The feeding of the great crowd, the feast of loaves and fishes, may be one of the most familiar Bible stories in the Gospels. This event, this impossible feast, was so striking and so influential to the early church that it appears six times across the four Gospels, six accounts of a single miracle. Rather than healings and exorcisms that affected individuals and their communities, this miracle is accomplished before the eyes of thousands and thousands of people, a proliferation of witnesses to what is possible when Jesus is near. The details are slightly different depending on who tells the story, but the key points are in agreement. A great many people have followed Jesus to a place set apart, someone has brought a small amount of provisions, and of this small offering an abundance is shared, such that all are fed and there are still leftovers to send home with them. None are turned away, and none are left empty. There are echoes in this story of the miracles of the prophets, and the last supper, and the experience of Holy Eucharist. There is a challenge to our world’s view of supply and demand, and a miraculous image of radical hospitality. And at the heart of this massive miracle is a moment of decision, a need answered by a still small voice.
Jesus looks out onto a crowd of people who have been following him for miles, who have been listening to his strange stories and being healed by his gentle hands. He sees a big family, hungry for guidance and healing and a chance to share a meal together. He sees his people and feels their needs, and looks to his friends to help him fill them. The question that rises in Jesus, the instinct brought forth by a special attunement to the will of God, is simple. How can we keep this community together? They are hungry and will soon scatter- how do we meet their needs, both for physical and spiritual sustenance? Jesus asks Philip what he thinks they should do, and Philip is overwhelmed. “Six months wages wouldn’t be enough to feed all these people Jesus! What are you thinking?” Andrew tells Jesus that someone in the crowd packed a lunch, but it couldn’t possibly be enough to meet everyone’s needs. We can imagine Jesus might have smirked, watching his friends throw up their hands in frustration, still seeing the world as one of scarcity. Jesus, of course, knows better. Jesus knows that if God made creation out of chaos, God can make a feast out of a child’s sack lunch. Blessedly, the child understood this holy possibility.
Andrew says to Jesus “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.” That doesn’t sound like much, even to Andrew. “What are they among so many people?” But, unlike Philip, who sees only a hungry crowd and an empty purse, Andrew sees potential. Andrew sees what there is to give, even if he recognizes that it probably isn’t enough. Jesus does not assuage their doubts, or scold them for not understanding, or let them in on what is about to happen. Jesus asks his friends to help him, to go out and tell all five thousand people to sit down and get comfortable in the soft grass. Jesus takes up a picnic basket, packed to feed one young man with a big appetite, and shows us what happens when we give of what we have. Jesus and his followers took the gifts they already had, and filled the needs of five thousand people. This was a miracle, but it did not come from nothing. There is a boy here with five barley loaves and two fishes. There is someone here with a gift, and he is willing to share. That was all it took. No sleight of hand, no impossible proportions. It took someone who was willing to share what they had, and the grace of God to fill all who received it.
When we look at ourselves with eyes trained to see scarcity, to look for what is missing and what is wrong and what is not enough, we, like Philip, can miss the potential gifts that God has given us. When we see ourselves in a vacuum, with God’s abiding grace out in the world, something other than ourselves, when we compare ourselves and our communities to the images in our minds and on our screens we, like Andrew, can miss how quickly our gifts can be fruitful and fill us and those around us. It’s not until we center ourselves in the abundance of Jesus, not until we ask for God’s light to shine on what our eyes struggle to see, that we can begin to see the ways we might fill up the hearts and lives of others. Every single one of us has been given gifts from God, talents and skills and ways that we can be present to God’s beloved children. When we look inward on ourselves, these may seem small, or simple. They may come so naturally to us that we can’t even recognize that they could be a gift to someone else. We can’t walk on water after all. Most of us can’t fix someone’s problems with a touch of our hand, or perform miracles of abundance on demand. But God’s abundance is a miracle of its own. God’s abundance can lead us to generosity. Generosity is what led a child to offer up his loaves and fishes to Jesus, who then took and blessed and broke and multiplied them. That generosity took a moment and became a meal, an opportunity for community and connection to continue while basic needs were met. What are the loaves and fishes in our lives, in our selves? What have we kept close, provisions we deem too small for God to work wonders with? We all, as children created in the image of God, have something in us that God’s world needs more of. We as a community, as a parish, as a pair of congregations working in partnership, have gifts and strengths, God’s Grace overflowing in our lives, that could feed the hungry world if we step forward and offer them up to be blessed by Jesus. We have hearts to love and hands to reach out and stories to share and ears to listen. We have wisdom and resources, talents and skills that we can share with our brothers and sisters. What might God do with us, if we offer ourselves up? How might God bless and break and share us, our gifts and talents, our loaves and fishes, with the world? The world is no less hungry now than it was the day Jesus blessed five loaves and two fishes. It is up to us to help feed it.
Mother A Writes 