Dear Folks,

Our Gospel today is the multiplication of the loaves and fish, the feeding of five thousand with five loaves and two fish. This story is familiar. After all, it is the only miracle mentioned in all four Gospels (Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6:35-44; Luke 9:10-17 and John 6), and Matthew and Mark also have the feeding of he four thousand with seven loaves and a few fish (Matthew 15-32-39 and Mark 8:1-10). If you only listen the Sunday readings, you would never know that. This year we get Matthew’s account. Next year, we will interrupt Mark to do the feeding and the bread of life discourse from the Gospel of John (July 25^th to August 6^th). If you read through the Gospels (which I highly recommend) we Clearly, this story is important to the early Church.

Consider the poor disciples. They watched Jesus propose that they feed all those families. They would have known the Hebrew scriptures and the story of Elijah feeding 100 men with twenty barley loaves and having some left over (2 Kings 4:2-44). This is much bigger.  I could imagine them saying, “No, boss, no! Look at this crowd. If we promise them food and don’t give them food they will tear us apart!”  All the tellings of the stories involve starting with what He is given. Surely it would be in His power to go Poof! Everyone has bread and fish. It would be in His power to go Poof! Everyone has filet mignon. However, He calls them to give what they have, even though it is horribly, laughably inadequate. Then he feeds everyone, and there is not just some left over.  The feeding of the five thousand families had twelve baskets left over, symbolizing the twelve tribes of Israel. The feeding of the four thousand took place in Gentile territory, and has seven baskets left over, symbolizing the seven tribes of Gentiles (see Joshua 3:10).

There is an echo of this in John 21, when Jesus tells the disciples to cast out their nets and they bring in a huge number of fish (which echoes Luke 5:3-7)   Jesus says to bring some of the fish they caught, while He already had some bread and fish being cooked for breakfast. More astute students of the Bible would be asking why He wanted them to bring some fish when He already was cooking the bread and fish for breakfast. I would suggest that He always asks us to bring what we have, while it is He who feeds. 

When we come to worship God, our worship is imperfect, so much short of what God deserves. We bring what we have, and Jesus works though us in the liturgy, and wonderful things happen. When we serve God in the world, our ability is horribly inadequate for the mess the world is in. We bring what we have, and it is Jesus who makes wonderful things happen. Sometimes (as in usually) it takes longer than we think it should. However, much patience I think I have learned, God seems to think I need to learn more. God is at work and doing things we do not yet understand. He calls us to participate. How will we respond?

Blessings,

Fr. Jim