Fragments

The Jewish feast of Passover was near. When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people recline.” Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted. When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.” (John 6.4-13)

For some reason, the lectionary–or book of readings–that we follow each Sunday takes us on an extended detour on this Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. We have been following Mark’s gospel in sequential order for these Sundays since the close of the Easter Season, but now the lectionary shifts our attention to the Gospel of John.

Equally perplexing, had we stayed with Mark, we would be studying the feeding of the multitude. And what do we find in today’s reading? John’s version of the feeding of the multitude. In fact, when we return to Mark’s gospel on the Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time–five Sundays away–we will not pick up where we left off but will bypass the feeding of the five thousand, the walking on the water, and the healings at Gennesaret. So much for preserving the continuity of the story.

If forced to explain the departure from Mark’s text over the course of the next several Sundays, I suppose a good explanation would be the desire for variety. As we know, the readings are based on a three-year cycle–Year A with Matthew; Year B with Mark; and Year C with Luke–but there are four gospels. So, the way to make it work is to insert John into the other years, particularly during the Easter Season. Mark, being the shortest gospel, allows John to intrude onto his terrain more so than in the other gospels.

Although the feeding of the multitude is the only miracle that appears in all four gospels, we should not think that the four presentations are in lockstep conformity. They aren’t. John, of course, departs the most from the other three gospels. As we see today, Jesus is the one who asks the question “where can we buy enough food for them to eat,” whereas in the synoptics the disciples bring the problem to Jesus. Likewise, in John’s version, Jesus distributes the food to the hungry crowd. In the synoptics, the disciples are told to give the food to the people. John always presents Jesus as the one in control, even at the end when he stands before Pilate or when he suffers on the cross.

Also, here in John there is no mention of Jesus performing the miracle because of pity or compassion for the crowd as we will find in the other gospels. Instead, he performs the miracle as a test of the faith of his disciples. By the same token, here Jesus “went up into the mountain,” whereas in the synoptics he is in a deserted place. The common explanation offered for the change of venue in John is the evangelist’s desire to draw a comparison between Jesus and Moses, the prophet often ascending a mountain to converse with the Most High God.

That look back to Moses and the Hebrew sojourners is clearly on John’s mind. Unlike what we find in the other gospels, the story of the feeding of the multitude begins with John telling us that the Jewish feast of Passover was near, that particular feast recalling the Hebrews’ escape from slavery in Egypt and their crossing the Red Sea now as freedmen. Likewise, the miracle syncs with Moses’ feeding the slaves with manna, the great prophet asking the Lord God the same question that Jesus poses here, “Where am I to get meat to give to all these people?” So, in many ways, John is showing us his hand, wanting us to view the miraculous feeding of the crowd through the lens of Moses and the manna story in the Book of Exodus. 

Likewise, only John states that “there was a great deal of grass in that place,” something that would not be found for sure in a desolate place, the location for the miracle in the other gospels. Again, scholars want to see this as a nod to Psalm 23, the Good Shepherd psalm, particularly verses 1 and 2 that read, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.” There probably is a lot of truth to that argument. Regardless, both the psalm and the miracle story carry the same theme.

Another fascinating difference between John’s story and that found in the three other gospels is the presence of the boy who provides the five barley loaves and two fish. He is nowhere around in the other three gospels. Some scholars like to see in this young boy a reference to the boy David who also must save the day when he takes on the giant Goliath with nothing but a slingshot and a prayer. Both stories tell of coming out ahead against impossible odds. 

These, then, are some of the clear differences between John’s version and that told by the other evangelists, reminding us again that the evangelists are less interested in writing a historical account, understood as a faithful following of the facts and the record, than they are in painting a particular theological picture of Jesus, using their accounts to emphasize for the reader their understanding of who and what Jesus was.

So, with that in mind, let’s take a second look at why John inserts the boy in this story. As I see it, that boy allows us to see a greater disparity between next to nothing and twelve wicker baskets filled with fragments, the two opposing poles in this story, much like the goal posts on the football field, each post representing a different team.

