THOUGHTS FROM LAST SUNDAY: FEEDING THE THOUSANDS IN OUR UNEQUAL WORLD

‘Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat”… all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.’ (Matt. 14: 16, 20). In John’s gospel, the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 is a prelude to Jesus’ words: ‘I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger…’ (John 6:35). In Matthew’s and especially Mark’s (Mark 8:19) accounts, there is greater emphasis on the symbolism of the baskets of leftovers. Twelve baskets in the case of the feeding of the 5,000 because the miracle took place on the western side of the river Jordan flowing into the sea of Galilee, where the population was predominantly Jewish: twelve baskets of leftovers symbolized Jesus’ ability to meet the needs of all twelve tribes of Israel. The feeding of the 4,000 took place on the eastern side of the river Jordan near Bethsaida, where there was a significant Gentile population: seven baskets of leftovers are thought to symbolize the seven tribes living in the land of Canaan when the people of Israel arrived (cf. Acts 13:19. These were the Amorites, Hittites, Perrizites, Canaanites, Girgashites, Hevites and Jebusites). Jesus could thus also feed the other nations if the people of Israel came to reject his message.

In our own time, the accounts of the feeding of such large numbers of people, and the scale of the leftovers, have a quite different symbolism. The gospel does not tell us what was done with the ‘leftovers’, but we may be sure that the produce was put to good use. Earlier cultures and societies were careful and prudent with their food supplies. In our own, affluent, western society, too often food is simply wasted: yet in eastern Africa, the peoples afflicted by the drought and resulting famine have nothing and are entirely dependent on food supplies provided by the international aid agencies which arrive often too late. Tristram Stuart, author of Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal, comments: ‘feeding the 5,000 barely even scratches the surface of th[is] nation’s profligacy. If you collected all the food wasted every day in the UK, it would provide lunch for 60 million people. The food wasted in rich North American and European countries would be enough to lift all the one billion malnourished people in the world out of hunger.’ We have a long way to go before Jesus’ command to ‘give them something to eat’ is realized in our unequal world.

Last Sunday's Thought

We introduced the New Testament for Everyone, translated by Tom Wright and concentrated on Matt. 13:52 ('every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his storeroom some new things and some old things'). Some people are anxious for change; others are nervous at the thought of change. The gospel reassures us that while bringing in some new things we should also retain the best of the old which has worked well.

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