We all need food. It is one of our most basic needs. But it’s not just an individual need, it’s also something we need as as a society, as a community. A society that is short of food can collapse into chaos very quickly. Many, if not most, of the revolutions and drastic social disruptions that have occurred in human history have been in times when people were so short of food that they felt compelled to attempt change by violence.
Today we hear how Jesus fed the crowd that was following him everywhere (Jn 6:1-15). Up until now in his ministry Jesus has healed, and he has taught. Feeding is something different. Feeding links back to God saving his people when they were lost in the desert and on the brink of rebellion – for the Jews the connection to manna from heaven would have been obvious.
When Jesus heals it is part of a personal encounter, he is not just curing a sickness, he is getting deep inside a person. As we noted when we read the story of the centurion with the sick daughter and the woman with a hemorrhage he expected an acknowledgment from them. When he heals the group of lepers he is disappointed when only one returns to acknowledge what was done for him.
The feeding is different. Jesus does this for the whole group of people, all 5000 of them. He didn’t go around checking who was hungry, or asking for a response. Very likely many people didn’t even know where this sudden meal had come from.
We have become very used to thinking of the Eucharist as a key part, maybe even the foundation, of our individual relationship with Jesus. And so it is. But it’s more than that. Jesus feeds the community as a whole, he feeds us as a group, not you, and me, and that other person over there. If we miss this point we risk missing what he was showing us about the nature of God, the God who sends rain on the just and the unjust. We so want and expect God to be in business of sorting the good from the bad, of rewarding the good and punishing the bad. He doesn’t, at least not until the end of time.
Everyone gets fed, together.