Today, we read of John's version of the familiar story of feeding 5000. The Old Testament reading echoed a similar miraculous feeding story. It was the story of Elisha.
There was a famine in the land when Elisha came to Gilgal. He was staying with a number prophets and the so-called "sons of prophets", probably their disciples. There were about 100 of them (2 Kings 4:38). An anonymous man arrived and brought along 20 loaves of barley. Elisha told his servant to feed the prophets with these 20 loaves. The servant thought it was not enough.
But his servant said, "How am I to set this before a hundred men?" (2 Kings 4:43a).
Elisha insisted and after eating, there were leftovers.
An event of much larger scale took place in the other side of the Lake of Galilee (John 6:1). This time, 5000 men, not counting women and children, gathered in one place to listen to the teaching of Jesus. Philip and Andrew made the following remarks on the situation.
Philip answered him (Jesus), "Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little."
One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him,
"There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among so many?" (John 6:7-9)
Again, an anonymous young boy offered a meagre amount of food. After eating to the full, the disciples gathered 12 baskets of leftovers (John 6:13).
Too often, we give up trying because we think that our resources/efforts are too meagre and would not improve the situation. We forgot what our ancestors taught us. In his will, warlord Liu 劉備wrote the following line to remind his prodigal son.
勿以惡小而為之，勿以善小而不為。惟賢惟德，能服於人。【宋‧蕭常‧續後漢書‧卷二】
His prodigal son did not listen to his advice and in the end, despite the Herculean efforts put up by his chancellor 諸葛亮, they lost their kingdom to another warlord. Probably, this prodigal son saw no point in putting up any resistance.
However, all believers in God should think in a different way. God loves to show off His power with minimum human efforts. For example, in battles, God gave 300 men to Gideon to defeat tens of thousands of Midianites and Amalekites (Judges 7:7). In worship, Jesus praised a widow who could only offer 2 brass coins (Mark 12:42). Therefore, we should not shun doing good because our resources are limited. Be generous and allow God to fill up the rest.
Today, Fr. Martin focussed our attention to another aspect of this miracle --- mob control.
The last century has witnessed great technological advances. Agricultural output has dramatically increased. Yet, in many parts of the globe, famines are still rampant. We have seen too much news coverage of the distribution of relief aids to starving crowds in Africa. In scene after scene, we see chaos and even stampedes. For the survival of their children and themselves, starving people would resort to jaws and claws like beasts. It is a logistic nightmare with dreadful consequences.
Of course, there was no famine at the lakeside of Galilee. There the crowd were hungry both for food, for healing and for the gospel of Jesus. The fact that 12 apostles were enough to distribute the food without creating chaos was itself a miracle. To control a crowd of 5000 with only 12 men? You tell me how. Unless this was not a mob, not a crowd but a community. Unless they shared the same purpose, they organized themselves in a certain structure. Unless they cared about each other. Otherwise, we would only see stampedes. It was truly a miracle, on a different level.
Dear Lord, You are always generous. We only have to ask and You will fill our needs. I pray that I can be of some help in distributing Your grace to our neighbour. Amen.
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