In the lesson from the Second Book of Kings, we hear a miracle story of feeding people when food is scarce. This is something we’re familiar with that the gospel lesson for this Sunday is about Jesus feeding the five thousand. We can see there’s a theological intention of John who retells the story about Jesus in comparison with Elisha that Jesus brings back the ancient miracle story of the Israelites in himself. Jesus is as great as Elisha and is described even greater. Jesus makes true the story that the Israelites have probably heard before in the miracle story of Elisha.
What we see in common in these two miracle stories of feeding a large crowd is that there’s always something small to start with that it becomes abundant to feed all. It’s neve from scratch. Neither Elisha nor Jesus turns stones into bread. A man from Baal-shalishah provides twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain whereas there’s a boy with five barley loaves and two fish in the gospel lesson. We might be curious exactly how both Elisha and Jesus are able to feed a large number of people when there’s clearly a shortage of food. We have no way of finding out how this is possible. But this gives us a chance to imaginatively explore different interpretations of this miracle story. I would like to suggest something that is quite realistic yet not so easy to put into action. Let’s pay attention to the man from Baal-shalishah or the boy with five barley loaves and two fish. They have no logical reason to offer what they have to Elisha or Jesus. The man does because Elisha is the man of God out of reverence. What about the boy? Probably, the same reason, considering that he follows Jesus to the Sea of Tiberias. This act of sharing their resources is a form of offering what they consider important. This is sacrificial, self-giving, and others-serving. Now, imagine what those around the man and the boy would think about this act of selfless giving. This may look foolish from our capitalist perspective but something in these bystanders might have changed. Their hearts might have been moved that they not only give up what they have but also decide not to eat first but feed those more vulnerable than themselves. This means they’ll not be able to eat food that belongs to them. This courageous act of giving up is only possible when this food comes from God that they offer back to God. “All things come of thee, O Lord; of thy own, have we given thee.” The more all those gathered around Jesus or Elisha give up, the greater God’s presence is revealed. The more they empty their food, the more God fills them and others with God’s abundant mercy and compassion. Offering their food is to give themselves, to become selfless. To be empty of self doesn’t take away who we are but creates room in our hearts that we’re filled with compassion for others because there’s no separation between them and me but one. Their suffering is part of my suffering though I can never suffer in the same way they do. A sense of “me, my, mine” is no longer there that there’s no “my” food. This spiritual emptiness, kenosis in Greek bears a sacred fruit of fullness, plerosis. If food symbolizes what defines who we are or that which makes us who we are that we cannot give up out of existential anxiety of losing ourselves, what is this food that we’re grasping with? It can be money. It can be a social status. We probably have all different kinds of food to which we’re so attached that we cannot even think of ourselves without it. From this perspective, the real miracle in the stories of Elisha and Jesus isn’t so much about feeding a large number of people but that those gathered around them are able to offer themselves to the Source of their being, which we do at the Eucharist. (Our offering of the bread and the wine symbolizes our offering of ourselves.) There’s no existential anxiety of losing them due to the fulfillment or fullness of God of which their emptying of themselves is its foundation. This is nothing different from willing “Thy Kingdom come” and our union with God. Where’s the man from Baal-shalisha around you with twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain? Where’s the boy with five barley loaves and two fish? What then is your twenty barley loaves and fresh ears of grain or five barley loaves and two fish? |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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