Growth in relationship with God, both in this world and in eternity, is what makes us truly human. We live, by the grace of God, God’s own life. When our needs are met by God, we learn what it means to live divine life humanly.
Cooperation with the grace of God requires us to give human nature its due. Grace builds on nature. Attention to our real needs requires an acceptance of every part of ourselves and a realization that the unity of body, mind and spirit is evident in every desire, want and need. Often, the overflow of an experience of deficiency in one aspect of ourselves can lead us to a misunderstanding about our own true needs. God is often blamed for not supplying a need that we perceive that is not a need but a want, a desire or a wound that must be healed.
The Letter to the Ephesians expresses an approach that can help us to move forward in the face of a perceived need that is not met. We must look to the ultimate goal of life. The author of Ephesians urges each person “to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
Last week, we heard Jesus’ invitation to His disciples to come away for rest (a real, physical need, shared by Jesus Himself), which was interrupted by the presence of the vast crowd. We see how Jesus meets the hungers that arise in human beings, both physical and spiritual. This week, we step out of Mark’s Gospel and into John’s. We encounter the heart of Jesus, moved with compassion for the people and for the disciples called to learn from Him how to feed their hungers. What He supplies is enough and more than enough.
After the feeding of the multitude, Jesus invites the disciples: “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” In the weeks ahead, may we be open to a greater understanding of the Bread of Life and how the hand of the Lord feeds us.