When I took a religion class in college, the professor indicated that the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand was that all of the people shared their lunch with each other. I don’t believe that to be the heart of the story. This story for today, about the five loaves and two fish, is not told merely once, not twice, not three times, but four times in its variations. It is the only gospel miracle which is told in its fullness in all four gospels.
Why is this story told over and over again? It’s because this story captures a particular truth—an essential truth about the disciples and Jesus and the essential truth about God. So however one interprets the feeding of the five thousand—the heart of the story is this: Jesus is saying that God is concerned with individuals as whole persons in this world.
Jesus and his several followers had been off in a quiet place praying. And they leave this quiet place to go up to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. On the way, Jesus stops to preach to a crowd gathered on their way to Jerusalem as well. And we can almost hear people in that crowd asking themselves and each other, “who is this Jesus? Where does he come from? What is he trying to do”?
In our time, we know that Jesus came, as scripture says, in the fullness of time—he came as a person, born of human parents and subject to human disciplines, human authorities of the secular world. And this incarnation—this coming of Jesus—made clear God’s continuing concern for the each and every person. “The Word became flesh”—and the word made flesh was touched with all of our human infirmities.
Christianity, as Archbishop William Temple was fond of saying, is far-and-away the most materialistic of all the world’s religions. It does not treat human beings as just “spiritual beings”. Jesus talked five times more often about our attitudes toward earthly goods and personal possessions than he did about prayer. The cup of cold water in his name was, he said, an act of stewardship. The Good Samaritan was, he said, the only real steward on the Jericho road that day.
Jesus was earthy; he was not a monastic. Except for a year or so in public ministry, he worked at a trade to support himself and his mother and brothers. His appreciation of good food and wine prompted his enemies to call him “a wine-bibber and gluttonous man”. He was not an ascetic. Jesus urged his followers to seek first the Kingdom of Heaven—he did not call them to poverty or celibacy or fasting as ends in themselves. Some of his followers would be poor and others unmarried and some would fast as a matter of choice, but Jesus set down none of these as universal requirements to follow him. His concern for diseased and broken bodies, for tired and hungry bodies, matched his concern for disturbed minds and wayward wills and shattered spirits. He proclaimed the good news as ministering to the whole person. And essentially that is the truth revealed in the story of the feeding of the five thousand.
From the very beginning, this particular miracle story, like the parables, has been interpreted in various ways. For Matthew, it was one of Jesus’ might works—the people were hungry and Jesus saw to it that they were fed. On one side of this miracle is the concept that the God cares for every individual person. And on the other side is the fact that the disciples obeyed Jesus’ directive—they did what was asked of them.
Let’s take these two sides and look at them. When the disciples, who were proud of themselves, returned eagerly to tell Jesus about all of the activities that they had done in many places, Jesus brought them back to earth with a practical suggestion—“Come with me,” he said “to an uninhabited place where we can be quiet—you need a rest.” This is an injunction for us. We are not supermen or superwomen. We are mortal, finite, self-willed individuals. It may be true that some people—a very few people—can function creatively in spite of faltering bodies. But the hard reality is that we are mortals. And God knows that human beings need physical rest and renewal. We know that Jesus lived in a human body and needed rest. He often was weary. He thirsted. He got tired.
There is a steady call on us as Christians to strain every nerve. But we don’t always succeed. And Jesus’ counsel is needed: “Come with me to a quiet place….”
Nonetheless, there are times when Jesus couldn’t get away from the tasks of his ministry. The crowds in our miracle story were waiting for Jesus and his disciples. So, Jesus taught them. And as the day wore on, he showed concern for the people’s need for food.
“How many loaves have you? Go and see.” And the disciples at their wits end, snap back at Jesus—“What do you want us to do—go out and spend two hundred denarii for bread?” “You know we don’t have that kind of money. Send these people back to their homes for their own sake and for ours.”
We know that we, too, can get peeved with God when life seems to get out of hand, when situations overwhelm us, when pressing demands over-tax our resources. Our defenses go up, our self-pity surfaces and our excuses pour out. And we have it out with God.
But God, who never gives up on us, declines to coddle us. God loves us wherever we are and in whatever condition we are. We are lovedin spite of ourselves, we are loved just as we are and also for what we can become.
“How much food is on hand? Go and see.” Investigate—don’t theorize. Do something now! Act!
There may even be a directive here for us? Do we engage in too much analysis and too little bold action? We have a tendency to talk things to death.
You know the rest of the story. There was more than enough food for the thousands of people and what was left over filled twelve baskets.
The gift that was given from God turned out to be more than enough for everyone. And the miracle is always two-fold: like the disciples we are called to be motivated to go beyond our expectations and God matches that expectation every single time.
Now—a word regarding the contemporary application of this miracle story.
Experts tell us that 40% of the citizens in our own country are ill-fed, poorly housed and inadequately clothed. We’re told that our country, having 6 % of the world’s population, consumes 40% of the world’s natural resources. Scientists tell us that ten thousand people die daily by starvation on this planet which has been amply stocked by the creative power of God.
There are some who tell us that these conditions can’t be altered—that the poor will be with us always, that there is an emerging Fourth World so poor and so over-populated that people in it must be left to die while the rest of the world saves itself.
So the contemporary truth is that the real miracle in our time, if it comes, will not just be the feeding of the hungry, but our commitment as Christians to work to change these problems in our world.
Jesus’ word to his disciples is also a clear word to you and me. Don’t lose yourselves in the complexities of hunger and all of the other global issues that surround us. Go and do what you can; what comes of it lies with God. One fire lights another. And then a double miracle occurs when we as Christians decide to do what God asks of us so that we may channel God’s resources to be matched with human needs.
Amen
