Bible reading: Matthew 14:13-21.

I can’t remember when I last ate at McDonald’s – it may have been when our son Alastair was still a child. Although I know that many people love tucking into a Big Mac or a Quarter Pounder with Cheese while their children enjoy a Happy Meal (they must do, otherwise there wouldn’t be 40,275 branches around the world), I dislike the whole experience and certainly wouldn’t call their outlets “restaurants”. To be honest, I prefer the chaos and hilarity of the Maelfa fish bar!

Having said that (and I realise that you’ve all now branded me as an insufferable “food snob”), if I was driving through unfamiliar territory late at night, getting more and more hungry, and suddenly saw those golden arches beside the road, I’d have no hesitation about pulling in to eat my fill. My meal wouldn’t be a gourmet experience but I’d know I could rely on the food which would keep me going for the next few hours. When you’re hungry, any food is, almost literally, a godsend.

Well, there were no branches of McDonald’s, or of any other fast food franchises, in first century Palestine! But travelling people still got hungry and must have sometimes found it impossible to obtain food. This was the predicament which the disciples realised had arisen at the start of our story. Jesus – who’d very much wanted to get some time alone after he heard of the death of his cousin John the Baptist – had sailed across the Sea of Galilee to get away from the crowds and their constant demands. But his stratagem hadn’t worked: the people had simply walked round the end of the lake and were waiting for him as he disembarked. Is it disrespectful for us to imagine that, just for a moment, Jesus felt a flash of irritation and thought: “Can’t they give me even a few moments for myself?” Nevertheless he soon got stuck into his demanding ministry of healing: the peoples’ desperate needs couldn’t be ignored and the queue of people seeking his help never seemed to get any shorter.

The day drew on; evening was closing in and no-one had eaten for many hours. Jesus may not have noticed the passage of time, but his disciples certainly did. They managed to get Jesus’ attention and said, “Look here, Master! We’re a bit worried about these people as they’ve been here all day and haven’t had a bite to eat”. They knew that some folk wouldn’t have eaten since dawn as, although rich people ate well in this period, many others lived at, or even below, the basic subsistence level and had a poor or inadequate diet. (The line in the Lord’s Prayer for God to supply “daily bread” reflects that reality). So the disciples weren’t just worried that people were feeling a little bit peckish: they knew that they had a genuine need for food. And they proposed a solution: that Jesus should dismiss everyone and send them to the nearby villages to buy food before it was too late.

Were the disciples really thinking straight at this point? For we’re told that thousands of people were present: even if they were to descend on a Sainsbury’s superstore they would soon clear its shelves! And there was no such store nearby, at best one or two village shops or a small market which, in any case, would have run out of produce by midday. In other words, the proposal the disciples were making was quite preposterous; but it was the only one that they could think of.

Jesus had other ideas. “Tell you what”, he said to the disciples, “I’m busy here,, talking to people and healing them. So why don’t you feed them, instead of asking me to do it?” We can imagine them exchanging glances, can’t we? How could Jesus be so stupid as to suggest such a thing: did he think that they had a secret cache of food hidden nearby? They were stuck, with no obvious way of getting hold of anything. All they had to hand were a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish (and please notice that, in Matthew’s gospel, there’s no mention of a little boy!) That amount of food wouldn’t even be enough for Jesus and the disciples; it would never stretch to the crowd.

Can we visualise Jesus raising his eyes skywards at this point, as he contemplated the disciples’ lack of faith and trust? And can we almost hear the exasperation in his voice as he said, “All right, pass me that bread and those fishes”? Well, we all know what happened next: how he prayed and then started dividing up the food which miraculously just seemed to keep on coming from his hands until everyone had more than enough to eat. Indeed, the disciples, clearly supporters of ‘Keep Galilee tidy’, had to go round at the end, picking up the leftovers.

This is, I think, Jesus’ only miracle to be recorded in all four Gospels. That must mean that it is important, even though we may struggle to believe it. And there are several themes we can derive from the story. One obvious one is the idea of Jesus feeding us through the Eucharist: indeed, the way in which Jesus blesses the bread and then shares it takes us first to the Last Supper, then to that evening at Emmaus after Jesus’ resurrection, and finally to the early Church’s practice as described by Paul in 1 Corinthians. Knowing that today’s service would include Communion, I really wanted to develop these thoughts. But I don’t feel that I can, as the passage we’re studying doesn’t make that reference. It’s John, not Matthew, who gives us Jesus’ theological reflection on this miracle, calling himself the eternal Bread of Heaven.

