Ministry: of Mystery to Mystery
by Fr. David M. Knight
July 28, 2024
Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Lectionary 110
2 Kgs 4:42-44/Eph 4:1-6/Jn 6:1-15
How do you experience God ministering to you? When and where does this happen? Everything we appreciate as “the beauty of human life” reveals the presence and power of God active within people. God is in us, enabling us to breathe, see, think, move, choose and act. God is “at work” in the “splendor of creation.” In the trees surging from the earth. In the magnificence of the flowers we hardly notice. He is in what we eat, giving it taste. We need to “cherish the gifts that surround us,” recognizing God’s power and love in them, not just taking them for granted. We ask him, “Open our eyes to see your hand at work” in all things so that we might “experience the joy of life in your presence.”
But Jesus opens our eyes to a greater experience of joy in the mystery of grace, the gift of sharing in the divine life of God himself through union with Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. When the Responsorial Psalm proclaims “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs,” we know this means more than the Psalmist dreamed of. That is the theme of the readings.
Enough for all
In 2Kings 4:42-44 Elisha has succeeded Elijah as prophet, and through him God gives a preview of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes reported in the Gospel. A man has donated twenty loaves and a little grain. When Elisha tells his servant to feed the people, the servant asks, “How can I serve this to a hundred people?” Elisha answers, “They will eat and have some left over.” And they did.
The difference is that in Elisha’s miracle there is no suggestion of anything more than just physical food. It verifies the Psalm: “The hand of the Lord feeds us,” but with Jesus a whole new dimension is added to “he answers all our needs.” Food is certainly a need; but a minor one compared to the need we have for what Jesus came to give. If we want “life to the full,” we will not find it in food and drink, but in “every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus’ advice is:
Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. (See Matthew 4:4; John 6:7.)
Enough is not all
In John 6:1-15 Jesus’ disciples ask him the same question Elisha’s servant asked: “How can we feed so many people with the little we have?” But this time there are only five loaves and two fish for over five thousand people. Jesus in response “took the loaves, gave thanks, and gave them out” to all there. And they “filled twelve hampers with scraps left over.”
The formula “took, blessed (or gave thanks), broke and gave” was recognizable to all the early Christians as a deliberate reference to the institution of the Eucharist. At the Last Supper Jesus “took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body.’” John follows his report of the multiplication of the loaves with the great “Eucharistic discourse,” which we will hear in the Gospel readings for three more Sundays. Jesus explains what the miracle of loaves was meant to teach us:
I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (See Luke 22:19, 24:30; Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; 1Corinthians 11:24; John 6:22-59.)
Here we want to notice that in Jesus’ ministry he gives us a gift beyond anything we see in the “splendor of creation.” The Eucharist “opens our eyes to see” God’s hand at work in a mystery that enables us to “experience the joy of life in his presence” in a way “far beyond all we could ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20.)
It is with awareness and appreciation of mystery — the mystery of the Eucharist and of “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” the favor of sharing in the divine life of God, that we repeat, “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.” As we grow in wisdom we grow in appreciation of God’s spiritual gifts.
Aware of mystery
In Ephesians 4:1-6 Paul extends awareness of Christ’s presence in Eucharist to awareness of God’s presence in us and in one another. We are ministers of mystery and ministers to mystery. We minister, not just to felt human needs, but to the need all have, felt or not, to live on the level of God. We minister to each other as called and gifted by grace to live divine lives. We are called by Christianity and committed by Baptism to live in union of mind and will and heart with God himself. We are impelled and empowered to do this by the gift of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts.
Paul roots all Christian life and ministry in awareness of our identity as the Body of Christ, made one with each other by the gift of the Spirit and called to “preserve the unity of the Spirit” because “there is one Body, one Spirit… one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God who is Father of all,” and all are called “into one and the same hope.” This is the identity proclaimed to unify us at the beginning of every Mass: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” (See 2Corinthians 13:14; Philippians 2:1.)
We are “God's temple and God's Spirit dwells in us.” By his presence we are “sanctified” and the offering of ourselves to God is made acceptable. Our ministry is built on the mystery of the gifting presence of the Spirit within us. So is our unity with each other. (See 1Corinthians 3:16; Romans 15:15; 2Thessalonians 2:13; 1Corinthians 12: 4-31; Jude 1:19.)
This is a mystery “not known to former generations [but] now revealed… by the Spirit” to us “who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit.” We were anointed and “marked with the seal” of the Spirit as a “first installment” and “pledge of our inheritance.” (See Ephesians 1:13-14, 3:5; 1Peter 1:2; 2Corinthians 1:21-22.)
This is the source of that nameless longing for “more” that makes us “groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” We are longing for the “wedding banquet of the Lamb”: “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’” And the gift of the Spirit is the “guarantee” that our “groaning” for eternal life with God will not be in vain. The Spirit assures us that our Father’s house is our natural home: “Because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” And Jesus has promised it. (See Romans 8:23, 15:13; Galatians 4:6, 5:5; Revelation 19:6-9, 22:17; 2Corinthians 4:18 to 5:8; John 14:2.)
It is only through the mystery of the Spirit dwelling within us that we can pray as we should, understand “what is truly God’s,” preach effectively, receive what is preached to us or minister according to the spirit of life and freedom instead of in slavery to the letter of the law. (See Romans 8:26, 15:30; Ephesians 2:18, 6:18; Jude 1:20; 1Corinthians 2:4, 10-13; 1Thessalonians 1:5-6, 4:8; 2Corinthians 3:6-9, 17.)
Because our life and ministry is a mystery of union with God, we have to constantly listen in order to be guided by what the Spirit is saying in our own hearts, and through words of prophetic witness from individuals or the Church as a whole. We must not “quench the Spirit” in one another by fixing doctrines or laws in the frozen rigidity of unexplored and unexplorable verbal formulae. In the living body of Christ, responsive to the Spirit, we are constantly being “transformed.” (See Galatians 5:25; 1Thessalonians 5:19; Revelation 2:7; 2Corinthians 3:18.)
Our union with the Holy Spirit is a gift we should experience. It should confirm us in faith and hope. “The hand of the Lord feeds us; answers all our needs.” (See Galatians 3:2, 5:22; 1John 3:24, 4:13, 5:7-8; Romans 8:26; 2Timothy 1:14.)
Insight: How do you experience the action of the Holy Spirit in your heart?
Initiative: Resolve to let the Spirit in you address the Spirit in others when you speak.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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