News - July 2021 RSS Feed

The miracle in today’s Gospel (John 6:1-15) is well known. The Gospels of Mark and Matthew each have two accounts of a multiplication of loaves and fishes, while the Gospels of John and Luke both have one such account. Large crowds were following Jesus because he had been curing the sick. Jesus saw that they were hungry. After asking his disciples where they could buy enough food for them to eat, Andrew told him about a boy who had five barley loaves and two fish. Jesus took the food, gave thanks, and distributed it. Amazingly, Jesus fed about five thousand men and an uncounted number of women and children.

Jesus was often surrounded by crowds. They followed him through the countryside and gathered around him in the cities. They pushed their way into homes where he was staying. In one instance, they even tore away the roof tiles to reach him that he might cure a paralytic.

Do you remember being out at recess during school and teams being picked for baseball or dodgeball or some other game? It could be scary, thinking about how it would turn out. Will I be the last one picked? Will everybody laugh at me? Will I be good enough? Many of us may approach our faith and relationship with Jesus the same way, asking whether or not God will choose us; whether or not we are “good enough.” The Good News for each of us today is that God has already chosen us, and send us out on a mission that we can accomplish through his grace, power, and authority.

Today’s passage from the Gospel of Mark (Mark 6:1- 6) is quite revealing. Those who had gathered in the synagogue that was located in Jesus’ “native place” clearly were familiar with Jesus because they began to name his family – Mary, his mother; his brothers, James and Joses, Judas and Simon. They even mention his sisters. It is important to note that this identification as brothers and sisters must be taken within the context of the culture and language in which Jesus was living. These “brothers and sisters” would be more like extended family, perhaps cousins. This passage in no way contradicts the truth that Mary conceived Jesus by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit and that she remained ever-virgin, having had no other children.