What’s more fruitful is looking at where the four Gospel writers place this story. John is vague as to when it happened but the other three set it directly after the beheading of John the Baptist (a very grisly story for a Sunday morning!). Of course the two events may well have occurred in close proximity; and we certainly become aware that both John and Jesus were operating in a time of political tension. But was there another for placing the stories one after the other? I think there may have been: were Matthew and his co-authors highlighting the huge discrepancy between the lavish feasting and sordid excesses that went on at Herod’s palace, and the near-starvation conditions in which ordinary people had to live? For we all know that line in Mary’s song, the ‘Magnificat’, where God critiques this kind of disparity and promises change with the words, “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away”.

Such differences still exist in today’s world, of course; and I’m not just thinking of the contrast between oligarchs feasting on beluga caviar, quails’ eggs and vintage champagne and folk who, even though they have one or more jobs, find it hard to pay their bills or clothe their children and must resort to foodbanks to fill their larders. I’m also thinking of the disparity between those of us who eat fairly modestly (with the occasional splurge!) but who always know where the next meal is coming from, and those who struggle to survive on scrawny crops from their withered fields or the remnants they’ve managed to salvage from their bombed or flooded houses. Does this story show us that God is on the side of the hungry? Is it a quiet condemnation of the way in which ample resources are shared – or, to be precise, are not shared – in his world? If it is, can we do anything to change this dismal state of affairs? Might we, at the very least, be able to collect up and distribute some leftovers?

It’s challenging, isn’t it, to recognise how Jesus turned the disciples’ request to feed the multitude straight back to them. They were clearly faced with an impossible situation – yet he had no compunction in charging them to “do something” about it. This miracle, at least in the form we read it, only happened because the disciples failed to rise to the task that Jesus had set before them. Today, however, Jesus is no longer physically present in the world; if the hungry are to be fed – or, indeed, if other needs are to be met – it is only people who can do it. Thus it is we, who stand in the sandals of the Twelve who were there, who must obey Jesus’ ridiculous command. Or will we allow ourselves to be shamed by those good people who have no faith but are acting out of purely humanitarian concern?

Of course this story does make us wonder if we can do miracles in Jesus’ name? – for that would certainly make things easier to help the needy! Some Christians would say that we can, in the most literal sense of the word; but I have my doubts. Please don’t misunderstand me: I’m not denying the possibility that God can act in that way, but I also think that miracles have always been few and far between. So the question we have to ask is: “Are we Christians, is the Church, really able to make a real difference to peoples’ lives, armed only with our own assets and the help of God’s Spirit?” I think the answer is, “Yes, we can – but only if we offer to God the finite resources we do possess, and decide not to selfishly hoard them but to offer them to others. Those “resources” could include not just our money and possessions, but also our time, energy, innate abilities, and acquired skills.

I’ve already said that we read about this miracle in all four gospels. The authors clearly recorded it again and again, not just because it was spectacular, not just because it confirmed Jesus as someone special, not even because it confirmed him as a second Moses, able to feed God’s people in the wilderness. No; I’m sure they also believed that the Church should never forget about it. And nor must we; for we are still – sadly – surrounded by human need and anguish, not only in distant lands but on our doorsteps; and we know how we despair of meeting those needs and find it hard to hear Jesus saying, “You do something about it”. In vain we hope for a miracle; when that does not happen, we sit back defeated, enjoying our own comforts while others starve, and saying, “Well, there’s nothing that can be done”.

I don’t think that is what God intends us to do; and I also know that in every church there are exceptions, people who have said, “I refuse to be overwhelmed by the plight of so many people. I know I can’t do much when I look out onto an ocean of need, but at least I can take out a few bucketsful by feeding the hungry and agitating for justice”. Perhaps the real miracle we should look for is not one of direct divine intervention; perhaps it should be the miracle of every Christian being so moved to action that the whole Church works as one to do all it can to feed the world, both in body and in spirit. The beauty of that miracle is that it’s perfectly achievable.