Sunday readings: Feeding the 5,000 with civic knowledge

Deacon Tim Tilghman provides a unique take on the Sunday Gospel reading for July 28, 2024.

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TIM TILGHMAN

July 28, 2024 . 6:00 AM  

“Give it to the people to eat, for thus says the LORD: You will eat and have some left over.” 
(2 Kings 2:43) 

As you will see as you revisit the Scriptures, God transcends time. What was said about feeding the people in Elisha’s time was true then, and in the time that the human Jesus walked on the planet. And, since God transcends time, it is true today.

Many of us are hungry for a better day today. Since we all know the bad news, it is good to remember what Fr Patrick Smith said back in the day at St. Augustine Church in Washington: “We are aware of the bad news. We are called to preach the Good News!”

On the day before he died in Memphis in April 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King shared the state of the union—it was not pretty then—and shared a plan to ensure a better union in the days to come, beginning with a core idea:  “We’ve got to stay together.”

In today’s Gospel, the apostles were faced with a situation similar to ours. We hear their state of the union, followed by Jesus’ solution. 

“Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” 
(John 6:7)

One of his disciples, Andrew the brother of Simon Peter, said to him: 

“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?” 
(John 6:9)

Give it to Jesus! We are all the boy with barley loaves and two fish. We have information about the issues of the day that we are called to share. 

For example, this year's presidential election is a trial, and as the boy’s inventory fed the hungry people, our inventory is in hand for us to feed the nation. We are the grand jury. Money was not the solution when the boy offered what he had to feed the people, and the same is true today. In the last two weeks, the standard bearers for each major party raised record amounts of money. But remember a simple fact about elections: Money does not vote. People do!

Our call in today’s Scriptures is to take what we know and feed the people. Jesus sent the apostles into the crowd of 5,000+ to feed and take inventory. And, when people were fed the right food from the hand of Jesus, all were satisfied. When people saw the result, they said:

“This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.” 
(John 6:14) 

As it was with the crowds in Acts 2-3, and the Samaritan woman in John 4, when we disciples feed people as Jesus fed them, thousands will come. “The one who is to come into the world” is here. 

One final instruction after we feed the people and invite them to the polls: Vote your conscience, as our bishops have told us.

Deacon Timothy E. Tilghman is a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of Washington, currently assigned to St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church. He has two master’s degrees, one in public policy and the other in theology. He is the author of “Going to the Well to Build Community: A Pastor’s Guide to Evangelization.”