18TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR A)

1st Reading           Isaiah 55: 1-3

Psalm                      145: 8-9, 15-16, 17-18 (R. see 16)

R:// "You open your hand, Lord, and you satisfy us"

2nd Reading         Romans 8: 35, 37-39

Gospel                    Matthew 14: 13-21

STOP BUYING EMPTY. COME AND BE FED

Friends, Pax et Bonum! We begin a new month, August with today being the 1st Sunday of the month. We also enter the second half of the liturgical year with today being the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A). Our first reading is from Isaiah 55: 1-3, and the Gospel is from Matthew 14: 13-21, the famous miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.  

Let us start detailing a few words about the first reading from Isaiah 55: 1-3. We have already encountered this chapter on the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A), where we read verses 10-11 on the word of God that does not return empty. Today, we return to the opening verses of the same chapter, and I think we should understand their place in the larger structure of the book. Isaiah 55 is the closing chapter of what scholars call Deutero-Isaiah, the second great section of the book of Isaiah, spanning chapters 40 to 55, addressed to the Jewish community in Babylonian exile around 550-540 BC. Chapter 55 is the finale, the conclusion of everything the exilic prophet has been building toward. After chapters of oralces,  promises, comfort Servant Songs, and of newness, chapter 55 opens with an invitation. This invitation, as seen in the first reading, takes the form of a market-cry. 

In the ancient Near Eastern world, water sellers and food vendors cried their wares in the open markets and public squares, calling to passersby to come and buy their products, thus, "Come, by wine! Come, buy milk! Come, buy water!". The Prophet Isaiah intentionally borrows this commercial idiom and turns it inside out. It is that marketplace cry that Isaiah employs to speak about God's invitation to a people in exile, who clearly depend on a foreign nation's policies to survive. 

The author begins with a cry, "Ho". The Hebrew is HÔY (הֹוי), which is used in Hebrew to get the attention of people. This  could be the ancient equivalent of a street vendor's shout. It is sometimes translated as "Ho!" or "Oh!", but its function is to arrest the attention of someone moving past and make them stop. What it means is that the failure to respond to this invitation means the one being called misses what is being offered. It is very important for us to hear that attention-getter at the beginning of our text today. Before we hear what the author has for us from God, he seeks our attention, but not out of compulsion or coercion, but out of our choice and freedom to respond. If we respond, we see and delight in what is offered, but if we do not, we lose it. 

The second thing is to underline what is being offered in this marketplace. There are three things, which are water, wine and milk. Why these three particular items? Water is a universal food. It is a basic thing of life. This is life. Wine is a symbol of happiness and joy. Milk is a symbol of growth. This is the food of infants. These are sustaining elements. You cannot buy life, happiness, and growth. You can only be given. In fact, Isaiah calls and says "You who have no money, come, buy a d eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money [BELO-KESEP (בְּלוֹא-כֶסֶף)] and without price [BELO-MEḤÎR (בְּלוֹא מְחִיר) ]".  The normal logic of commerce is payment in exchange for goods. However, in the marketplace that Isaiah refers to, there is a different logic at work. This is not an ordinary market transaction. The normal logic has been suspended entirely. What is being offered is genuinely free. Surprisingly, it is not discounted, subsidised, or even sold on credit. It costs nothing because it comes from the one who ones everything and lacks nothing. Imagine an individual who ignores the call from the beginning. That person equally forfeits what is offered freely. 

The third issue to detail is attend to the question of the prophet, "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which does not SATISFY?". Otherwise put, why spend your energy on what offers temporary satisfaction? The Hebrew verb translated as "SATISFY" is "ŚĀBĒAʿ (שָׂבֵעַ)", which means to be filled to the point of having enough or to be satiated. It is the same word used in Psalm 22: 26, when the Psalmist says "The poor will eat and be satisfied (yiśbāʿû)". The prophet is pointing out a specific human tendency. The tendency is that we spend our resources, our money, our energy, our time, and our emotional wealth on things that cannot give us what we are actually hungry for. When the author says "what is not bread" [LO-LEḤEM (לֹא לֶחֶם)], he is talking about the spiritual and existential condition of a people who have been satisfying their deepest hungers with substitutes, with the false securities of policitical alliances, with the gods of Babylon, with  the comforts of accommodation to exile, and then finding, again and again, that the satisfaction does not last. 

