Did you happen to notice the vast difference between the two leaders in the readings for mass today? We read about Jeroboam in the first reading for mass, who charged off and did whatever he felt like doing after God had given him the kingdom. Jeroboam was just a servant, whom God elevated to a position of authority over His kingdom. He should have been grateful to God for making him a king, but instead he felt like that gave him the right to do whatever he wanted to.
The first thing he did was to ask for other people’s advise, instead of God on how to proceed in his new position as ruler over Israel. His advisers told him to have two golden calves made for the people to worship instead of God. Does this sound familiar? Some things never change. The Israelite people made a gold calf to worship too, when their God fearing leader, Moses, left them alone while he went up the mountain to pray.
Jeroboam just couldn’t have turned out to be a worse leader for God’s people. He lead an entire kingdom to abandon God and worship man made figures of gold instead. He even lied to the people about it, saying, “Here is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Who on earth would have the audacity to do this, after God made them a king? He even established a feast day to compete with the pilgrimage feast of Judah, and built temples in Bethel and Dan, in order to distract the people from going on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
The last part of the first reading for mass today tells us that Jeroboam allowed anyone that wanted to be a priest, to be consecrated from among the common people. Many new denominations of Christianity in modern times, also allows anyone that wants to become a minister to do so, solely through correspondence courses or online classes, without any hands on formation or a personal character screening process. It’s actually pretty easy for even criminals to become protestant ministers. We need to be careful who we listen to and take what they say with a grain of salt.
Jesus on the other hand was not just the son of God, but an awesome leader. Besides his divinity, Christ was also just a decent human being. He always thought of other people instead of himself. The gospel today said that the miracle Jesus performed in feeding four thousand people was simply because he knew the people were hungry.
Theologians and biblical scholars often refer to this miracle as a precursor to the Eucharist though. It does resemble the way that our masses are conducted in modern times. Jesus had the crowds sit down first, then he took the bread in his hands, gave thanks to God, broke it and then gave it to his disciples to distribute to the crowd.
However, the scriptures today do not mention Jesus teaching his disciples anything. It does say that Jesus summoned the disciples and told them, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance.” During Christ’s life he fed the hungry and commanded us to feed them as well. In fact, Jesus felt so strongly about satisfying hunger, that he said this will be one of the things we will be judged by at the end of time.
Christ’s compassion, love and concern for the people is the beautiful thing about this reading though. He loved them all, but he fed each one individually. What a gift they each received. They literally held a miracle in their hands. And we still do today, when we receive the Lord Jesus in our own hands during communion at mass. Jesus provided a way to feed his people long after his death, through the hands of his modern day disciples. He is still here with us. He never really left. Jesus is our bread from heaven. He has never quit loving us, or caring for us and he never will. Christ’s love for us is the same, yesterday, today and forever. It is the one thing we can depend on for the rest of our lives, that Jesus loves us.
