GOD MULTIPLIES OUR LITTLE DEEDS OF GENEROSITY

 

Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Fr. Ugochukwu Ugwoke (Schoenstatt Fathers)

Scriptural Texts: 2 Kings 4:42-44, Ephesians 4:1-6, John 6:1-15

 

In the gospel reading of last Sunday, we saw how Jesus was moved with compassion for the crowd who had followed him across the sea, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And then, he began to teach them many things (Mark 6:34). If that reading had continued a bit longer, we would have seen that Jesus did not just teach them, he also fed them with bread (Mark 6:35-44). The readings of this Sunday take up the discourse on the miracle of the multiplication of loaves of bread. In the first reading, with just twenty loaves of barley bread and fresh grain of wheat, Elisha fed hundred men following the command of God (2 Kings 4:42-44). In the gospel reading (which is John’s account of the miracle of the bread), with just five barley loaves and two fish, Jesus fed about five thousand men (John 6:1-15). In the two miracles, the people ate to their fill and there were leftovers.

In the miraculous feeding of the one hundred men, Elisha was repeating Moses’ miracle of providing enough bread or manna for the Israelites in the desert (Exodus 16:4-24). As such, in the feeding of the five thousand men, Jesus was repeating the Moses’ miracle after the pattern of Elisha but only a thousand times as generously. Instead of twenty loaves among a hundred men, Jesus shares out five loaves among five thousand men. Jesus therefore is portrayed as a second Moses, standing in the same tradition but greater than Moses, making God known just as Moses had done, bringing to completion all that Moses had begun.

One common denominator in the two miracles of the multiplication of loaves is the incredulity of the people about the sufficiency of the means provided. In the first miracle, the servant of Elisha questioned how only twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain could be enough for one hundred men (2 Kings 4:43). In the feeding of the five thousand men, Andrew questioned what five barley loaves and two fish could do for five thousand men (John 6:9). But with the insufficient means, God fed the people.

Dear friend, how often do we put off doing acts of charity because we feel we do not yet have all it takes to get them done? How often do we avoid doing something because we feel we are inadequate? Do not wait until you possess everything in abundance before you can assist that needy around you or give yourself into God’s service. The little that you have is enough. God takes the little that we have and multiplies it. You are enough. God makes the best out of the worst of us. It does not matter how much talents and resources that we possess. Once we are ready to give ourselves to God, God will make other things possible.

In our time when many are dying from hunger and starvation, we are called to share the little we have with the starving. Let us imitate the generosity of both the man who freely brought his first-fruits to Elisha and the boy who magnanimously offered his lunch that others might be fed. Like the disciples, Jesus is asking us to give the hungry something to eat and to provide for the needy around us. May we too be the human instruments through whom God will keep meeting the needs of those in need. Amen.