This coming Sunday is the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time. As ever Pheme Perkins [601-2] offers food for thought.

This passage begins with Jesus expressing compassion for the crowd. Teaching and feeding show that Jesus is the shepherd. The combination represents a variant of the teaching and healing that have been characteristic of all of Jesus’ ministry. People today find it difficult to balance those two aspects of Christian responsibility. Some think that the social ministries of the church are all that is necessary to make Christ present in the world. Others think that the church should have nothing to do with feeding and healing except when it is necessary to help someone in the local community. The church’s ministry, so the argument goes, is to preach the gospel and provide for public worship.

Both sides are wrong. There is no Christianity without proclaiming the gospel. Teaching and learning the Word of God are as essential to faith as are prayer and belonging to a Christian community. A community that has the same compassion for the suffering that Jesus exhibited cannot be content with only preaching the gospel to the already converted. Christians must also attempt to meet the pressing social and material needs of others, even if few of those who receive such services ever become members of the church.

Christ preaching to the Apostles, Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1381| Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena | Public Domain US