John 6:1-15 (NRSV)
After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”
When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
~
"[I]n John's Gospel Jesus has already [...] performed a number of signs in Jerusalem. The last one, in the chapter immediately before this one, being that of the beggar at the pool, the Sheep Gate, Bethesda. The man who'd been there for 38 years and he enabled this person to walk. [...] So when it says here that people came from other places because of the things he'd done with sick people, this was one of the signs that they were talking about.
"And what was the sign? Well for 38 years this was someone who had been almost the 40 years of the time in the wilderness and was finally being given a chance to walk just before the 40 years were up, so that he could come into the the kingdom, the Promised Land. So people have picked up that what Jesus was doing was not simply 'miracles' but they were miracles pointing towards something that God was doing, something historic, that there was a an active communication going on; not just a wonderful thing but a wonderful thing pointing towards God doing something big. That's what the signs are. So we have that in the background to what is about to happen now in John's telling of the feeding of the 5000.
"He has in common with Mark that Moses and Joshua are very much in the background, and not only but we'll see other prophets as well. But also the sense that people were aware of this. So after Jesus has been in Jerusalem he's preached, if you like to Egypt, to the institutionally tough place, and now he went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias, so now he's back in the north. He's gone across the sea, which is all you need to know - left Egypt, gone across the sea.
[...]
"So Jesus like Moses has gone across the sea. Other people come along as well because of the signs. Jesus goes up a mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Well this was actually what Moses had done: initially his first trip up the mountain was with his elders and they feasted before the Lord. Remember that this was what Jesus had been planning to do with his disciples in Mark: taking them up to a place to give them some rest, but now they found that lots more people are coming.
[...]
"“Now there was a great deal of grass in the place.” So two points here. “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down by green pastures.” So here is the lord literally making the people lie down in green pastures. But also there was a great deal of grass “in the place.” 'The Place was also a standard word for the Temple, and remember that Jesus has already foretold the end of the Temple [in John's Gospel]. He's not celebrating the Passover in the temple, he's celebrating the Passover back in the wilderness. He's fulfilling the original purpose of the Passover, and he's going to be sharing what it all means. And he's taken them to a place, and he's having them lie down - they are reclining, this is the position of free people, not slaves.
[...]
"Interesting, in John's Gospel it's not that he blesses [the loaves], breaks them and then hands them over to the disciples to do the distributing. Here he is the distributor: he distributes them himself. And I think that John is making the point here that it's he himself who is distributing himself, and that that's, if you like, what is going to be worked out in the rest of the chapter: What is this real distribution that's going on? Who is distributing? What does it mean?
"When they were satisfied he told his disciples [to] gather up the fragments left over so that nothing may be lost. So they gathered them up and from the fragments of the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten they filled 12 baskets. So the five barley loaves which have replaced the five pillars of the law, they have been eaten, the fragments have filled people and they've filled 12 baskets. The whole of the people of Israel has been filled, has been satisfied.
[...]
"So Jesus withdraws again to the mountain by himself: Moses's second trip to the mountain by himself. Jesus is re-enacting Moses, the beginning of the Passover as he's about to teach people about the Bread of Life."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 17 in Ordinary Time, Year B" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-MmNz9cBv4)
[For further discussion and reflections on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/proper12b/]
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