REFLECTION 28TH JULY 2024 

FEEDING THE 5,000 

(Yet millions still have hunger) 

By Rev Dr Fei Taule’ale’ausumai 

I hate crowds and so attending an All-Blacks game in person for me is a major deal.  You have got to go wrapped up warmly, stop in the toilets and grab a drink and a snack before you find your seat why because if you need to do these later like at half time good luck joining the queues and throngs of people lining up.  I went to Twickenham in London to watch the inaugural match of the Manu Samoa play against the England Rugby team, Will Carling was the captain then.  OMG ages ago.  Any how I took one of my students from Tuvalu with me.  Her country at the time had a population of 7,000 people.  I pointed to the stand opposite us and said, “all those people over there represent your country, Tuvalu.”  There were approximately 35,000  people there that day.  I was so overwhelming for her and for also for me too.   

The crowd that was fed in our Johannine reading was approximately 5,000 people, the size of some of our small island states in the Pacific.  My aunty Peseta Noumea Simi is the CEO of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Samoa.  She is right in the thick of organizing the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting called CHOGM in Samoa in October.  The theme is  ”One Resilient Common Future: Transforming our Commonwealth”.  

Whilst many commonwealth countries respect one another, Samoa, as the host of Chogam instead of support and highlighting Samoa’s positive attributes as a Pacific nation the British press rudely headlined in the Press stating that “The hotel the king will stay in has musty sheets and a rattling air conditioner.”  What the heck, how rude and disrespectful and how arrogant that the NZ Herald had the audacity to publish such appalling trivial colonial rubbish.  William and Kate were more than happy to stay in a thatched roof hut in the Solomon Islands, they never complained.  Selective journalism at its worst.   

Anyway, my aunty has arranged for a cruise ship to dock in the harbour as an extra hotel for the many thousands of delegates that will be coming from all over the world.  Feeding them all will be a massive undertaking.  When I was fortunate to attend The treaty of friendship whirlwind visit to Samoa with our then Prime Minister Jacinda Arden back in 2022 I said to my aunty, this visit was too fast, so much to do in so short a time.  Her response to me was “that was long enough for me, another day would have been too costly to organize.  Good luck to her for October.   

Here in our New Testament reading this morning in John’s Gospel we have a huge crowd gathering around the hillside following Jesus and his disciples to listen to stories, to be healed etc.  Out of the blue Jesus begins with the question to his disciples , “Where are we to buy bread?” Bread for whom, you, us? Surely not all these people.  Philip answers: Half-a-year’s salary wouldn’t be enough. Not much later a boy is found carrying five barley loaves and two fish. With that gift Jesus takes the bread and fish and first gives thanks and begins to distribute the food. Miraculously, all have plenty to eat. 

The crowds of people are in need. Not only are they hungry; the food supply is limited, and there does not appear to be enough to satisfy the hunger of all. Obviously, some will be sent away with little or nothing. Those responsible for controlling the crowds wonder how this precious food should be distributed. Then, in the midst of this need, something extraordinary happens. Not only is food provided, but more is available than is required. How did this happen? What are we to make of it? 

The feeding can be taken as a nature miracle; Jesus producing food for the hungry crowd as a sign that he is the Son of God.  At the opposite end of the scale it can be taken as a “miracle of sharing.”  We notice that Jesus did not start with empty hands.  Were there many people present who had food secreted away and were shamed by the generosity of the boy into sharing their own?  We have no way of telling.  In a sense it does not matter.  John recounts the incident not so that we might be overwhelmed by this proof of who Jesus is or even so that we might be shamed into sharing our own food, but as a sign that Jesus is sent by God.  If we want to make a point for modern people it would seem more relevant to say that the story is a sign that Jesus calls us to share than that he impressed his audience on that day by an extraordinary nature miracle. 

When we focus on the understanding of the crowd, we immediately see the misunderstandings.  John appears to tell the story in such a way that the focus is on how Jesus is misunderstood, even by those closest to him.  It is clear that even the disciples do not expect Jesus to feed the people in the way he does.  He also makes the excessive generosity of Jesus very clear..  Jesus instructs the disciples to gather up the scraps.  What started with five loaves and two fish ended up with a satisfied crowd and twelve baskets.  One can only assume that the twelve represents the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles.  In other words, there is in Jesus enough to satisfy the religious needs of all.  Numbers in John are never accidental. 

The miracle asks the church the question, “Do you believe God will provide what you need to do the ministry God wants done?” Note the essential qualifiers — what we need, not want, and the ministry God wants, not necessarily the ministry we’ve planned. Another way to ask the question: Do we operate according to a mind-set of abundance or of scarcity? The former engenders generosity and hope; the latter brings anxiety and competition. 

So the question for us is “how do we misunderstand Jesus?”  The crowd on the hill that day saw him as the prophet and wanted to make him king.  What an extraordinary misunderstanding!  Prophets and kings stand on the opposite side of a huge gulf.  But our own misunderstandings may be nearly as bad.  Do we seek to use Jesus rather than follow him?  Do we see him as either too divine or too human?  Do we try to put him in a box of our own shape and making and not allow for the fact that others see him in a different light? Do we fail to see that he calls all people and feeds all people without question?  

There is much hunger in the world today. Millions of people go to sleep with empty stomachs. Children are bloated from malnutrition. Wars are fought over food, and people starve as a consequence of war. Where are such needy people to turn to for help? The Gospels for the next five Sundays contain teaching about the “bread of life.” The specific focus this Sunday is on the generous power of God that mysteriously meets basic human needs. 

One of the ministers I supervise recently returned from a Council for World Mission meeting in India he said, the hotel we stayed in, and the conference centre was one of the best in India and what it cost to host us all could have transformed an entire India village from poverty.  Ironic isn’t it.   

Five thousand were fed with five barley loaves and two fish. In each case, the people were satisfied, and food was left over. 

The gospel writers used these stories in ways which went far beyond the focus on miracle. It is also possible that in their origin the stories may not have had a miraculous focus. We may never know. It is hard to assess at what point symbolism entered the stories and to what extent it created them. In the feeding of the 5000, for instance, there is a strong military flavour, especially in Mark: the crowd is organised like Israel’s army in the desert in 100s and 50s. Jesus is portrayed as the Davidic shepherd king. Was this already symbolism on Jesus’ part? In John we may have a further echo of this where the crowd wants to make him king. Did the feeding motif then enter the story secondarily, suggested by the symbolism of manna in the desert? John’s account stands under the influence of 2 Kings 4, according to which Elisha multiplied ‘barley loaves’ presented to him by his ‘lad’, just as happens here. Many stories of Jesus echo the stories of Elijah and Elisha. 

John consistently takes stories from the tradition about Jesus and moulds them so that they now make statements about who Jesus is for us. Using images of daily necessity, like bread, water, light, life, which were earlier used of Torah, God’s Law, John is declaring that our deepest needs are to be found in him. They are found in him, because for John he is intimately linked to God, as God’s unique Son. In effect, to relate to Jesus is to relate to God. In this way John merges diverse traditions and images into a single simplicity: our relationship with God. 

John is not denying the miracle, but he is making the point that there is something to be seen here which goes beyond the miracle.  We may not be able to explain the miracles, but we cannot overlook one very important element in each story—God works marvels through ordinary people.  That’s you and me.  Amen. 

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