The Eucharist makes us Catholic Christians, but we can only understand the Eucharist by thinking like Jews. We see this very clearly in today’s Gospel. 

The great insight of the Jews was that God loved them. This runs throughout the entire Old Testament. At the very beginning they understood that creation was not an accident or a cruel joke as most ancient peoples believed but the act of an all loving and all-powerful deity. The first humans did not find themselves in a wasteland but rather in Paradise, a place of perfection. They saw as well the meaning of Sin. God forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for then they would die. They are in paradise, what would they know of evil? The sin of Adam and Eve, as ours, is to think we at we can do better than God. Our creation would be better than his. They ate and died.  

We in Brooklyn Heights are experts in nonverbal communication. Living here requires communicating with dogs and babies. After 5 years on Sidney place, I am proud to say that I have mastered puppy and infant and progressing nicely with dog and toddler. It is amazing how effectively both groups can express basic instincts most particularly hunger without saying a word. A dog will look at you with the saddest eyes and an infant after a few warning signs will start crying. As we emerge from Covid we have seen that many people have discovered that they are hungry but are not certain for what and don’t have the language to express it. Luckily, St John wishes to teach us this language.

The section from Mark’s Gospel last week brought us up to the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. This week we continue this story, but we switch to St. John’s gospel. St. Mark is the shortest gospel and in order to have readings until the end of the year we need to supplement them with St. John for this month. This is the easiest place to do this. The multiplication of the loaves and the fish is the one miracle which can be found in all 4 gospels. That itself is very important. None of the gospel writers could conceive of the church without the Eucharist. We need to ask ourselves this month: can we? 

Many of us hear the scriptures only at Mass and thus in relatively short sections. The Sunday gospel readings are designed to be heard over a 3-year cycle it is often difficult to see how one weeks reading relates to the former or next passage or indeed the entire Gospel. This is particularly true with Mark, and we will need to locate where today’s reading falls in his gospel to see how to bring it to life in today’s world. 

Last week Jesus sent his disciples on mission. Most of us would have found his timing inauspicious. For several chapters that we read for several weeks Jesus moved from one triumph to another. He cured the sick, cast out demons even raised the dead. He seemed unstoppable but then he went home to Nazareth, and he could do almost nothing. He was rejected by his own people. It was then that he sent out his followers. We will see today that he calls them apostles, Greek for one who is sent. They performed many miracles and preached the good news of repentance and forgiveness. They too seemed unstoppable. 

 Today Jesus stops them. He greets them on their return but before we look at that should remember that the lectionary, the book of the scriptures which we use in church, skips over the story of the death of John the Baptist.