Weekly Meditations

There are few things more Christian than feeding people. However, the way we CHOOSE to feed people can speak more to our understanding of love than sharing our great-grandparents' special recipe. 

Matthew 14:13-21 is Matthew's take on the feeding of the five thousand, which is actually the tame version of this story. In it, Jesus and his disciples are met by a large crowd of people eager for an encore to the lessons he had shared earlier that day. 

Jesus spent the afternoon teaching them, but as it grew late, his disciples pointed out that if Jesus did not end things, his followers would go hungry. 

Food insecurity was a real issue in Jesus’ day, and Jesus’ disciples were not being alarmists by warning Jesus of this risk. The five thousand-plus people who had followed Jesus had placed a lot of faith in him by choosing to spend their time listening and learning from him when they could have been providing for themselves. 

Jesus did not let this faith go unanswered. When he shared five loaves of bread and one measly fish with a crowd of Five Thousand people, everyone ate their fill, and when Jesus' disciples gathered up what was left, they had enough leftover food to fill twelve baskets! Where did all that extra food come from?

Here's the thing: nowhere in this story is that explained. Other gospels allude to an answer. For instance, in  Luke 9:14, Jesus tells his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” making it sound like people may have brought food with them. And in John 6, Jesus challenges his disciples through the task of feeding so many people. Then, Jesus distributes the loaves and fish himself, making the feeding of five thousand look like divine intervention. 

Which is it? Does it matter? Rarely have I read a commentary on this passage that doesn't attempt to offer up some explanation for how Jesus performed this miracle. In many ways, Jesus feeding five thousand people is like a magic trick, surprising and unexpected, but not quite so far beyond reasonable understanding that we don't suspect a rabbit in his hat. 

Matthew doesn't provide any explanation for the miracle; it just happens, and the author lets us sit with that. What led those people to follow Jesus in the first place? What allowed the disciples to take up a small portion of food and go into a crowd of people in an attempt to feed everyone?

Why were all these people willing to do something others would consider ill-advised or impossible? 

Faith. Faith is not an answer to life's problems, but it does give us choices of how we will live with problems. Those choices say a lot about us.

The five thousand-plus followers of Jesus had enough faith in him to place their well-being in his hands. Jesus’ disciples also trusted him, which gave them faith in their own ability to feed five thousand people with the food they had. That faith was rewarded all around, but there would have been no miracle if no one had faith.

When we look at the war, political violence, inequality, and injustice of America today, I imagine there is a doubting voice in all of our heads that tells us we can never fix these problems. For instance, when I think of this coming winter and all the people in our community who are unhoused, the daunting task of providing for everyone also feels impossible, but should that doubt keep us from trying to address the needs of others? Should we give up the hope of working something out in the process? Or even some outside force intervening on our behalf? 

In Matthew 13, Jesus said that faith the size of a mustard seed can grow into the greatest of shrubs. Are we a people who would allow doubt to keep us from even trying to grow good works in the world?

Matthew is not providing answers because for this author, the miracle is not the act, but the choice everyone made to participate in it. Their faith is the miracle.

Rev. Devon Thomas