We
have two dogs at home, a big one and a little one. And Sadie, our little dog, has a game that she
likes to play with her food. And it
works like this. She comes around and
lets us know in her own way that she’s hungry –
she follows me to the garage as I pour some food into her dish, and then
she follows me back into the house, and there she lays down right next to her
bowl to protect her food. She’ll even
sometimes growl at Maddie, our big dog, to dare her to try to come over here
and eat my food. And, if we’re out of
the room and forget to put Sadie’s food up out of reach, Maddie will usually do
just that – she’ll walk right over and eat Sadie’s food. Now this game of Sadie’s, this guarding her
food and growling to keep Maddie away consumes most of Sadie’s waking
hours. She even seems to sleep with one
eye open so as to protect her food. She
doesn’t understand that out in the garage there this giant bag of dog food, and
I don’t think she appreciates that one of us goes out to fill her dish pretty
much whenever she asks.
Sadly, I see a lot of myself in both
dogs’ behavior, especially Sadie’s. I
jealously protect and guard what is mine, often forgetting, not appreciating,
that everything I have is a free gift from God.
And sometimes I find myself looking at what others have and wishing it
was mine, unsatisfied with what I’ve been given. For me, the temptation to guard what is mine
and growl at anyone who may want some of it is especially strong at times like
this, in an economy like we have today. I
sometimes let fear get the best of me, and I tend to forget, or if not forget
then not trust, that God is generous, that God provides, that
figuratively, God has a big bag out in the garage.
And that brings us to today’s
Gospel. For there is one way of looking
at Jesus’ miracle that we read about today, and perhaps you’ve heard this
before, that says that Jesus didn’t have to create loaves and fishes out
of thin air. Rather, so this theory
goes, there was something in what Our Blessed Lord said, or perhaps in the way
He looked right into the peoples’ hearts, that caused them that day to open up
their cloaks and bags and give freely of the loaves and fishes that they had
brought with them. Food that perhaps they
had been guarding, food that they had been protecting, grasping. Giving so freely that there were twelve
baskets left over. And I suppose if Our
Lord were able to change hearts that quickly and that profoundly, that would
qualify as a miracle, or so this line of thinking goes.
I actually like that way of looking
at this Gospel passage, but it leaves me sort of unsatisfied. I mean, Jesus wasn’t just some unusually
effective, or charismatic preacher. No, Jesus
was the Son of God, the very Word of God made flesh. The healer of lepers, who made the blind see
and the deaf hear. Who could change
water into wine and even raised folks from the dead. So I don’t doubt for a second that he had the
power to multiply five loaves and two fish and feed thousands.
I want to believe, I choose to believe,
that somehow He took these bread and fish, blessed them, broke them and shared
them with the multitude such that there was plenty for everyone and some left
over, and my 21st-century brain doesn’t need to know how He did
it.
For aren’t most of seven billion
people somehow fed every day from the goodness of the earth He created? And isn’t the earth God created capable of
feeding every one of us? If you stop to
think about it, isn’t that absolutely amazing?
And yet, we don’t know exactly how that happens. It comes to mind especially at times like
this when we read about drought facing much of our nation’s farmlands.
Further, don’t we believe that all
that is seen and unseen was created through Him? The moon and the sun and the stars?
And don’t we believe that for 2000
years, in the person of the Priest, Jesus has been taking, blessing, breaking
and sharing His very Body and Blood with His followers the world over? Nourishing us and feeding us to heal us and
unite us and send us forth to do His work?
So I believe that our God who created the universe could and did a
miracle, a wonder, a sign that day. One
that so impressed the people, so impressed his disciples, that this is the only
miracle that all four Gospel writers describe.
But for us here, for us now, if WE
want to be miracle workers, if we want to let Jesus work miracles through us, then
I sorta like the newfangled way of explaining today’s Gospel. If my own heart were to be so changed, so
transformed, if all of our hearts were to be so touched by Our Lord, such that each
of us would fully trust, that each of us would share freely from our abundance,
recognizing that everything we have is God’s gift, well it seems to me that all
the poor and hungry of the world would be fed.
The children of Africa and Haiti and other third-world places would have
plenty to eat and none would die today of starvation, or bad water, or rampant
disease. Instead of clutching and
grasping and protecting what God has given, if every person were to trust in
the goodness and providence of the Lord and share from our abundance, no one
would go without.
And that WOULD be a miracle,
wouldn’t it?
Let me close with a very simple
prayer:
Heavenly Father, give bread to all
who hunger. And to all who have bread,
give a hunger for justice. We pray in
Jesus name. Amen.
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