A few weeks ago,
my wife and I were driving
through the hills around Harper’s Ferry,
listening to National Public Radio,
as college professors tend to do.
They were reporting on the on-going conflict
between Ethiopia and Eritrea,
which has been raging for eight months
and has led to severe and widespread famine.
my wife and I were driving
through the hills around Harper’s Ferry,
listening to National Public Radio,
as college professors tend to do.
They were reporting on the on-going conflict
between Ethiopia and Eritrea,
which has been raging for eight months
and has led to severe and widespread famine.
As our car made its way
along the winding road,
the radio station kept fading out,
lost in a wave of static,
and another radio station kept fading in.
This was one of those evangelical religious stations
that college professors tend not to listen to.
The signal was buried in static,
and hard to make out,
but after a minute or so
I realized that this station was discussing
the story of Jesus’ feeding of the multitude,
the story that we have just heard in today’s Gospel reading.
As we wove our ways through the hills,
the two stories wove their way around each other:
at one moment reports of war and famine
in a distant part of the world,
in the next moment the ancient tale
of Jesus feeding the hungry multitude,
stories bouncing back and forth
in a dialogue between conflict and communion,
between hunger and plenty.
What gets said in such a dialogue?
What does the story of Jesus’ feeding of the multitudes
have to say to a world of war and famine?
Certainly it speaks a word of rebuke
to the story of the world’s sin,
the story of the way that the world all too often operates.
It presents a striking contrast to the violence and hunger
that is found not only in distant foreign lands
but right here in our own city,
where most years we average close to a murder a day,
and one in four residents lives in a “food desert,”
without ready access to places to purchase healthy food.
And to such physical violence and hunger we must add
the spiritual violence of various forms
of factionalism and discrimination and racism—
the refusal to see the image of God
present in those who are different—
and the spiritual hunger of those who are fed a steady diet
of empty aspirations for fame or wealth or physical sensation
all the while starving for the bread of life
that only God can give
and only faith can receive.
Everything about the feeding of the multitudes
stands as a rebuke to these realities that afflict our world.
The story of the feeding of the multitudes
is the story of human beings caught up
in the goodness of God
and receiving abundantly from that goodness.
It is a story that interrupts
the world’s story of hunger and violence,
a story that pierces through
the static of sin,
the static of the world’s business as usual,
and says to us that something else is possible,
that something else is even now making itself present
through the power of God taken flesh in Jesus Christ.
And yet, so often
we can only dimly perceive this new reality;
it hovers at the edge of our awareness
like ghostly voices on the airwaves,
obscured by the world’s static
and only discernible if we play close attention.
And even when we see it,
we often misperceive it.
The gospel-writer John concludes this story
of divine abundance made present in Jesus
with the statement:
“Since Jesus knew that they were going to come
and carry him off to make him king,
he withdrew again to the mountain alone.”
The multitude saw
the power of Jesus to satisfy hungers,
but could not see that this was a power
different from that of earthly kings.
As Jesus will later say to Pontius Pilate,
“My kingdom does not belong to this world,”
and when the multitude in Jerusalem hears this
they will say, “Crucify him…
We have no king but Caesar.”
we can only dimly perceive this new reality;
it hovers at the edge of our awareness
like ghostly voices on the airwaves,
obscured by the world’s static
and only discernible if we play close attention.
And even when we see it,
we often misperceive it.
The gospel-writer John concludes this story
of divine abundance made present in Jesus
with the statement:
“Since Jesus knew that they were going to come
and carry him off to make him king,
he withdrew again to the mountain alone.”
The multitude saw
the power of Jesus to satisfy hungers,
but could not see that this was a power
different from that of earthly kings.
As Jesus will later say to Pontius Pilate,
“My kingdom does not belong to this world,”
and when the multitude in Jerusalem hears this
they will say, “Crucify him…
We have no king but Caesar.”
The power of God to defeat the world’s violence,
to feed the world’s hunger,
takes flesh in the one who is rejected and crucified.
And God wills this to be so
because God knows how we are drawn to worldly power.
We believe that violence will end
once we have a ruler who can crush our enemies.
We believe that our hungers will cease
once we have a leader
who can get the economy humming along.
But Jesus has no armies, no police force,
no Federal Reserve, no Internal Revenue Service;
he has only five barley loaves and two fish
and the power of crucified love.
But for those with ears to hear,
ears that can discern it through the static of the world,
this is the true story of peace and abundance.
to feed the world’s hunger,
takes flesh in the one who is rejected and crucified.
And God wills this to be so
because God knows how we are drawn to worldly power.
We believe that violence will end
once we have a ruler who can crush our enemies.
We believe that our hungers will cease
once we have a leader
who can get the economy humming along.
But Jesus has no armies, no police force,
no Federal Reserve, no Internal Revenue Service;
he has only five barley loaves and two fish
and the power of crucified love.
But for those with ears to hear,
ears that can discern it through the static of the world,
this is the true story of peace and abundance.
This is what it means to live the life of faith.
It is to see in the sharing of gifts
in our Eucharistic celebration
the abundant banquet that God offers us
in Jesus’ body and blood.
It is to see in our small efforts to feed the hungry
in our Loaves and Fishes ministry
a sign of God’s abundance breaking through
the static of the world’s violence and hunger.
These actions might seem like small things—
as small as five barley loaves and two fish—
but if Christ takes them into his hands
to offer them to the Father,
they can become the seeds of God’s kingdom sown in us.
The story of that kingdom is being told in countless way,
interrupting the story of the world’s sin.
Listen for it.
Don’t let the world’s static obscure it.
And may God have mercy on us all.
It is to see in the sharing of gifts
in our Eucharistic celebration
the abundant banquet that God offers us
in Jesus’ body and blood.
It is to see in our small efforts to feed the hungry
in our Loaves and Fishes ministry
a sign of God’s abundance breaking through
the static of the world’s violence and hunger.
These actions might seem like small things—
as small as five barley loaves and two fish—
but if Christ takes them into his hands
to offer them to the Father,
they can become the seeds of God’s kingdom sown in us.
The story of that kingdom is being told in countless way,
interrupting the story of the world’s sin.
Listen for it.
Don’t let the world’s static obscure it.
And may God have mercy on us all.
