Have you ever seen a miracle? Have you ever been part of a miracle? In today’s Gospel story, the disciples are invited to be a part of miracle. When they are able to let go of their own doubt and offer what they had, they get to see it happen. Here today, Jesus takes a boy’s simple lunch; five small loaves and two fish, and without ceremony or fanfare, shares them with 5000 hungry men plus women and children. Everyone ate their fill and everyone was satisfied.
Time and again in the Gospels, the resurrected Christ meets his followers around food and drink. He shared food repeatedly with tax collectors and sinners, with the broken and the wounded. For the disciples on the Emmaus Road, Jesus is known to them as bread is broken. Jesus appears to his disciples on the beach, calling them in from their boats and their labour to share breakfast cooked over a fire. Food and feeding are at the very heart of Scripture. Today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah speaks of the free heavenly banquet made ready for everyone willing to pay attention to God’s life-saving words.
Christ prepares a feast for us here today, a feast where God is revealed to us as we eat together, as we break and share bread. It’s around this table that God’s kingdom is worked out. God says to us today, ‘come and eat,’ and in the eating you will know me. Come and let your mind and your body be nourished so that you are ready to take up your calling as a child of God, and to share his presence with the world.
In peace, Mother Lynda