That stories of Jesus multiplying loaves and fishes got into all four gospels speaks powerfully. We have Matthew's version this Sunday. Whether they were variations of the same incident or not is a subject scripture scholars still debate. This kind of miracle caught the imagination of early Christianity. Many of Jesus' words and deeds are recorded only in one or two of the Gospels, but this one appears not only in Matthew but in Mark, Luke and John as well. The miracle story bears careful reading and, for the benefit of those with some acquaintance with the bible, is laden down with all kinds of overtones.
Matthew begins the story on a somber note. His colleague and kinsman, John the Baptist, had been murdered on Herod's orders. The Tetrarch saw people like John and Jesus as potential troublemakers, attracting large numbers of followers. Herod didn't want anybody stirring up the masses. John was dead and buried before Jesus heard about what happened to him. Frightened or otherwise, Jesus thought it best to get away somewhere safe to pray, and rethink the mission in which he and John had been engaged. Jesus knew his bible and all its stories about bad things happening to good people - like Elijah and Jeremiah, victims of the sinful world of their time.
Thousands followed him to this 'deserted place,' and he spent the day teaching and healing. The disciples wanted to disperse the crowds and send all the people away to nearby villages where they would find food and go home. Jesus wanted to hold them all together, in communion.
'There's no need for them to go,' he insisted, no need to break up the group. Here's one of the story's subtle overtones: dispersion, division, separation is, in the bible, the work of the devil. 'Scattering' belongs to the language of sin. Unity belongs to the language of God's kingdom. The Spirit unites, the devil (diabolus) divides. I have witnessed too often the demon of division raise its ugly head in what were once peaceful communities.
'All we have is five loaves and two fish,' complain the doubting disciples, but Jesus persuades them to hang with him and keep the crowd together. Chapter six of John's Gospel showcases the doubting disciples. Jesus confronts their skepticism with a challenge: 'Give them something to eat yourselves.' Paul frequently reminds us that the power of God is often manifest in human frailty. People who were addicted to alcohol, drugs, porn or sex, tell mind-blowing stories of how the power of God raised them up from the gutter. These are real-life miracles.
Back in the sixties and seventies, the multiplication of loaves and fishes was seen as a sociological miracle; the people opened their bags and shared with each other what they already had. C.S. Lewis wrote a little book about this incident in which he proposed that Jesus performed a true miracle. A farmer casts a few seeds and the next season you get a field of wheat. We've learned to take for granted what nature does. A man and a woman make love and a zygote suddenly blossoms....a child, eyes and ears and brain. Why couldn't Jesus, with a couple of fish and a few loaves, work with great power a miracle similar to what nature does all the time and we take for granted? Lewis' book is solid intellectual scholarship and was written to debunk intellectual skeptics.
Unity and community won out over dispersion and division that evening in the wilderness. 'Bear each others burdens' is the hallmark of Jesus' message. The crowds were hungry and Jesus was not about to tell them, 'It's not my problem; have somebody else deal with it.' His attitude was, 'We're in this together; let's help each other out.' There wasn't much food for Jesus to work with but he asked that the tiny amount they had be brought to him. They gave it all and he increased it to the point of satisfying everybody, and then some.
The spiritual message here is that if we give what we have to Christ, however small, he will increase and multiply it for his purposes. The worst thing we can do as Christians is to grasp and hang on to what we have and keep it for ourselves. To give it to God is to let go our fears and trust that God will bless our gift. Thomas Aquinas said that God delights in dispensing his providence through secondary causes, ordinary people with a modicum of faith and trust in their hearts.
Many big movements in the church began small and grew into something phenomenally large and powerful, beginning with Jesus himself and his handful of doubting followers. Last time I checked, there were more than two billion Christians worldwide with an annual growth rate of 1.36%. Look at Francis of Assisi to whom Christ spoke, telling him to 'rebuild my church,' and Francis going with a few locals to repair the parish church. Even the mighty Jesuits began small when Ignatius gathered around him a few friends in Paris for some prayer and sharing. The kingdom of God, Jesus reminded us recently, is like a mustard seed that grows and grows and grows. If we provide the tiny seed, God will give the increase.
PASTOR EMERITUS
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