From the Daily Lectionary in the Book of Common Prayer for Thursday in the third week of Lent:
Mark 6: 35-46
The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.’ But he answered them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said to him, ‘Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?’ And he said to them, ‘How many loaves have you? Go and see.’ When they had found out, they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’ Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.
This is of course a famous story told about Jesus… “the feeding of the five thousand.” It appears in all four Gospels. It also appears in a number of ancient manuscripts and codices discovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945, the so-called Gnostic Gospels, some of which were written very possibly before the four Gospels included in the bible. So this particular legend about Jesus was pervasive in the circles of the early church. Therefore it was a marker, a metaphor if you will, about what this early Jesus movement was all about. The tradition has referred to this story as a “miracle” story. But I want to say that there is nothing miraculous or magic about it. The story speaks of the mystery of who we are as people of faith in solidarity with each other.
Context is important here. in the world behind the text, Palestine is occupied by Rome, and history teaches that during the First Century C.E. that occupation was oppressive and abusive. Fear, suspicion, and anxiety were daily companions across the empire. In the text itself, the feeding event takes place just after the gruesome murder of John the Baptist at the hands of the Roman vassal, Herod Antipas. Jesus and his disciples would have been harried and exhausted. Mark, the writer, says that they were withdrawing to rest, but that the desperate crowds persisted in pressing upon them. And then the five thousand are fed in abundance, with food left over, as legend has it.
This is a story about solidarity, the communal expression of sacrifice, which again, is to say, loving one’s neighbor. In the midst of life’s travails, of suffering, and fear, and anxiety, and exhaustion; God gathers us together in solidarity for sacred nurture… This is not magic, this is the way the world God created is in truth; that we belong to each other; our lives are contingent to each other… but if miracle there be, it is this: God will always sustain us in abundance through sacrifice, persistence, and empathy.
We, brothers and sisters, are bread for the world, blessed. broken, and given for the world’s nurture. God made us for such a miracle, if miracle it be.
A Prayer for Evening (BCP p.134)
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen
