The Fifth Loaf
Proper 12B
26 July 2012; 8:00 a.m. Said Mass and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
26 July 2012; 8:00 a.m. Said Mass and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Homily Delivered by the Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
at the Parish Church of Trinity Ashland, Oregon
God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of
flesh. Amen.
Today’s reading from the Gospel of
John tells the story of the multiplication of the bread and fish. Jesus shows God’s
abundance and loving care by the mighty act of providing a multitude with food
from very little. All four Gospels tell
some version of the story, where Jesus takes five small pita breads—John alone
says they were a poor man’s bread made from barley and not wheat—and two fish, and
feeds over 5,000 people.
Mark, Matthew, and Luke tell the
story as a way of showing Jesus’ authority and power. He is even a greater prophet than the great
prophet Elisha, who in today’s Hebrew lesson feeds only 100 people with 20
small loaves.
In John, the story is part of the Book
of Signs, an account of how Jesus’ marvelous deeds point beyond themselves to
inner, hidden truth about him. Turning
water into wine shows he is the true Vine.
Multiplying the loaves shows he is the Bread of Life. Curing the man
born blind shows he is the Light of the World.
Raising Lazarus from the dead shows he is the Life of the World. The point is not so much proof of Jesus’
authority, but rather that Jesus gives us joy, changes us, nourishes us and
sustains us, makes things clear for us, and makes us truly, fully alive.
Right after this story in John,
Jesus gives the sermon of the Bread of Life:
“I am the bread of life. The one
who comes to me shall not hunger… I am the living bread come down from
heaven. Anyone who eats this bread shall
live forever. The bread which I shall
give for the life of the world is my flesh.
… The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I
shall raise him up at the last day” (John 6: 35-54).
The story clearly was important for
early Christians. One of the earliest
Christian churches uncovered by archeologists is dedicated to the story.
I visited it when I was in the Holy
Land in May. The Church of the Multiplication
is at a village on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee called Seven Springs
(in Greek, Heptapegon, a word that
made its way into Arabic as Tagbha,
and is translated into Hebrew as ‘Ain
Sheba’). The Tabgha church is built
on the ruins of a fourth century church on the site traditionally identified as
where Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish.
It is graced with original beautiful
mosaic floors from the fourth century church: delicate pictures of wild water
fowl, flowering plants and reeds. Under
the high altar lies the stone outcropping where the miracle supposedly occurred. Just in front of it is another preserved
piece of fourth century mosaic, clear and colorful: a picture of two fish, and a basket with
loaves of bread.
The mosaic is puzzling. When you look at it, the two fish might
indeed be tilapia that teem in the lake, called by locals St. Peter’s
fish. But the basket contains only four
loaves of pita bread.
All of the Gospels agree that there
were five loaves, not four. The number
was probably symbolic: five books of Moses, five loaves of bread. Five loaves plus two fish equals seven, the
number of wholeness and Sabbath rest.
So why did the artists get it
wrong? The error seems almost certainly
deliberate.
Many art traditions in the world
make a point of including small intentional errors in works, or at least intentionally
not correcting them when discovered. Quilters
in several traditions are known to put in a single block that breaks the
pattern, as a sign of humility. Weavers
of Persian carpets often make obvious design discrepancies to show that no one
is perfect except Allah. American first
nations variously believe evil spirits can escape only through a slight
imperfection in their rugs or blankets, or that a single bead out of sequence
or color, a “spirit bead,” can serves as a gate through which the Great Spirit
can enter and empower beadwork. Chinese and Japanese Zen take
a similar approach. Buddhism’s stress on
the impermanence and transience of life leads artists to embrace slight imperfections
in their work as a way of staying centered, in the present moment. A slight
flaw in a piece of pottery is not seen as a defect. If the vessel is finished, it is
successful. And if it has marks that an
impermanent human being made it, it is honest.
The Zen circle sums this up. Drawn in one or two uninhibited brushstrokes
to express a moment, it often appears broken or unfinished. And that is fine.
But was any of such thinking in the
mind of the mosaic artist? The error had
to be intentional, but why?
Our guide helped us understand. “Look
carefully,” he said. “What is before
your eyes when you look at the mosaic? What is its setting?”
Then it was obvious: the main altar of the church, in the same
spot as its ancient precursor, stands just behind the symbol of the two fish
and four loaves. Any worshipper attending
Divine Liturgy sees the four loaves in the mosaic basket, and there above it,
the loaf held by the priest.