Fourthly and finally, where does the actual satisfaction come from? I suggest the answer comes in verse 3, thus, "Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear that your soul may live...". At least, three times we have something dealing with the ear. We have "Listen diligently", "Incline your ear", and "Hear". What this means is that the kind of marketplace we find ourselves in is not a literal food market. It is a market of hearing something that feeds the soul and which gives life. The invitation is to a table of words and obedience. In fact, the word translated as "Listen diligently" is SHIMʿÛ (שִׁמְעוּ), and it is the imperative of Shāmaʿ, which means to hear and obey. The life they get from obeying the Lord is anchored in the renewal of the BERÎT ʿÔLĀM (בְּרִית עוֹלָם), the everlasting covenant, with specific reference to the steadfast mercies or faithful acts promised to David. This is the covenant of 2 Samuel 7, the Nathan oracle, in which God promised David an everlasting dynasty and an unbreakable relationship. The prophet is telling the exiled people that this covenant has not been cancelled by the disaster of 587 BC. It is being renewed. The invitation to the free feast is simultaneously an invitation to re-enter the covenant relationship that gives the feast its meaning. 

Let us add three details from the Gospel from Matthew 14: 13-21. 

The author says that "When Jesus heard of it, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself." What had Jesus heard? The death of John the Baptist. The preceding passage (Matt 14:1-12) narrates the beheading of John at the request of Herodias, delivered on a platter to her daughter. Matthew says that when John's disciples buried the body, they went and told Jesus. Jesus' response to this news is to withdraw. The Greek verb is ANECHŌRĒSEN (ἀνεχώρησεν), from ana (back, away) and chōreō (to make room, to go). It is a withdrawal, a retreat, a deliberate movement away from the public space. Matthew uses this same verb in 2:12 when the Magi withdrew by another route, and in 4:12 when Jesus withdraws to Galilee after hearing of John's arrest. Each time, the withdrawal is a response to threat or grief. Jesus has just learned that the forerunner is dead. He is retreating into solitude not out of fear, but to grieve. The one who will soon feed five thousand needs first to be alone.

The second thing we should detail is what happened as evening drew near. As evening approaches, the disciples came to Jesus with what they apparently consider a reasonable and responsible solution, thus "This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves." (v.15). The Greek word for "deserted place" is ERĒMOS TOPOS (ἔρημος τόπος), literally a wilderness place, a desolate place. Every Jewish reader of Matthew's Gospel would immediately hear the resonance. Erēmos is the word for the desert, the wilderness of the Exodus. Israel was fed in the wilderness. Elijah was fed in the wilderness (1 Kgs 19:4–8). Now, Jesus is in the wilderness with a hungry multitude and his disciples are suggesting that the crowd be dismissed to find food for themselves. The disciples' logic is impeccable by ordinary standards. It is late, the place is remote, and they do not have the resources to feed this many people. They are just being practical. 

We hear of the availability of five loaves. Five loaves, in Greek, PENTE ARTOUS (πέντε ἄρτους), is almost certainly small barley rounds of the kind the poor ate daily and two fish, probably small dried or salted fish used as a relish to make the bread palatable. This is a poor man's meal for two or three people. However, there are five thousand men, plus women and children, which Matthew explicitly notes in verse 21, meaning the actual crowd is almost certainly significantly larger. When Jesus took these inadequate resources, he performs four actions. He takes (LABŌN, λαβών), he blesses (EULOGĒSEN, εὐλόγησεν), he breaks (EKLASEN, ἔκλασεν), and he gives (EDŌKEN, ἔδωκεν). These four verbs, take, bless, break, give are the exact same four verbs that Matthew will use at the Last Supper in 26:26, when Jesus takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to his disciples with the words, "This is my body." The Feeding of the Five Thousand is a Eucharistic anticipation. Matthew is telling his community which was gathering every Sunday to break bread that what happens in the Eucharist and what happened on the hillside in Galilee are the same event in two registers. The multiplication of bread for the hungry crowd, and the giving of his very self for the life of the world are the same events. 

The leftovers filled twelve baskets. The Greek word for the baskets is KOPHINOS (κόφινος), the large wicker basket that Jewish travellers in the ancient world habitually carried to keep their food separate from Gentile provisions. There are twelve of them, one for each of the Twelve, one for each tribe of Israel. I think the twelve full baskets of fragments are Matthew's signal that the messianic abundance has more than enough for the whole of Israel. There is enough for everyone. There is enough to satisfy our hunger. 

Pax et Bonum