So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had
given thanks, He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that
were set down.
Today is designated as Mothering
Sunday, the day when we honour in church all our mothers. We may remember those things they did for us
when we were young, like sending us to school when we did not want to go. It may have seemed disagreeable at the time,
but it was for our benefit and not just to give Mum a few hours of peace and
quiet. We may remember the whacking she
gave us for stealing apples from the vicar’s orchard. In my case it was the local village copper
who caught me and he simply took me home where justice was meted out. Again it was for my benefit – I learned to
keep a watchful eye out for the village copper from that time on.
But one of the things most commonly
associated with mothers is food. They
always seem to have something good and tasty to put on the table at
mealtimes. They do it with love and all
too often without thanks. So today,
downstairs, there will be a suitable display of food in honour of our mothers,
a reminder that as they fulfilled their responsibilities to us, we now have
responsibilities to them.
How appropriate then, that the
Gospel reading today should so prominently feature feeding. In fact food and feeding are generally
prominent features of Holy Scripture.
The occasion of the Exodus, when
Moses led the Israelites out of
Yet, only three days later, in the
dry wilderness of Shur, the people God had saved were complaining about the
lack of water. God took the bitterness
out of the waters of Marah so that the people could drink. How solid was their faith in the power of
their God? Not very – they journeyed on
into the wilderness of Sin, arriving there on
the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the
Once again, the people griped and
complained to Moses and Aaron, this time about being hungry. Would
to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the
So God fed them, miraculously, with
bread and with quails. Throughout the
Old Testament we are left in no doubt about the providence of God. A hungry David is fed with the showbread,
1Sam.21:3; when Jezebel cut off the
prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty
in a cave, and fed them with bread and water, 1Kings, 18:4.
Sadly, through His prophets, God
often found it necessary to remind the people of His providence, as in Ezekiel
16:13, thou didst eat fine flour, and
honey, and oil.
God provides, not just from time to
time, but constantly. Everything comes
from God and he gives to His people abundantly, displaying always His almighty
power, His great Love, and His boundless compassion.
How can anyone imagine, then, that
Jesus would not feed the multitude in front of Him. The feast of the Passover is nigh,
He saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? Jesus knows
exactly what He is going to do, but, this
he said to prove him. There is a
sense of hopelessness in Philip’s response, Two hundred penny-worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every
one of them may take a little.
The five loaves and the two small
fishes are brought to our Lord’s attention by Andrew, who says, But what are they among so many? Again a lack of understanding and faith in
the power of Jesus. At His command, the
disciples sit the men down, probably arranging them in ranks so that it was
possible to walk among them.
Now the full glory of this miracle
begins to emerge. Jesus gives thanks to
God, from whom all things come, and breaking the bread He gives it to the
Apostles to distribute. Again and again
and again that bread and those two little fishes are broken, as Jesus sits
quietly watching – quietly but not idly.
For as the bread is broken, so it is multiplied, again and again and
again. More than five thousand people are
fed to the point of being unable to eat any more.
But wait! Man
shall not live by bread alone, Jesus tells the tempter, but by every word that proceedeth out of
the mouth of God. Mt.4:4. Here Jesus
quotes the words which God gave to Moses to remind the people that it was the
word of Almighty God which provided them with manna in the wilderness.
At the well of Jacob, Jesus tells
the Samaritan woman, whosoever shall
drink of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that
I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing into everlasting
life. John 4:14. The life giving
gift of the Holy Spirit, leading those who truly embrace it into everlasting
life. Later St. John gives us more words
of Jesus which confirm this gift, He
that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow
rivers of living water. (But this spake
He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive.) John
7:38-9. a well of water springing into everlasting life.
There are so many passages in
Scripture which speak of the refreshing streams of God’s Spirit. Is.35:6,7, for example, or 55:1, Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to
the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy
wine and milk without money and without price. Gifts which only God can give.
Back to today’s Gospel now. Remember that Jesus did not actually disperse
the broken bread and fish Himself, but gave it to His apostles to pass
out. They were His instruments in the
completion of the miracle. It goes much further than that, however. These were the men on whom was to be placed
the responsibility of growing the Church.
Picture that scene on the grassy hillside. Jesus breaks the bread and gives it to the
Apostles to give to the multitude.
Notice and rejoice that He does not, however, give them the job and then
abandon them. He blesses their efforts
by constantly multiplying the bread and the fish.
If the miraculous feeding is a
foreshadowing of the Christian Church, it is also a foreshadowing of the
responsibility of the members of the Church.
Out there millions of people walk in hunger. They have only the vaguest idea that it is
God who provides the food their bodies consume, because they are not fed with
the word of God, so they know nothing of His providence. Their souls wither in starvation and, in so
many places the Church is apparently failing to do anything about it, despite
the promise in Holy Scripture that we never do God’s work on our own, but hand
in hand with God Himself.
What are we so timid about?
We can feed the hungry by passing on
the Gospel. We can feed them by showing
Christian behaviour. And if these things
seem to be beyond us, we can get down on our knees and pray. In each of these things we can be sure that,
as
I mentioned the millions walking in
hunger. Many of them are in a far worse
condition – they are the walking dead.
The Gospel passage from
Since that time, billions of people
have been fed with the body and blood of Jesus Christ. This very day, across the world millions more
will be so fed. Yet countless millions
more will not be fed. We cannot enjoy
such a blessing and ignore those walking dead.
First they must be fed with the word
of God to bring them to Jesus. I am that bread of life: he that cometh to
me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. John
6:35.
Then they must be given life through
the Blessed Sacrament. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye
eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.
John 6:53. What a dreadfully barren
existence.
Jesus fed the five thousand out of
compassion for their needs. Today, our
living Lord looks upon those millions of walking hungry and the walking dead
with that same compassion. We, my
Christian brothers and sisters, have to accept that we are His instruments and
in whatever way we can, turn ourselves to the task He has given us secure in
the knowledge that in doing so we will be workers together with Him.
Peter Jardine+
Lent IV,