In our gospel, the disciples and Jesus are in a deserted place, with a crowd of over five thousand hungry people. Then, Jesus blesses the few loaves and fish, and amazingly, “all ate and were filled!”
One of the earliest Christian communion prayers says: “As this broken bread, once dispersed over the hills, was brought together and became one loaf, so may your church be brought together from the ends of the earth.”
Perhaps this story of Jesus feeding the five thousand would urge us to add:
“May we, like this bread - like the Christ, be broken and shared with the world, that all may be fed.”
Scattered. Gathered. Scattered.
Theologian Donald Armentrout writes that “Christ has called the scattered grains from the hills and transformed them into something beyond what they had been by themselves: now they are bread. Christ has called the people and transformed them into something beyond what they had been by themselves: now they are Christ’s body.”
If the loaves in this story had remained unbroken – and unshared, they could have fed no one. But when the bread was blessed and broken and shared, “all ate and were filled.”
If the church were to remain only within its community here, without scattering into the world, it could feed no one. But when the church is blessed - and broken - and shared, it can be bread for a hungry world.
After we receive Holy Communion, after we have been fed by “the Living Bread,” we are told: “Go . . . Serve . . .” To this sending, we boldly reply: “Thanks be to God!”
Peace,
Fr. Bob+
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