Readings (Year A):
Isaiah 55:1–3
Psalm 145:8-9, 15–16, 17–18
Romans 8:35, 37–39
Matthew 14:13–21
Reflection: Share the food of Jesus
In this Sunday’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, we hear the story of the loaves and fishes, in which Jesus transforms five loaves of bread and two fish into enough food to feed more than 5,000 people—and still have an abundance left over.
We know this story has special importance because it is one of the few that is told in each of the four gospels. In Matthew’s version, Jesus has just heard about the execution of John the Baptist and gone off by himself, which is something he seems to do often—throughout the gospels—for contemplation and prayer.
This time, however, his attempt at having a spiritual retreat is foiled by his many followers. Somehow, they figure out where Jesus is going and, by the time his boat approaches the shore, they are already there waiting for him. Rather than be annoyed with all these people, however, Matthew tells us that Jesus “has pity on them and cures their sick.”
It’s interesting how this part of the story is told differently in each of the gospels. Like Matthew, Luke says that Jesus cured the sick but adds that Jesus taught them things. The Gospel of Mark, which scholars tell us was written first and used as a foundation for both Matthew and Luke, specifies only that Jesus had pity on them and taught them many things. Mark doesn’t actually include the part about Jesus curing or healing people. Just that he taught them many things.
So, if Mark was the foundation for both Matthew and Luke, why do these two later gospels switch from Jesus teaching things, as Mark says, to healing or curing them? Perhaps it is because what Jesus taught the people is what healed them.
Further comparison of this story in the four gospels shows us that John skips the part about teaching and healing all together, going straight to the part about the loaves and fishes. This is where Jesus takes a small amount of food, blesses it, and gives it to the disciples who distribute it to the large crowd. Somehow, they not only have enough to feed all the people, but they have much more than they actually need.
Hearing this, I can’t help but be reminded of the story in which Jesus meets the woman at the well, and tells her that he has life-giving water which will permanently quench her thirst. In the story of the loaves and fishes, Jesus seems to be communicating the same thing: I have something that is life-giving and it is all that you are going to need.
The fact that John only includes this part of the story—without mentioning that Jesus taught the people or cured them—clearly demonstrates how the evangelists took different approaches to communicating what it was like to be in the presence of Jesus. In this case, the authors of Matthew, Mark, and Luke each talk about teaching or healing, yet John feels that an abundance of food is enough to get the point across:
Jesus had something that could utterly transform people’s lives. What did he have?
When I contemplate the meaning of all the gospel stories it seems that Jesus had deep wisdom about the connection and inherent dignity we all share as God’s creatures. This life-giving wisdom, once shared and understood, has the power to heal. One thing that all four of the gospels share in telling the story of the loaves and fishes is the way that—after taking, blessing, or giving thanks for the food—Jesus gave it to his disciples. It was the disciples who then dispersed the food to the multitudes.
Now, two thousand years later, we are the disciples tasked with sharing the food—or water, or teachings—of Jesus.
I wonder sometimes how we are doing with that assignment. Are we—through our churches, ministries, and liturgies—sharing what Jesus gave us in a way that is abundantly life-giving for others? Do our words and actions bring people closer to an awareness of their inherent dignity? Or do we teach them—with or without words—to believe they are somehow unworthy, and separate from God?
If our practices serve more to fortify our own sense of security than to heal the multitudes, we may want to spend more time in quiet conversation with God, as Jesus was fond of doing—if he could only find a chance.
