“TRINITY SEVEN”
Saint Mark 8: 1-9
7th Sunday after Trinity: 23 July Anno Domini 2023
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
In those days, and in these days, the multitude is very great. In all the days the multitude is all men—who are lost in darkness and death, or, who have gone astray. There is no one that “doeth good, no, not one.” And that is why everyone, that is why you are constantly hungry. You are hungry every day and then, turn food (and cooking) into a fetish. None of us could go a week with the Saints of the past—we would faint like little girls from hunger. But there is no lasting food in this world. And when you have it—you eat it, and it runs. The same with water. The Canaanite woman at the well was made recipient of this truth. Only The Christ gives eternal water. He gave it to you first at the Holy + Font. Also, be on guard, the world’s food, much of it, is poison—both the actual foodstuffs, and the other things we rely on for our daily “sustenance.” Who is our Daily Bread as we pray in the “Our Father?” Well, you know the answer because you have been taught that the reason the Lord’s Prayer is prayed in close conjunction with the Words of Institution, is that Christ in His Sacrament is the only bread that saves, strengthens, and preserves unto life everlasting. In fact, the Reformer was willing to go so far as to say the Sacramental Union may very well be present during The “Our Father” and not just at some particular point in Christ’s Verba.
To be clear—you being a sinner is the reason you are hungry. To be clear—you daily sins are the reason you are hungry. And your hunger is not just physical but it is spiritual as well. Well spoke the blessed Saint Augustine that “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.” So too our spiritual stomachs—our inner reins. “O taste and see that The Lord is good” wrote the Psalmist. Sure, tasting and receiving The Lord, forensically, through the ears wherein His grace is showered upon you and captured by the faith He bestows upon you. Sure. But the “eating” motif, actual eating gets mentioned a whole lot in Holy Scripture. You are told you will feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…not that you will only be in a class-room with them receiving a Scriptural lesson. Not only does Esaias say: “and in this mountain shall The Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined” [Is. 25.6], but St. John The Divine writes in the Apocalypse: “…to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of Life” [Rev. 2.7] There is so much more in Revelation, and in Exodus—The Manna! Be Lutheran Catholics of the Western Church in your eating and drinking—and the gratefulness expressed therein—not Calvinists and rationalists.
So now, the feeding of the 4,000.
You may be tired of this story because it, along with the feeding of the 5,000, occurs twice a year, every year, in our lectionary. And because you are sinner not truly appreciating Christ The Word made Flesh in the Flesh of His Sacramental Body and Blood.
Yes, I know—this mountain top miracle of Christ is NOT The Sacrament of The Altar; nor is Jesus’ great “Bread of Life” discourse in John 6, the exact Holy Communion. But any Christian that fails to see The Holy Mass pre-figured in this feeding, This Sign of HOW Salvation comes, is, well, sub-Christian.
So, this morning we will forego the usual teaching on the numbers in this event, and the necessary intermediary “means” of the Disciples doing the distribution. Even the number of loaves before and after their common meal; their “communion” need not be stressed. It happened. It was real. It was totally unprecedented at that scale in the history of the world. Though, to be sure, both Sts. Elias and Elisha had similar “multiplication” miracles in order to “feed” needy widow women and their families. And the power of Christ in this supernatural, or rather supra-natural wonder shows Him to be God and to be Good: “I have compassion on the multitude.” It is His love and mercy, His desire to forgive you both soul and body; to feed both your ears and your mouths that your Spirits would feast on Him in the way He desires to be received.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; Thou preparest a table before me” [Ps. 23]
“He commanded the people to sit down on the ground.”
“He gave thanks and brake…so they did eat, and were filled.”
“And He took bread, and gave thanks, and break it, and gave unto them saying, ‘This IS My Body which is given for you; this do in remembrance of Me. Likewise also the cup… ‘this cup is the New Testament in My Blood, which is shed for you’” [Lk. 22. 19-20].
It is Jesus. It is always and only Jesus—your Savior; your Lord and your God. He longs for you to listen to Him and to HEAR Him. He wants your hunger sated and your thirst slaked. You do eat and you are filled. But He never, ever sends you away.
The fruit of the tree—That is Christ Crucified for you sins, and risen again as the New Wheat—white like the Easter Lilly. You are no longer barred from the tree of life as was Adam, the banquet is ready!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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