The Holy Eucharist, taken by the congregation
week after week, is the missing fifth loaf.
In it, Jesus is still performing his miracle, making abundant food where
there had been little. He is making
God’s table of plenty real for us. He is
God’s table of plenty.
This link between the miracle and the
Eucharist is found right in the text in John we read today.
John, alone among the Gospels, uses language
unique to the Eucharist to describe the multiplication: “he gave
thanks (eucharistesas) and distributed
(diedoken)” the broken bread. These words are found in Paul’s and the
Synoptics’ story about the Last Supper, but not in parallel versions of the
multiplication.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell the story
that Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper by taking the bread and
wine of a Passover meal, saying they were his body and blood, giving thanks,
and distributing them. But John tells a
very different story: for him, the Last Supper occurs the day before Passover. It is not a Passover meal, but a regular one,
complete with gravy for dipping bread.
Instead of instituting the Eucharist Jesus washes the feet of his
disciples, tells them to love each other, and gives a long prayer of
intercession for them. (The two stories
have long shadows: the Western Church generally uses unleavened bread in the
Eucharist, following the Synoptics; the Eastern Church has always used leavened
bread, following John.)
The Fourth Gospel handles the
sacraments in the life of Jesus, baptism and Eucharist, very differently than
the Synoptics. In John, Jesus never
receives baptism by John the Baptist (1:29-34) or personally baptizes others
(4:2). Instead he offers the Samaritan woman himself as “Living Water,”
mentions birth “by water and by the spirit” to Nicodemus, and has water flow
from his pierced side on the Cross. In John, the Eucharist is not instituted at
the Last Supper, but rather is already present in the feeding of the
5,000.
John’s point is that Jesus is the
Bread from Heaven and the Water of Life, and that Baptism and Eucharist only
matter in the degree that they bring us to him.
What can we learn from John’s retelling
of these stories? Nearly all historical
Jesus scholars agree that Jesus practiced open table fellowship, sharing his
table with all and sundry, regardless of religious or purity law observance,
morals, or background. For him, sharing bread with someone is a sign
of compassion, respect, and honor, and helps us approach the compassionate and
beneficent God. The feeding of the
5,000 puts in story form this fact of open table fellowship in the life of the
historical Jesus.
John portrays it as a
Eucharist. Few if any of those 5,000 had
gone to Judea to be baptized by John.
And Jesus welcomes them to his table, to the Eucharist.
I think this suggests
that Jesus intends the Eucharist as a sign of God’s care for all. It is a sign of openness and inclusion. I wonder how Jesus feels when he sees his
people putting up fences around partaking of the Eucharist. Some, stressing his words “this is my body,
this is my blood,” take the elements as holy and divine, and have sought to
protect them from “blasphemy” or “misuse” by the “wicked” or “unworthy.” They say that only those who have confessed
their sins and been absolved can commune, or only those who properly understand
what the Eucharistic elements are, or only baptized Christians. Again, I wonder
how such things feel in the heart of our Savior.
Of the two sacraments
the Synoptic Gospels say Jesus gave to us, baptism is about how we come to God
and how God welcomes us. Eucharist is about God’s loving abundance, sustenance,
and table of plenty, offered by Christ to all.
John’s Gospel tells us they both have spiritual meaning deeper than the
outward forms, and that in the timeless presence of God, both are always before
us.
Thus I don’t think the
current canon of the Episcopal Church to offer the Eucharist to only the
baptized is warranted by what we learn of these two sacraments in
scripture. Let us welcome all, as Christ
does for all those people in that field!
The thing is this: that mosaic artist intentionally put in the
wrong number of loaves to make the point that Christ is the bread offered to
us, here and now. His miraculous feast
continues for us. Eucharist and liturgy
themselves are a form of art that we offer each other and to God. We often try hard to get them completely
right, without error. But as a human
response to God and expression of faith, they will always have flaws and errors. That does not mean the fifth loaf is not
there, that Christ is absent. The very
acceptance of grace that leads Christ to offer open table fellowship to all and
sundry must lead us to see through the flaws of outward forms into the beauty
of mystery before us. We must embrace
our weakness and rejoice that Christ is with us, in the bread and wine offered
at the altar.
Thanks be to God.
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