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A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John:<\/p>\n
Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee.\u00a0<\/em> Jesus went off across the Sea of Galilee, and a whole crowd followed Him, because they had seen what He did for the sick. They wanted to see if Jesus could do something for them. They wanted to see another wondrous sign, and maybe get the miracle. Everyone needs a miracle of one kind or another, except God. The rest of us are short on miracles most of the time, but God needs nothing.<\/p>\n A multitude of people dropped what they were doing and ran to where He was, most of them without common sense, without planning ahead, without so much as packing a lunch. Why pack a lunch when you\u2019re going to get a miracle? A miracle will take care of everything.<\/p>\n Jesus lifted His eyes and saw the throng streaming toward Him, five thousand men who wanted to see a miracle. Nobody bothered to count the women and children, as usual, but the men were five thousand, give or take.<\/p>\n Jesus knew their exact number. He knew why they\u2019d come. He clearly saw in each soul the miracle for which they were desperate. He felt for them. He Himself was God Who needs nothing, but also a Man, like them in all things but sin. And like them, it seems, He\u2019d forgotten to pack a lunch.<\/p>\n Jesus asked Philip, \u201cwhere can we buy enough food for them to eat?\u201d as if such a place existed.<\/p>\n All Philip could think about was money, and the fact that there wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n And then Jesus did a strange thing.<\/p>\n Jesus was God Who needs nothing. He didn\u2019t need somebody else\u2019s food to work a miracle. He could create a feast out of nothing at all, the same way His Father had created light without the sun or moon or stars. But He didn\u2019t choose to do that.\u00a0 He chose to do nothing, and wait until somebody else offered a solution.<\/p>\n Simon Peter put his oar in. \u201cThere is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?\u201d<\/p>\n Oh, Simon Peter, that\u2019s everything. That\u2019s exactly what God was waiting for. He was waiting for someone who had remembered lunch to give up his lunch. For someone who had planned ahead to offer to help the ones who hadn\u2019t. For a person who needed nothing to give up what he had, becoming vulnerable and needy, so that somebody else\u2019s suffering could be healed. That was what Jesus Himself had done, after all. That is what the incarnation is: God Who needs nothing becoming man who needs everything, so that Man might be reconciled with the Father.<\/p>\n The boy did just that. It wasn\u2019t one of the five thousand men who did this, not one of the people who counted. It was a child, somebody who counted for nothing. He had brought a little more lunch than one boy really needs: five loaves of barley and two small fish. He gave the whole thing over to Jesus, Who didn\u2019t have a lunch. He performed a work of mercy for the God Who needs nothing.<\/p>\n And Jesus used that work of mercy to perform a miracle.<\/p>\n All the people reclined on the grass\u2013 the five thousand men who counted for something, and everyone else as well. The boy who had done what Christ had done was there somewhere. Jesus broke the loaves, gave thanks, and passed them out. He passed out the two little fish. And everyone lying there found themselves eating bread and fish\u2013 all of them, the ones who counted and the ones who did not, the little boy and\u00a0 the twelve apostles and presumably Jesus Himself.<\/p>\n After they\u2019d finished their feast, Jesus sent the apostles to gather the broken fragments, twelve wicker baskets full. That was enough to get them started. They had been given food freely; the food to town and give it away to whoever was still there, all the people who had stayed home and missed the miracle. And maybe everyone in town could learn from this moment what God expected them to do. He wanted them to turn to one another in mercy. He wanted them to give freely of what they had been freely given, and to trust that where they saw only problems, God would work a miracle through their having mercy on one another. That would be a miracle, a glorious and beautiful miracle, the healing of something that had been broken for as long as anyone could remember. Humankind could be reconciled to one another. We wouldn\u2019t have to fight over resources anymore. We could turn to each other in mercy instead.<\/p>\n The people turned to each other and said, \u201cThis is truly the prophet, the one who is to come into the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n And then they turned on Jesus to try and make Him king by force.<\/p>\n They didn\u2019t understand the miracle they\u2019d witnessed. They didn\u2019t notice that Jesus had asked for help, and stood there doing nothing. They didn\u2019t remember the boy whose work of mercy had begun the whole miracle. All they knew was that that man had made one lunch into five thousand, not counting the lunch for the people who didn\u2019t count. They mobbed Him and tried to set them up as their King.<\/p>\n Jesus was already a King, but His Kingdom was not of this world. He didn\u2019t need to be a King. He needed nothing. He wanted nothing except to have mercy, to give up what He had so that someone\u2019s suffering could be healed.<\/p>\n So He withdrew once again to the mountain alone.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what happened to those five thousand men. I suppose they went back to whatever they\u2019d been doing before.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what happened to all of that leftover bread. For all I know they left it by the Sea of Galilee.<\/p>\n Maybe the bread is still here among us, somehow.<\/p>\n Maybe we all have something\u2013 something too small to do any good, something we can give away to Jesus in mercy, so that He can work a miracle for a multitude of people.<\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s not too late to get it right.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n Mary Pezzulo is the author of\u00a0Meditations on the Way of the Cross\u00a0<\/a><\/em>and\u00a0Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy<\/em>.<\/a> \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John: Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee.\u00a0 A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.\u00a0 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples.\u00a0 The Jewish feast of Passover was near.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,728,626,501,5192,1569,1217,1723],"tags":[63,78,64,436,13207,3120,279,309,180,766],"class_list":["post-15193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-story","category-christ","category-christian-idenitity","category-compassion","category-culture","category-food","category-gospel","category-work-of-mercy","tag-god","tag-gospel","tag-jesus","tag-john","tag-loaves-and-fishes","tag-man","tag-mercy","tag-miracle","tag-need","tag-works-of-mercy"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nA large crowd followed him,<\/em>
\nbecause they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.\u00a0<\/em>
\nJesus went up on the mountain,<\/em>
\nand there he sat down with his disciples.\u00a0<\/em>
\nThe Jewish feast of Passover was near.\u00a0<\/em>
\nWhen Jesus raised his eyes<\/em>
\nand saw that a large crowd was coming to him,<\/em>
\nhe said to Philip,<\/em>
\n\u201cWhere can we buy enough food for them to eat?\u201d\u00a0<\/em>
\nHe said this to test him,<\/em>
\nbecause he himself knew what he was going to do.\u00a0<\/em>
\nPhilip answered him,<\/em>
\n\u201cTwo hundred days\u2019 wages worth of food would not be enough<\/em>
\nfor each of them to have a little.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>
\nOne of his disciples,<\/em>
\nAndrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,<\/em>
\n\u201cThere is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish;<\/em>
\nbut what good are these for so many?\u201d\u00a0<\/em>
\nJesus said, \u201cHave the people recline.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>
\nNow there was a great deal of grass in that place.\u00a0<\/em>
\nSo the men reclined, about five thousand in number.\u00a0<\/em>
\nThen Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks,<\/em>
\nand distributed them to those who were reclining,<\/em>
\nand also as much of the fish as they wanted.\u00a0<\/em>
\nWhen they had had their fill, he said to his disciples,<\/em>
\n\u201cGather the fragments left over,<\/em>
\nso that nothing will be wasted.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>
\nSo they collected them,<\/em>
\nand filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments\u00a0<\/em>
\nfrom the five barley loaves<\/em>
\nthat had been more than they could eat.\u00a0<\/em>
\nWhen the people saw the sign he had done, they said,<\/em>
\n\u201cThis is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>
\nSince Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off<\/em>
\nto make him king,<\/em>
\nhe withdrew again to the mountain alone.<\/em><\/p>\n
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