John seems purposeful in drawing our attention first to the scarcity of resources, having Andrew say to Jesus, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what good are these for so many?” And, then, in a short while, he focuses our attention on the abundance, telling us that Jesus gave the people “as much of the fish as they wanted,” and emphasizing that “they had their fill” and “had more than they could eat.”

And if we missed the overt contest between scarcity and abundance, John puts it front and center when he tells us that the leftover fragments “filled twelve wicker baskets.” By the way, our ears should perk up when we hear that there were twelve baskets, the number an important one in the Hebrew scriptures, the twelve baskets wanting us to remember the twelve tribes of Israel. In other words, as God had provided abundantly for the tribes of Israel, he continues to provide abundantly through Jesus, the light sent into the darkness.

In all likelihood, if there is any one point that we can relate to in this story as John tells it, I suspect it is the boy whose lunch box contains five barley loaves and two fish. We may want to remember here that barley loaves were considered the food for the poor, the barley grain inferior to the wheat grain that people of means used to make their bread. 

Overall, barley was less nutritional, less tasty, and more difficult to digest. But poor people didn’t have much of a choice. It was barley or starvation. The point I am making is not so much that we are destitute, barely able to find food to feed ourselves, although there are many people in our world whose next meal is never a certainty.

Instead, I think the boy with so little is relatable because so often we feel we have very little to offer. Few of us are in positions of power or influence. Most of us have limited income, enough to get by, maybe a bit for a rainy day, maybe not. Spiritually, we also have little to spare, our faith at any moment in time a crapshoot at best. Squared off with the gigantic problems in the world, we truly feel like the boy David up against the monstrous Goliath, and we know the slingshot in our hands isn’t going to slow down, much less slay, the monsters in our midst.

So, we walk through life, wondering what we could possibly offer that would make the world a better place, often too ashamed to even open our lunch box to allow others to see how little we carry on our person. We’re nobodies in a world of somebodies. As a result, we don’t offer the little bit that we have, convinced that it won’t make a smidgen of difference in the bigger picture, choosing to stay in the back row of the classroom and never raising our hands to answer the teacher’s question.

If that is us—and for many it is–then John is speaking to us directly today when he puts front and center the boy who has next to nothing when compared to the huge problem of feeding the massive crowd, but who nonetheless volunteers the meager amount he has, laying before Jesus his own meal for the day in the hope that it might satisfy the hunger of some in the crowd.

By way of that boy, John tells us that Jesus can take the little bit we have and turn it into something much more. In many ways, it is the parable of the talents that Jesus tells, three men given various amounts by the landowner who leaves for a while, expecting each man to make more from what has been given to him. Two of the three do, but the man who received one talent buries it, telling himself he doesn’t have enough to really do anything that would impress the landowner. 

Of course, as we know, in that story the man with one talent is chastised by the landowner who berates him for his fear and his lack of faith. It is the same here, but in a different way. The boy has at best one talent, but he puts it at the disposal of Jesus who takes it into his hands and turns it into something big and beautiful, unimaginable to the disciples and eye-popping for the boy who saw his crackers and sardines feed the entire crowd.

As John so often does in his gospel, he challenges us to believe, to lay aside our doubts, and to trust. He asks each of us to be brave enough to put our talents and our gifts, inconsequential  and impotent as they may look to us, at the service of Jesus who turns water into wine and who changes a poor man’s meal into a feast fit for a king. Our job is not to perform the miracle. That’s the job of Jesus. What he asks of us is to share what we have, however inadequate and insufficient it may appear to us. 

In his divine hands, pieces and fragments become platefuls of food, a reminder to us that he’s not going to allow us to excuse ourselves by saying we have nothing to give or nothing worth much of anything. He shows us continually that God takes the most insignificant and unimportant people–at least in the eyes of the world–and turns them into messengers of hope and beacons of light. We see it in the boy in the gospel, and we might even see it in ourselves if we only decide to open our picnic basket and let Jesus do with it what he does best–make an abundance out of nothing at all.

–Jeremy Myers