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If the popularity of a gospel story can be measured by the number of times it occurs in the four gospels, then “The Loaves and Fishes” tops the list.  It occurs twice in Mark, twice in Matthew, once in Luke and once in John: six times in all!

The disciples’ question made me think of the famine presently raging in the horn of Africa.  Where is there bread in the wilderness for the half million children dying of starvation?  Jesus was known as a miracle worker, but what miracle can save the countless victims of drought and civil war? 

If there is a miracle here, it is the aid workers who put their lives at risk in this seemingly hopeless situation.  While others experience compassion fatigue and act as though charity not only begins at home but stays at home, these aid workers are an encouraging testimonial to the generosity of the human spirit. 

The gospels used to be thought based on eye-witness testimony, and to the rationalistic spirit of an earlier age, Jesus’ miracles were a provocation.  The most fantastic explanations were devised to distinguish the “fact” recorded by the gospel narrative from the supernatural explanation.  In this case, it was suggested that the so-called miracle came about because the disciples began to share their own meager rations, inspiring the crowd to do likewise. 

But in the words of today’s collect, it is the Lord who is the author and giver of all good things.  It is Jesus who, in the same words we use in today’s Eucharistic prayer, took the loaves, gave thanks, brake and gave.  Jesus has said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it in abundance.”  Abundance is the hallmark of this story, abundance in the seven baskets which were left over, after all had eaten and been satisfied. 

To receive God’s abundance, we must open our hearts and minds to more than we can ask or imagine.  Jesus’ miracles exhibit an absoluteness which defies all human experience: “All things are possible to him who believes.” 

The miracles illustrate the power of faith to bring about a radical change in our understanding of human existence.  The kingdom which Jesus proclaimed did not come, but through the miracle stories our perception of this present world is revolutionized.  For they reveal a “limit experience” in which we realize that we are at the end of our powers, and they express a passionate subjectivity which challenges us to go beyond the limits of human possibility and so transcend the negativity of suffering and death. 

The miracle stories are strange visitors in our modern world, but we need, for our own good, to try to appreciate them in their strangeness and their uniqueness. 

August 7, 2011

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