As on Monday, in our readings today, we once again encounter a member of the Sanhedrin: Gamaliel. Rather than hearing about him from our Gospel, as with Nicodemus on Monday, we hear the wise words of Gamaliel in our first reading, taken from Acts.
Like Peter and John in the previous chapter of Acts, the events we hear about today come after the apostles are arrested, put in jail, and drug before the Sanhedrin. Their crime was the same: proclaiming Jesus as Lord and Messiah and healing in his name. It was the intent of those who arrested and charged them to stamp out this dangerous heresy before its spread stirred up more trouble.
Gamaliel intervenes by pointing out what appear to be two recent instances of false messiahs, or at least charismatic leaders, that drew the council’s attention. He notes that these movements died on their own without any intervention by Jewish authorities. He opines that perhaps this will be the case with Jesus’s followers. It seems fair to point out that, maybe having witnessed their preaching and miraculous deeds, Gamaliel felt this group, not yet known as Christians, was perhaps different.
It was Gamaliel’s unspoken admiration for the apostles, their works and preaching, that caused him not only to urge caution by citing examples of similar movements that burned themselves out but his admission that by harshly punishing its leaders the Sanhedrin might well be “fighting against God.”1
Jesus Feeds the 5,000, by Jacopo Tintoretto, ca. 1579-1581
In our Gospel this morning, we hear John’s account of Jesus’s feeding of the 5,000. This is a text that has often been “de-mythologized.” What I mean by “de-mythologized,” is that some have argued that Jesus didn’t perform a miracle by making a lot of food out of a little food but that in convincing the boy to share his five barley loaves and 2 fishes, other members of the crowd shared their food as well. As a result, there was more than enough for everyone. Frankly, I don’t know which would be more of a miracle: Jesus inexplicably multiplying the little bit that was offered or everyone sharing what they had for the good of all.
What might be called "numerology" found in our Gospel reading is interesting: 5+2=7. Seven, of course, is the biblical number of perfection; twelve baskets leftover. Twelve is the number of the tribes of Israel. But rather than stretching for an esoteric exposition, I think a practical one is to be preferred.
In our first reading for last Sunday, also from Acts, we heard: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need.”2 As Pope Francis noted in his homily on Divine Mercy Sunday: “This is not some ideology: it is Christianity.” 3
No matter which explanation you accept for the miracle in today’s Gospel, you must always grasp that your participation in the Eucharist, in which you freely receive Jesus Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity, requires you to freely and mercifully give to others, especially those in need. Grasping this is crucial for understanding what Jesus’s rising from the dead means. In other words, the Resurrection is not a one-off fact that happened nearly two thousand years ago. The on-going nature of resurrected life is what makes it the opus Dei, the work of God.
1 Acts 5:39.↩
2 Acts 2:44-45.↩
3 Pope Francis homily for Divine Mercy Sunday, 2020.↩
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