Most of the
significant meals Ive had have been in unusual circumstances. When I was in
Leipzig in 1990 I was invited to the flat of a Russian woman teaching in the
city. As I crossed the city early in the morning, I was confronted by gangs in
black shirts, mimicking fascists and made my way hurriedly to an enormous area
of large tower blocks row on row. I was received by my host who lived in a tiny
two room flat and asked if I wanted a shower. I was somewhat taken aback at
this, but it was dry and dusty. I was given fresh fruits, sliced, a luxery then
and enjoyed a level of hospitality second to none. Meals are made special by
how they are made and who we share them with. Its no accident that many of the
stories in the gospels are set in the context of meals and middle Eastern
hospitality.
The feeding of
the 5,000 is told against the backdrop of growing dissent. You were either for
Jesus or not. Many people were coming and going so that they didn’t have
time to eat so Jesus calls them away to go to a deserted, lonely place by boat
acroos the lake to eat, identified as as the north-east side of lake Galilee.
But the people saw them going and ran on foot getting ahead of them.When Jesus
got out of the boat he saw them and (instead of being annoyed as I would have
been) he felt sorry for them and even though he was hungry he began to teach
again. By this time it was late in the day, so the disciples told him to send
them away so they could buy something to eat. But he said back to them “Give
them some food yourselves" and they responded that it would cost eight
months wages! So he asked them “How much bread do you have?” And they found
five barley loaves, probably flat bread and two fish, probably cooked or
pickled fish.
So he told them
to tell the people to sit down in groups and they sat in groups of hundreds and
fifties(how many picnics have you been at like that!). Having looked up to
heaven , he blessed the bread, and gave thanks and gave it to them in
successive distributions. He also divided the two fish and distributed it. They
ate until they were full and couldn’t eat anymore. The left overs were
collected in 12 strong wicker baskets as well as pieces of fish. The men
present were more than 5,000 plus women and children.
In the desert
the people find spiritual and real food. In hard times, desert times its the
same. I heard of a woman this week who has MS. She is very ill. She leant on
her husbands chest and realised he had a heart murmur. She has elderly parents
who depend on her and she said "I cant ask why me!" That is a desert
place. Hopefully she will be sent the right people to lean on during this very
hard journey.
Every 3 seconds
someone dies of poverty in our world. To address this and usher in a new way of
being, where everyone has something to eat, we will have to share and have
less. Maybe that would be good for us too. A different sort of miracle.
