Today’s gospel reading (Matthew 14:13-21) is often described as the parable of the loaves and fishes, and on that basis it is one of the best known parables in the Bible. However it is not actually written as a parable at all. A parable has been described as “a usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle.”
And while this story certainly illustrates both a moral attitude and a religious principle, it is presented by the author of the Gospel of Matthew as an actual event from the ministry of Jesus. In fact, one reason it may be so well known is that the miracle actually occurred twice. These two incidents are cited in John chapter 6, Luke chapter 9, Matthew chapters 14 and 15, and Mark chapters 6 and 8.
One of the truly amazing things about the Bible is that it is a living document. This week I watched some of the antiques programme that’s on at lunchtime where the teams buy certain goods which are then auctioned off – the winner is the one who has raised the most from their trading. In that programme it’s always interesting to see the experts with their little magnifying glasses studying every little detail of an item, and that’s something that we can actually do with the Bible.
However good a person’s knowledge of the Bible may be, it can be improved, changed or modified, and the reason for this is that the Bible is not a closed book, but very much a living document which offers us incredible insights about God, ourselves, and about life in general.
Miracles can never really be fully explained, at least in most cases. There is a true story about Pope John Paul II when he was visiting a hospital. After being delayed on various wards, the doctor on a ward he was due to visit shortly sat down in the nearest seat which happened to be a wheel chair just to make some notes. Eventually the Pope came onto the ward. As he passed the doctor and offered the sign of the cross to him, the doctor quickly jumped up from the wheel chair and walked forward. The entourage behind quickly starting crossing themselves, and began to praise God for this incredible miracle !
However most miracles really can’t be explained – they are things which are rightly beyond our understanding; however that doesn’t mean they have no meaning for us today. Bishop Tony Crockett the Bishop of Bangor who died at the end of June wrote a letter to clergy in his Diocese just after he had been told he had only a couple of hours left to live. The letter was dictated to his daughter and finished with this line, ‘I hope you will not forget the words, God is good – all the time’.
And miracles go some way to reminding us of this fact which, with our human frailties, we may so often forget ! God is good – all the time !
In today’s Gospel we encounter hungry people being met by a suggestion from the disciples that Jesus send them away to get something to eat. But Jesus had something else in mind. Maybe it was his way of saying, “God is good.” But the disciples really didn’t know to reply, “All the time.” So Jesus told them not to send the hungry people away but to give them something to eat themselves. He was saying, “You don’t think there is enough for these people, but the truth is—there is enough because God will provide.”
The miracle of feeding the 5,000 reveals how God can give people what they need, because he is good: All the time… And this miracle can give us hope and direction if, as a result of it, we can see that everything is possible with God.
Sometimes we are too sophisticated to believe in miracles—to believe that God really is good—all the time; that the power of God can, in every instance, provide more than we can imagine. Sometimes we know so much we can’t see the truth when Jesus challenges us with the familiar, “You—give them something to eat.” And yet, the goodness of God calls us always to know that God’s love, moving in and overflowing from us, can provide what God’s people need: because God is good: All the time.
In every situation in life, God’s power works towards lifting up whatever promotes love in that situation. Wherever there is injustice or pain or grief or hardship or hunger, God is there, for God is good: All the time.
As Paul says so wonderfully in his letter to the Romans, “In all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Paul reminds us that in all things God’s abundance will, in the final analysis, become sufficient to meet our needs. Right here. Right now. In the midst of who and what we are, God will provide. Because God is good: All the time.
We do understand though that this does not mean that people of faith will have no problems or misery. But it does mean that God will give us the grace and strength to bear the load as we overcome and move through whatever may come our way. Ours is not a faith of easy answers and unrealistic solutions. Jesus entered life and died on the cross for us, showing us that in whatever we experience, in whatever may trouble us, in whatever distress or threat we feel, we need not fear because God is in it with us. God will lift up in our midst what we need to make it through.
A wonderful privilege of knowing God is knowing that he is not far away and aloof from us. Jesus shows us that God does not stand outside of life, but is right here with us, beside us in our broken and troubled and suffering world. Paul reminds us that nothing in existence can ever separate us from the love of God, revealed in Christ.
In whatever crisis or issue we face in life, in whatever trouble may come our way, the power of God’s love will provide what we need. From the midst of the Body of Christ, God will lift up the resources to accomplish his loving purposes, because God is good: All the time.
And with that knowledge we can move forward in our lives with a huge confidence, and we can be courageous enough to transform ourselves into those people of 2000 years ago, who watched with awe and wonder the miracles Jesus performed. We will have questions, but informed by our faith we can recognise that God is the long-sought source of the answers to those questions.
We will realise that just as God did such wonderful things with such small quantities of loaves and fishes, he can do wonderful things with the little we offer him, and we will have the courage to “pass out the baskets,” trusting in our own complete faith that he will provide for whatever need there may be. AMEN
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