Fr. Joe mentioned that the feeding of the 5000 directly precedes the gospel reading for the Feast of Corpus Christi that we celebrated last weekend. Do you believe in that miracle?
Your questions reminds me of a man who once said to me he was no longer a Christian because if Jesus could produce food for hungry people and only did it once or twice, he did not want anything to do with him. He felt Jesus should have done it many times and left the recipe for his followers. But I suspect that focusing on the physical miracle is like reading the story of Jonah and debating and researching whether a man can live in the belly of a whale for three days or not…it misses the deeper truth that the story is trying to impart.
We can imagine the scene: a blistering hot afternoon in a far off deserted and dusty plain. Jesus has just finished preaching about the dream he has for our world; about a kingdom where no one is in need, where everyone’s hunger is met, a joyful time when God’s goodness will reign, when there is no hostility, no war, a kingdom of compassion, sharing and deep communion with God and with each other. A time and place where love is the law of the land.
Minutes after he finishes, the disciples, say to Jesus, “We have to send these people away so they can find some food for themselves before nightfall or we are going to have a hungry mob on our hands.” The disciples immediately snap back into survival mode, concentrating on what they lack; panicking over a need they do not have the resources to meet. They prescribe having the people “go and buy” what they need from some outside resource before its too late.
Jesus redirects the attention of the disciples to what they DO have. He tells them they should feed the people. But they are locked into the magnitude of the need before them and the scarcity of resources. They say “But we have nothing here - nothing but 5 loaves and 2 fish…”
Theologian John Shea says that it is at THIS point that Jesus has brought about a “crucial shift” in their thinking. They have moved from the preoccupation with lack to the awareness of assets. They are no longer looking outside themselves for an answer. They have turned their gaze within. "Going and buying may work in the physical world, but what works in the spiritual world is standing still and becoming aware. Knowing what we HAVE is the first step of spiritual transformation.”
So, a possible spin on this miracle is that just maybe Jesus knew that these people were not so dim as to hike out to a deserted place for most of the day in the scorching heat without some provisions. Maybe when Jesus gave thanks and shared so generously the little he had, he inspired everyone there to slowly begin to dig into their pockets and purses to share the food they were hiding and saving for the long walk home. Maybe he managed to shift the focus of over 5000 people from seeing what they have as too little and hoarding it - to seeing it as a gift, becoming grateful and giving it away as a gift to the people around them, who in turn give it away to others.
No one 'takes and holds"; everyone 'receives and gives.' and all went home that night with a full belly. The people that day didn’t just hear the good news, but they participated in an amazing experience of divine abundance, an experience that was completely satisfying because it was a taste of the kingdom, a glimpse of the potential of people, of the collective fulfillment for which we were designed. And really, even today, what could be a greater miracle than that?
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