Saint Frances Cabrini Parish

Father Kleppner - July 26, 2009
I share with you the following reflection on this Sunday’s readings by Patricia Datchuck Sánchez
FEEDING THE HUNGRY

If you were asked to provide a detailed job description of your duties and responsibilities as a disciple of Jesus, what would it include? With God’s grace enhancing their talents and abilities, some may describe their role as one of leadership and administration. Keeping the “bark of Peter” afloat and seaworthy requires continuous attention to the day-today details and the ability to organize and delegate responsibilities to others who will be held accountable for their efforts. Others might see their main role as that of a fundraiser. Institutions like the church need money to operate successfully, and someone who has a good head for finance and business can make it so. Still others may describe their position as being a representative of their congregation at an endless succession of organizational meetings and on any number of committees.
While all of these duties are necessary in their own way, they may not have been the duties Jesus had uppermost in his mind when he sent forth his disciples to continue his ministry. To be renewed in the sense of ourselves as disciples, we turn yet again to the sacred texts where, this Sunday and for the following five Sundays of August, our teacher and mentor in ministry will be Jesus.
During this six-week journey, Jesus will teach by example; the proper role and responsibility of every disciple of Jesus is to feed the hungers of all God’s people. In today’s Gospel, it is the physical hunger of a very large crowd of people that merits Jesus’ full attention and compassion. His action was prophetic in that it recalled other miraculous feedings from Jewish tradition. Jesus’ offer of bread for the many was reminiscent of a similar action by the prophet Elisha (2 Kings, first reading). Elisha’s power as a man of God and his authority to speak God’s truth were affirmed by his action of feeding a hundred people. Jesus’ action similarly affirmed his power and authority. At the same time, his provision of food for the many cast Jesus in the same light as God, who provided manna for the Israelites in the wilderness. Taking his cue from the One whose loving and caring he incarnated for the sake of sinners, Jesus fed all who would be nourished by him. Jesus’ willingness to feed humankind’s physical hungers is told no less than six times in the four Gospels; this fact affirms the significance of his actions and serves as a guide for those seeking to identify themselves as his disciples.
Obviously, Jesus’ compassion made him sensitive toward all of the other hungers he encountered: He fed those hungry for the truth with his teaching; his compassion fed the sorrowing; his mercy fed the marginalized; his caring fed the sick, the dying and the lonely. His love fed the hunger of every sinner yearning to be loved, to belong, to be forgiven and redeemed. But it was Jesus’ willingness to feed humanity’s endless physical hunger that stands out today and challenges our claim to discipleship.
Those same endless hungers are experienced by untold millions throughout this world, and because they are so great and so unrelenting, we feel small, inept and frustrated. At times, this sense of being overwhelmed cripples our efforts. Even the first disciples felt similarly powerless. They talked about the cost of the food; they wanted to send the people away; they were overwrought at the very idea of tending to the hungers of so many. Nevertheless, Jesus took a few resources they had and made a meal of them for the many. Throughout his action, his disciples assisted; they distributed the bread and the fish and collected the leftovers. Throughout his action, Jesus challenged those who would be his disciples to use the resources at hand and make a beginning. When we object that there are so many who hunger and so little food, he challenges us to talk less and do more, to worry less and to procure more, to complain less and to trust more.
Jesus also challenges his own to understand that what he has done in feeding the hungry points ahead to the ultimate sharing of his very self as food for all of sinful humankind. Giver of bread, he would also be the bread that gives life. Broken on the cross, he gave himself totally so that every human hunger would be satisfied.
Jesus fully expected his disciples to continue his ministry of tending to the hungry in this world; this will be affirmed by the risen Christ at the end of the fourth Gospel. After an intimate lakeside breakfast that he prepared for his disciples, Jesus would look at a weak and wounded Peter and tell him three times; “Feed my sheep” (21:15, 16,17). Today, Jesus looks at each of us in our wounded weariness and says with words that are laden with love and empowered by grace: “Feed my sheep,” And so his ministry continues.

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