When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him,
he said to Philip, "Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?"
He said this to test him,
because he himself knew what he was going to do.
It may sometimes seem as though Jesus himself is asking us to solve problems that are beyond our capabilities. The implication of his question to Philip was that Philip ought to somehow figure out how they could purchase enough food to feed a massive crowd. It was almost as if he had been asked to take their meager resources and somehow make them sufficient for the need it hand. Almost. But that wasn't quite what Jesus had asked. Jesus knew that the problem couldn't be solved by their buying power. And Philip knew it as well. But Philip was distressed, apparently, to even consider it. His response to Jesus might have been intended to save himself from being assigned with an impossible task (after all, Jesus asked him specifically) or to let Jesus know that what he suggested was ridiculous to even consider.
Philip answered him,
"Two hundred days' wages worth of food would not be enough
for each of them to have a little."
One wonders if Philip would have faced any overwhelming problem in this way, by simply calculating, and then giving up. Maybe it was different in this case because he had been asked by Jesus, in a way that seemed to imply that the food could be purchased. Maybe this was what prevented him from relying on Jesus to solve the problem. Jesus wanted to how Philip would respond when he reached the limits of what he could do. He wanted to see, too, how Philip would handle a task such as this when it was apparently entrusted to him by Jesus. Would he try to handle it on his own, resulting in despair, or would he ultimately trust in Jesus to provide abundance and joy?
Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,
"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish;
but what good are these for so many?"
The resources were insufficient. The best they could do by their natural calculations fell laughable short. But there was still something admirable in Andrew at least bothering to mention what they did have to Jesus, even if it was only five loaves and two fish. It seemed he thought these were likely to be useless. But why mention them if he was not at least entertaining the possibility that, in the hands of Jesus, they might somehow be good enough even for so many? He couldn't express the possibility. It seemed absurd to even put it into words. But reaching these limits as Philip and Andrew both did was part of the experience Jesus intended them to have. They weren't to handle the situation on their own with their own resources. But they were to make themselves and all that they had available entirely to Jesus. Jesus, of course, did not need to involve anyone. He who created the universe from nothing did not need bread of fish as the starting point of a magic trick. But he wanted his disciples to understand what it meant to stay connected to him as branches to the vine. He wanted to show them how even the most meager assets could yield an abundance as long as they were not held back from him. This meant that Philip and Andrew could only respond well to such a test from Jesus if they responded with humility. Humility meant that they owned up to their limits and liabilities and still presented what we have to Jesus. It did not mean despair over those limits, because that would keep them from Jesus and frustrate his plans.
Jesus said, "Have the people recline."
Now there was a great deal of grass in that place.
Jesus was the good shepherd, making his people to lie down in green pastures, filling the hungry with good things. And he continues to shepherd his Church even today. He continues to look upon those who are physically or spiritually hungry with eyes of compassion. And it is clear that he longs to involve his disciples in bringing others to him to be fed. This is true in one way of clergy and religious and in another way for the laity. But it is true of everyone. It is not as though the laity are meant to only address physical needs while the clerics attend to the spiritual. Rather, clerics are meant to encourage, united, and direct the laity in their efforts to transform society. And the laity in turn are meant to help invite others to join them around the table of the Lord. Obviously both aspects of the challenge appear basically impossible in our day. The selfishness of men seems to preclude the possibility that the poor will ever receive sufficient sustenance. The world doesn't seem ready to even listen to the possibility that Christianity might have answers to the deepest questions that arise in the souls of men and women. Without having heard it what it proposes they assume they already know everything it might say. And yet, in the face of these, and many other challenges, Jesus has enough. Our resources are not enough. Not alone. But in his hands they can feed the world.
So they collected them,
and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments
from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.
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