If you are in a hurry you don’t want to sit down to eat with middle eastern people. You have to allow time at a meal in the Middle East for family talk, names of friends, the weather, playing with children, toasts and good wishes. And, oh yes, there are always discussions about the food. Who cooked it? How does is compare with how other family recipes, “My mother adds mint to this dish.” Each course evokes more conversation and there are a lot of courses! There is fruit for dessert, plus sweet cakes and rich deep coffee sweetened with a liquor. Departures also take a while, hugs and kisses and best wishes. There is also a social obligation in the Middle East, “You had me to your home for dinner, now I will have you to mine.”
The gospel story is, of course, set in the Middle East. At first it seems to be a different kind of food story, not exactly a formal, prepared meal. The crowd is huge and they are hungry: for physical food in a deserted place and hungry for still more. They are hungry to be acknowledged, to feel counted and recognized. Like those of us gathered for Eucharist, they are also hungry for what Jesus had to say about God.
They hunger to know that God is on their side, when the rest of the world considers them insignificant. How can their physical hungers be fed, there is no food around? How can their spiritual and human hungers be noticed, their need to feel important, and their hunger to know God be filled? In their Roman- occupied world they are slaves. In their religious world, a long way from the seat of their faith in Jerusalem and the religious elite, these Galileans were considered next to pagans; ignorant and a long way from God.
There is some food there, but almost nothing in the light of the numbers who are hungry. John notes that it is barley bread, the food of the poor. In this story the food of the poor counts and it is not an insignificant gift. It’s given by a boy, it’s all he has, and he makes it available. We tend to measure the size of the problem and then we back away, shrugging our shoulders, “What can I do about such a big problem?” The boy is a good example for us: better to do something than nothing. Who knows what might be multiplied?
Things are picking up in the story. We have some food and the occasion is right too. John notes that it is Passover time. Even the poorest and most illiterate Galilean Jew would know what that meant. Passover recalled God’s caring for the Israelites in slavery. It marked the beginning of a long hard journey out of slavery, through another wilderness, to a land of plenty.
What the Jewish people learned then and what Jesus shows here, at another Passover, is that God is our traveling companion through any hard period of our lives. The people are in another wilderness and once again God is with them step by arduous step. Not just observing; not judging how we’re making it our own. But feeding us, day by day. The Israelites learned to trust That bread would be there the next day. It’s what we call “daily bread” at this Eucharist; God’s reassuring us that we are cared for and our hungers matter to God. The simple offering of that little boy was multiplied. John tells us, “They all had their fill.” And there were lots of leftovers!
There is another miracle in the story. People’s hearts were changed. It wasn’t a grab-eat-run miracle, a McDonald’s drive-through quick bite. There was a lot of food, and it was the middle east! They know meals, and how to share food with one another. Jesus had a plan, he knew what he was about to do. So, does Jesus. He instructs his disciples, “Have the people recline.” He has the thousands “recline” — that’s how mid easterners eat at a banquet. Imagine them with more than enough to eat, eating in leisure. They are no longer desperate peasants but honored guests at a banquet.
Listen in on the conversations they would have had:
–“Didn’t I work with your father?
-“How’s your mother’s health?”
-“My name is Sarah, what’s yours?”
-“Has anyone seen little Jacob?”
-“Here try some of this fish, it’s sweet.”
Jesus knew exactly what he wanted to do: build community from a group of strangers using food to gather them; have friends and strangers, even enemies, enjoy a meal of plenty together.
John wrote the story 60 years later, his community would have been breaking bread and sharing the cup for a long time. They would have appreciated the story of Jesus taking a little bread and giving thanks to God. They would have seen the meaning of Eucharist in the story. As a result, they would also have to examine their consciences about being grateful for even a little, and not always thinking about how much more they wanted. They would have had to notice Jesus didn’t want any leftovers wasted. “Gather the fragments left over.”
We throw away a lot of very good food; 25% of the food in this country is wasted — 40% by another statistic. 29 million tons a year, thrown away! The crowd would have noticed that Jesus made sure the hungry were fed. We need to make sure budget cuts don’t affect the neediest. In 2013 our American bishops wrote to the co-chairs of the US Senate Committee on Agriculture, asking the committee to support the Farm Bill,urging them to resist unacceptable cuts to hunger and nutritional programs for the poor, like food stamps and other anti–hunger programs.
Quoting from their document, “For I was Hungry and You Gave Me Food: Catholic Reflections on Food, Farmers and Farmworkers,” the bishops wrote, “The primary goals of agriculture policies should be providing food for all people and reducing poverty among farmers and farmworkers in this country and abroad.” They added, “This is a crucial time to build a more just framework that puts poor and hungry people first, serves small and moderate-sized family farms, promotes sustainable stewardship of the land and helps vulnerable farmers and rural communities both at home and in developing countries.” (Cf. “Justice Notes” below)
John describes the miracle in eucharistic terms. Jesus takes the loaves, gives thanks and distributes them to those reclining: friends, strangers, even enemies — like a church gathering on Sunday mornings. John was reminding his community, and us, “Remember who God is, a nourishing, strengthening, traveling companion who uses bread to draw people together to form a caring community, who in turn feeds the hungry and the needy.