A real fish story

The gospel reading for today is Mark 6:30-44, which recounts the well-known miracle of the loaves and fish. In the story, the apostles have just returned from being off on their own preaching about Christ, healing the sick and other worthy stuff. Jesus decides they all need a rest, so he attempts to take them away to “a lonely place” to get away from the ever-growing crowd of followers. Like modern-day groupies, however, the fans figure out where the object of their adoration is going and get there ahead of time, so when Jesus and the apostles arrive at their remote getaway the place is crawling with five thousand people. Being the compassionate guy he is, Jesus doesn’t tell them to go away but gives them what they want—more teaching.

Now comes the miracle story. The apostles get concerned about the crowd being out there in the middle of nowhere and ask Jesus to send them home for food. Jesus, not wanting to send the crowd away, tells them to share what food they have with the crowd; this turns out to be five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus blesses the food and has it distributed. Not only does the meager amount suffice, when the left-overs come back they fill twelve baskets. Wow… quite a miracle.

So what is this really all about? On one level, this is a simple miracle story with a straightforward message: God will provide. But is that all there is to this? I think not.

For an agrarian people living under the constant threat of crop-failure and resultant famine, food was (and is for such people today) never far from the mind. The next meal was never guaranteed, so it defies common sense to think that all five thousand of Jesus’ followers set out to this “lonely place” without bringing along something to eat. The apostles themselves brought along food—the five loaves and two fish, enough to share among themselves. When Jesus and his apostles began to share their food, so did those in the crowd. So, multiplying the loaves and fish is not the miracle here; the miracle is that people took care of each other, sharing what they had in an example of Christian charity—charity in its original meaning of unselfish love.

This interpretation does not diminish the miracle; if anything, it makes it more meaningful, because merely saying “God will provide” is not enough in today’s world. You have to ask how God will provide, by what means will God reach out to the poor, the troubled, the unloved. The answer is to be found in the story of the loaves and fish: God will provide through you and me. Faith is not passive, it requires action on the part of the faithful to bring God’s kingdom to fruition on earth.

So go out there and be miraculous.