Dismiss the crowd
so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms
and find lodging and provisions;
for we are in a deserted place here.
The crowds had received teaching about the kingdom of God and those who needed it received healing. The disciples seemed to believe that was sufficient for them to call it a night, and to send the crowds away, to leave them as individuals to fend for themselves. This is often also as far as our modern churches manage to get. We fill people with teaching, we do our best to address their spiritual and physical needs with healing, and then send them out. But do people enter as isolated individuals and leave just as alienated and isolated? Do people enter hungry for something more and then leave still forced to search for that mysterious something alone?
He said to them, "Give them some food yourselves."
Jesus desired to gather people around him, to make a space where there could be true fellowship, a place where strangers could become sisters and brothers. To do so he would set a banquet before the people, but it couldn't be any ordinary meal. Mere table fellowship itself would not be enough to bridge the deep divides between people, the deep brokenness at the center of their hearts.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures (see Psalm 23:1-2)
Jesus was the good shepherd who could truly answer the deepest hunger of the human heart. Only he himself could command the crowds to sit and truly address them at the deepest level of their being. Yes, there was literal bread and fish shared, but also something more, something deeper, the connection to a lifeline from heaven. This was foreshadowed by Melchizedek who was the king of Salem, that is the king of peace, and who brought out bread and wine which he offered in his capacity as priest. It was in this same capacity that whatever Jesus himself offered would avail for the peace of those who would receive it, primarily in the offering of the Eucharist, but also in these symbolic feedings in a foreshadowing that was still a participation. Why the centrality of the Eucharist? Because it was by the one offering of Jesus to the Father that the brokenness of sin could be healed, that relations between both man and man and man and God could be restored. Jesus himself offered a heart perfectly disposed and opened to communion. What he himself desired was to feed the crowds with this same heart. Then they too could experience communion, being united to the Father and Son in the power of the Spirit. Then they too could experience the peace that Melchizedek foreshadowed, but which Jesus actually conveyed after his resurrection with his word, "Shalom."
Are we content to go to our churches simply to learn and hopefully find crumbs to address our immediate concerns? Or do we truly go to avail ourselves of the great treasures of communion and peace? When we truly taste these realities we begin to experience the peace that David described when he spoke of the Lord as his shepherd. But the communion made available for us goes far beyond what any Old Testament saint could experience. Our shepherd is truly present in every mass, in countless tabernacles throughout the world. His sacrifice is made present again and again to advance our peace and salvation and that of the entire world.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
Do we leave mass still looking for something else to satisfy our deepest hunger? We need not be too embarrassed to admit if this is sometimes true. Our faith in his presence is often present, but not as much of a powerful force of motivation in our lives as we would like. But he himself would like this faith to grow in us. He himself does not desire to send the crowds away, but rather to unite us in a feast of which only he can be the center.
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined (see Isaiah 25:6).
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