Human Needs

Have you ever wandered up and down the aisles of a supermarket and thought to yourself, “Who eats all of this food? Where does it all come from?” There it is, row upon row - even cats and dogs have an entire section to themselves! And not just here, but in store after store, town after town, state after state, country after country, there is food in abundance! Maybe the thought creeps in, “Do I really need all I have bought, or did some of it just find its way into my shopping cart?” There is so much! Too much!
Jesus saw the crowd gathering around him. He saw them hungry; hungry for food certainly, but hungry also, we suspect, for the signs and miracles he could bring about. He was a realist as well as a visionary, and a man of infinite compassion. These people could not listen if they lacked nourishment. Jesus asked for food, and Philip, always practical, did a rapid calculation. In real terms it would, he estimated, take two hundred working days to earn enough money to feed all this many. He produced a few loaves and some dried fish. Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, broke the bread, and gave them to eat. These words are familiar, we hear them again at the Last Supper. St. John, our Gospel writer, writes, as always, not just a simple narrative, but to illustrate the theology of Jesus’ actions, moving us from the present truth to the eternal mystery. In his mind there must have echoed those incredible words: “Take and eat, this is my Body.” He had already made the point that this feeding of the multitude took place shortly before the Jewish feast of the Passover. We are caught up into the mystery of the Eucharist! The crowd, of course, had none of this in mind. For them, Jesus was a miracle-worker who could give the Jewish people their country back, free from the domination of Rome. Generally speaking, hungry people will always follow the person or party who can deliver on the promise to give them food. The crowd who wished to crown Jesus was no exception. However, from history, we know that the poor then, as now, were hungry not because food was unavailable, but because they could not pay for it. Jesus exposed this economic dilemma in his question, and then presented a solution. Jesus proposed a different system, one based on sharing! He told us that the world’s resources are for the world, and not for just a chosen few. We all have a responsibility for the health of all of God’s people. We can all contribute in some way to the preservation of the world’s resources and care for those who are most vulnerable. Jesus cared about the human needs of those who came to him, and he is our model! Do you really want such a radical for a leader? At the beginning of the 21st century is there a lesson here for all of us?