Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Osmond Anike

Readings:

First Reading: : 2 Kings 4:42-44 – They will eat, and have some left over.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 144(145):10-11, 15-18 – You open wide your hand, O Lord, and grant our desires.

Second Reading: Ephesians 4:1-6 – One Body, one Spirit, one Lord, one Faith, one baptism, one God.

Gospel: John 6:1-15 – The feeding of the five thousand.

We are living in a world full of contradictions. On the one hand, nature has so abundantly blessed us with rich and natural resources that any visitor from outer space would feel jealous of us as a set of people with more than enough resources to ensure that nobody lacked anything. On the other hand, in spite of the abundance of resources, more than half of the earth’s population is living in abject poverty in the midst of plenty. How does one explain this contradiction? We need to go back and examine the two different but similar episodes that happened in the first reading and in the gospel respectively.

The reason why there is hunger in the world is not necessarily because there is shortage of food and resources; it is rather mostly because those who have excesses are not ready and willing to bring out their excesses to share with those who do not have at all. In the first reading, Elisha received a gift of twenty barley loaves and fresh grain in the ear. Mind you, these were perishable food; and given the climate of the Middle-East, there was no way one man could have consumed the entire food items without risking a good chunk perishing under the harsh climatic condition. But it was not unusual for people to hoard food even if that meant that the food would eventually perish. What was remarkable was the willingness of Elisha to give the food to the people (a hundred men, according to the text). In a parallel episode in the gospel, people who were following Jesus were hungry and exhausted. But they were in the middle of a desert far away from any nearby civilization. Even if they had enough money to buy food (which they didn’t) it would have been impossible to find any place in that desert to buy. Then information reached them about a little boy who had five barley loaves and two fish and was willing to donate them to be shared. Definitely, the quantity of food mentioned was too much for a little boy. But come to think of it! Little children are always in the habit of clinging to whatever belongs to them, whether it is food or toy or anything at all. Therefore, it was rather strange that this particular little boy was willing to bring out his food for sharing.

In the two episodes, the single tread that runs through them is that the miracle of the multiplication of bread cannot occur except people are ready to bring out their bread to be multiplied. Had Elisha not offered to the people the twenty loaves given to him, the miracle couldn’t have happened. Had the little boy in the gospel not willingly donated his five loaves and two fish to all, Jesus might not have multiplied them to feed the crowd. It is often said that grace perfects nature. This is very true in the two episodes of the multiplication of bread. Sometimes we pray for miracles to happen just like manna falling from heaven. Well, manna may or may not fall from heaven. But if you are praying to win a lottery, the first step is to go buy a lottery ticket. You cannot be praying night and day to win a lottery when you have not even bought a lottery ticket. With whose ticket are you going to win the lottery? This is one thing that we can go home with today: that if we are praying for the multiplication of bread, there has to be bread to be multiplied. And for there to be bread to be multiplied, people have to be willing to bring out at least their “excesses” to be shared by all. How much of our excess food and/or wealth are we willing to donate? When Jesus bids us to ask for our daily bread, he did not mean the bread that we can hoard for use some other day; he meant bread that we are using today. If everyone takes his/her daily bread and give out the excesses to others, then everybody will have enough and even some to spare as left-overs. In periods of natural disasters, especially, like the one recently caused by flooding in some parts of Belgium, the readings of today should spur us to come to the aid of those particularly impacted. If everybody in Belgium should bring out his/her excesses, none of those impacted will feel the impact much.

Secondly, we often think like Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, who was sceptical about the five barley loaves and two fish donated by the little boy because that quantity of food, in his estimation, was insignificant compared to the many mouths available for feeding. But the truth of the matter is that the little things we donate make a difference is someone’s life. If we wait for the day we will be able to help everybody at the same time, we may end up not helping anyone at all. Our little gestures are all that is needed to make some great difference in people’s lives. These little gestures are practical ways to preach the gospel.

However, in order not to lose the main focus of Jesus’ mission, the gospel described something very important. It said that after the miracle of the multiplication of bread, the people proclaimed that “This really is the prophet who is to come into the world”. From their statement and reaction, Jesus could sense that the people wanted to take him by force and make him king. He subsequently escaped back to the hills by himself. The average modern-day “man of God” or “prophet” would have jumped at the prospect of being crowned ‘king’ by their followers. But Jesus had his mission very clear to him. He came as a saviour and the paschal lamb for the salvation of our souls. He did not come as a political leader. But this reality appeared to have been lost by the people who were fed that day. They focused on earthly things and neglected the spiritual and heavenly things for which Jesus came. Oftentimes, we, as Christians, are tempted to hunger for earthly things and totally neglect the heavenly things. It was the great Albert Einstein who said that “many of the things you can count don’t count; and many of the things you can’t count, really count”. Most of the earthly things we count on (like seeking positions of authority) do not count. The heavenly things like simple acts of kindness, generosity, courtesy, decency, simplicity, etc., have the ability to multiply in such a way that not only us but the entire people will benefit from them. Christianity entails generosity, kindness, decency and simplicity of life.