The Seventh Sunday after Trinity (July 18, 2021)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

There are three words you never want to hear as a teacher: “I don’t know.” But somehow, it seems like whenever it’s time for review, students don’t remember what you told them even if you made them work and work and work on mastering that concept. The same thing happens in our home: “Jude, what did I tell you about getting more toys out?” Only to hear, “I don’t know” in reply. But I think, probably, this tendency plays out in most of us. We are “prone to wander.” As we confess at Morning Prayer: “We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have not done those things which we ought not to have done.”

It’s for this reason I love the book of Hosea, which we read for our Old Testament lesson this morning. The prophet Hosea ministered sometime in the eighth century to the Northern Kingdom of Israel prior to their defeat by the Assyrians. Like any good prophet, Hosea didn’t just condemn sinful behavior, but engaged in dramatic gestures to prove his point, much like a modern-day performance artist. The dramatic gesture at the heart of Hosea is when God instructed the prophet to marry a prostitute named Gomer with whom he had three children. At some point, she left him, likely due to a relapse into her old ways. Even though Hosea felt confident in saying their relationship was over, God instructed him to “Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress” (3:1a). She was in slavery when Hosea found her. He bought her back but she had to be broken of her habitually unfaithful behavior by being forced into seclusion before the relationship could be restored (3:3-4), a pattern which mirrors Israel’s experience in exile.

The unfolding drama in the book of Hosea is symbolic of God’s love for His idolatrous people. The idolatry of Israel is mirrored by the adultery of Gomer. Hosea, the jilted husband, is likened to God. Hosea is preoccupied with Israel’s primary sin of idolatry both in the form of worshipping the Canaanite god Baal and the way they made alliances with other nations instead of relying on God for protection. But the purpose of the picture of the rejected lover pursuing his adulterous bride is to show God’s hesed, a Hebrew word that translates to “loving-kindness” as in Hosea 2:19 where God says, “I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in lovingkindness [hesed] and in compassion” (emphasis added). The NIV translates it as “love,” while the NLT says “unfailing love” and the ESV chooses “steadfast love.” Although these are certainly good translations, they miss out on the fullness of the word. The more complete understanding is in the covenantal picture of a “life-long, faithful marital covenant.” In light of this, God is depicted as “jealous” in Hosea 13:4-6 (and also in Exodus 34:14 and Deuteronomy 4:24). Yet, it is not a petty jealousness derived from psychotic narcissism. Rather, this jealousy is based on the violation of a sacred, covenantal relationship, making it wholly valid. If a husband is not jealous of his wife’s marital unfaithfulness, it is a cause for concern because it proves a lack of real love. So it is with God and His people. When Israel forgot their first love and acted unfaithfully, God pursued them with a loving-kindness that sought their own good.

I think often we read the Old Testament with the assumption that we’re much better than the Israelites. We see them as fickle, forgetful, idolatrous, having an inferior faith to us enlightened moderns. But the way the Israelites constantly forget about their first love and run after idols isn’t just their problem — it’s the human problem. We see it in today’s Gospel reading of the feeding fo the 4,000 from St. Mark 8. The odd thing about this story is that it is the second miraculous feeding story in Mark’s Gospel: the first is in Mark 6 and is the feeding of the 5,000. So why does Mark include two feeding stories? Some scholars have suggested that it is the same story repeated two different times but that view falls short in light of the differing details between the two accounts — there are 5,000 first and 4,000 second; in Mark 6, Jesus uses 5 loaves and 2 fish while in today’s reading, he uses 7 loaves of bread and 0 fish; there are 12 baskets of bread left over after the first feeding but after the second feeding, there are 7. Plus, if it was the same story, it would be superfluous — why would Mark feel the need to say the same thing twice? Why say it in two accounts when you could say it in one? The most likely explanation for the two feedings is that the first feeding occurred with a primarily Jewish audience while the second occurs with a primarily Gentile crowd — this shows us the continuity of Jesus’ ministry with the Old Testament while also emphasizing that the Church, the true Israel of God, is open to all people whether they’re Jewish or not.

There is one part of today’s reading that I find alarming, and that is verse 4: “His disciples answered him, ‘How can one feed these men with bread here in the desert?’” I would understand asking the question if we went out to the picnic at Quiet Waters Park a few weeks ago and had no catering from Mission BBQ but the disciples, as good Jews, should have remembered that God provided the Israelites manna from heaven while in the desert. Even more, they should have remembered 2 chapters ago in Mark when Jesus performed the exact same kind of miracle! Now, to be fair, perhaps more time lapsed between the two events than the two chapters make it seem but still, Jesus fed 5,000 people with 2 fish and 5 loaves. That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing one should forget! But this plays into a larger theme in the Gospels, namely that the disciples come off as clueless. Just like Israel forgot, so too the disciples forget things almost immediately as they happen. Yet, despite their forgetfulness, God provides food for the people. He even uses the Apostles to distribute the food. The miraculous feeding stories should always make us think of the Eucharist. Not only is there the allusion to the Old Testament manna which certainly looks forward to the Bread of Life that we receive in Communion, but also, the accounts explicitly use Eucharistic language: “Having given thanks he broke the bread and gave them to his disciples.” Compare that with what occurs at the Last Supper: “he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them.” Taking. Blessing. Breaking. Giving. These are the fundamental actions at the Last Supper and remain the fundamental actions at the Mass.

So what do we make of this connection between the miraculous feeding and the Eucharist? Well we begin by admitting that today, sadly, we aren’t much better than our Israelite forebears or our Apostolic predecessors. We often forget. We forget the call of the Gospel for us to come and die amidst our hectic and busy schedules, amidst our constant desire to be entertained. We forget the significance of the life of the Church in our quest for material wealth and political power. We forget the teachings of the faith catholic in our rush to personal judgment and private interpretation of Scripture. How did Christ respond to the forgetfulness of his Apostles? By feeding them. How does he respond to the forgetfulness of those of us who make up his Church? By feeding us in the Holy Eucharist.

At the very center of the Mass is the idea of remembrance. But remembrance is more than just thinking about something; it’s about the bringing of the past into the present. It’s about living into something. And what we live into is the sacrifice of Christ which is made present to us as we receive that precious Body which was given for us and that precious Blood poured out for us. While we are forgetful, the Sacrament of the Altar makes us remember by allowing us to inhabit the story of redemption, by taking us up with the angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven into God’s love as revealed to us in the sacrifice of his Son. This is why Holy Communion is the center and pinnacle of our worship. It’s why the traditional name for Holy Communion is the Mass, a name which comes from the Latin word for “send” because we are dismissed to be sent into the world where we live out the fact that we are living sacrifices, emulating the sacrifice of our Lord.

And that leaves us with a challenge. Because it’s very easy to settle into a routine and go through the motions and therefore, it’s very easy to forget the significance of what we’re gathered to do. So the challenge is for us to be prepared, to be aware, to be present and mindful of what we’re doing. “How can one feed these men with bread here in the desert?” The answer is only by a miracle and that miracle happens for us every Sunday on the altar.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.