Saturday 12 July 2014

Background

The feeding of the 5,000 is one of the few events found in allfour of the Gospel accounts (Matthew 14:13-21; Mark6:32-44; Luke 9:10-17): it must have been a veryimportant story for the first believers. The simplest of mealsbecomes a window to the abundance and generous nature of thekingdom of God.

In Grenada the national dish is 'oil down' - fish,meat, yam, callaloo, breadfruit and more all cooked in coconut milkfor at least an hour until the flavours all mingle together. Thebest place to cook and eat oil down is outdoors under a tree or ona beautiful tropical moonlit night. The result is a meal packedwith flavour that will keep you going for the whole day - its sumseems much greater than its parts! This account of the feeding ofthe 5,000 from John's Gospel seems like that. The disciples, thesmall boy, the thousands of people and Jesus are all mingledtogether in the lush outdoors around the time of the Passoverfestival. Out of this mingling comes a meal where the sum is muchgreater than the parts. So much so that even the leftovers are muchgreater than the original parts.

This meal for 5,000 at Passover seems in many ways to prefigurethe Passover meal for 12 where Jesus offers himself in bread andwine (Luke 22:1-23) and the service of foot washing(John 13:1-17). It is a meal which we stillshare today in our Communion services and where the spiritual sumis so much greater than the simple bread and juice that we take.The joy and abundance of the feeding of 5,000 on that day becomes asign that points people to something greater. Yet they set theirsights too low and focus on a kingly messiah to liberate them fromRome, rather than the one to open the way to the abundant table ofthe Father.

To Ponder

• What things enable you to experience God's kingdom in a waywhere the sum is much greater than the parts?

• How does our generosity match up to the example of Jesussharing with anyone and everyone who came to that field of5,000?

• Have you ever tried to take 'Jesus by force' and try and makehim something he is not? What happened?