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There must have been something important about this story of Jesus feeding the multitude, because it is repeated six times in the four gospels. I don’t think the point of it was to be a one-off, a one-time miracle that happened 2000 years ago never to be repeated again.  Nor do I think Jesus was out to prove that, as the Son of God, he and he alone had the power to pull this off. Like all miracles, it was meant to deepen our faith.  Jesus himself did not set out to be a hero unto himself but a channel of God’s presence, of God’s power, of God’s mercy.  Jesus took no credit for miracles, but always hoped that miracles would deepen our own relationship with the one he called “Abba.”  Let’s get into the story and see what faith response it might be calling us to, here and now. 

All six versions of this story begin with a huge, hungry crowd.  All six versions, including this one, begin with Jesus’ Apostles feeling overwhelmed, and concluding that such a large crowd could not possible be fed with such few resources–five loaves and two fish.  Their solution, which would have been my solution as well—send the crowd away to fend for themselves.  This is a practical solution, given the overwhelming circumstances, but it is not Jesus’ solution.  Jesus lives in the Kingdom of God (and so do we, since he already told us, “The Kingdom of God is within you”).  In the Kingdom of God, you look after people; you don’t send them down the road as somebody else’s problem, nor do you say, “Not in my backyard.” 

We are told they are in a deserted place.  Some translations of the Bible call it a “lonely place.”  I’ve never encountered a desperate person in a desert, but I regularly meet people in lonely places; they might as well be in the desert.  Wherever there is loneliness, there is suffering.  Of the hundreds of funerals, I have presided at, I can safely say the number one cause of death is cancer and a very close second is loneliness.  Loneliness is deadly, even though it will never show up on a death certificate.

Everyone here has experienced loneliness in one form or another.  In that moment, you feel overwhelmed because you feel so much weight on your shoulders.  It’s you alone.  In those moments, you are beyond asking, “Why has this happened to me?” to a more fundamental question, “When will someone appear and help me carry this burden?” 

The Apostles and the crowd were in a deserted place, a lonely, overwhelming place.  The Apostles solution is to send the crowd away, but Jesus will not allow them to do so. Loneliness will not be victorious, if Jesus has anything to do with it.  He tells them, “You give them something to eat.”  I notice this as a pattern in my own life.  When I feel overpowered by life circumstances, when I feel exhausted, when I feel someone needs to give me a break, it is always then that I hear the voice of Jesus saying, “Phil, go and do something for someone.”  When I am looking for a break, it is then that I need to give someone else a break.  Just when I feel I need more loaves and fish in my own life, it is then–in the Lord’s horrible sense of timing–that he appears with a request for me to share the little I have. 

Jesus took the loaves and fish, he looked to heaven, he blessed and broke them, and then he gave it to the people who said there wasn’t enough and told them to give it to the others.  All of this is Eucharistic language.  It’s what we do in Eucharist.  We take what we have, not what we would like to have.  We look to heaven and give thanks to God for it. We break it, and we share it.  In the breaking and in the sharing, it “miraculously” becomes more.  As long as the bread remains whole, and is not broken, we all remain in a lonely place.  Only once the bread is broken, can it make a difference. 

Jesus has already told us that if the grain of wheat is not willing to be broken and crushed, it will never be anything but a single grain. Unless the grapes are crushed, they never become wine. These are wonderful metaphors.  Only thing is, they were never meant to remain metaphors.  Jesus allows himself to be broken.  In breaking, he becomes more than just Jesus of Nazareth, the historical figure; he becomes food for the world for all time.  It’s interesting that the last line of today’s gospel does not say there were 12 baskets of leftovers.  It deliberately says, “twelve baskets of broken pieces.”  When we are willing to give, a strange thing happens—we are enriched and not impoverished.  The twelve baskets of broken pieces tell us that those who give—the 12 Apostles—will have life given back to them, 12 baskets full, one for each of the givers. 

Jesus is the broken one, then and now.  Remember, when the Risen Lord appeared to his disciples, he appeared as the broken one; he appeared with his wounds.  By doing so, he was telling us that he was food then and he is food now.  He was willing to be crushed then, and he is still willing to be crushed now.  All he asks of us is to eat.  When we eat, we will see that eating was in view of becoming food ourselves.  By giving our lives as food for others we, mysteriously, feel more full, more nourished ourselves. 

There is a parable that has been going around for so long, nobody can agree anymore about where it originated from.  It’s called the Parable of the Long Spoons.  It reminds me of the feeding of the multitude.  But, more than that, it reminds me of how we are called to become a Eucharistic people, eating the Body of Christ so as to become the Body of Christ. 

A man was once taken on a tour of hell and was surprised by what he saw: All hell’s inhabitants sat at long tables in a dining room, spoons in their hands, the best smelling and best-looking food to have ever graced a dining room filled the air with an exquisite aroma.

Unfortunately, everyone at the dining room table had spoons about 3 feet long and so were unable to bend the spoons to their mouths to feed themselves. Hell was filled with the hungry, tortured by the fact that they were so close to the most amazing food imaginable and yet could not eat it.

Then the man visited heaven and found the same scenario: long tables, 3-foot-long spoons, and hungry people unable to bend their spoons in the direction of their own mouths to eat. But there was a profound difference. The souls in heaven sat across from each other, not trying to feed themselves, but trying to feed the person sitting across from them.

You see, the difference between heaven and hell, it might be said, is that the inhabitants of hell are concerned only for themselves. Heaven, on the other hand, is populated with people who spend their time serving each other.  

We can likewise make our lives here on earth an extension of heaven or a reflection of hell. The difference between the two just may be our willingness to forget ourselves long enough to turn our attention outward to those whose stomachs, hearts or souls, hunger to be fed.

Fr. Phil Mulligan