Brief synopsis of the readings: Speaking in Isaiah God proclaims that all who are thirsty or poor should come to God who will provide for everyone without cost. “Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy?” He concludes by promising to renew the everlasting covenant with “the benefits assured to David.” In Matthew’s Gospel we read about Jesus hearing of the death of John the Baptist. He went off by himself but was followed by crowds of people. He was moved with pity and he cured the sick. As evening approached Jesus’ disciples suggested he dismiss the crowd so they could “go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” But Jesus suggested the disciples feed the crowds themselves. All they had were fives loaves of bread and two fish and Jesus asked for them. Jesus then told them to instruct the crowd to be seated. He then blessed the loaves and fish and gave them to his disciples who then gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied and when they gathered the leftovers they filled twelve wicker baskets. “Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children.”

Let’s begin by admitting that we don’t know the size of the crowd because we would count the women and children. In the centuries since these Scriptures were written we’ve learned a great deal, through revelation and experience, on how we are to respond to God’s commands and how we are to treat each other. This can be tricky because it calls us to honor and recognize where we’ve been while continuing to look forward. We can’t pretend that Matthew included women and children but we also can’t use this as a justification for continuing to exclude them.

I note this because we’re not going to fully understand these (or any) readings outside of the context of where, when and why they were written. Our first reading from Isaiah was written toward the end of their Babylonian exile, where they were invaded and driven to a foreign land. At at a time when they were sorely tempted to abandon God and worship pagan gods, God reminded them that he was the source of all the things they needed. Their suffering was at an end and they were on the cusp of being able to return home. If anyone has seen the current movie The Odyssey it’s easy to understand the pull to return home and the pain of fearing it will never happen.

And it’s a good reminder that how we “spend our money” matters and keeping our eyes on God provides our best path. But our Gospel extends this command to each other. The parable of the loaves and fish should be familiar to any Christian, and it’s the only of Jesus’ miracles to be in all four Gospels.

We’ve normally looked at these loaves and fish as “self multiplying,” that is, when one loaf is given another magically appears. But Jesus gave instructions that the people gathered should sit down on the grass. I’ve always suspected the possibility that at least some of the people brought their own food. As with most crowds, then and now, some had none, some had only what the needed and some had more than they needed.

I’m going beyond what the Scripture explicitly tells us and this is called “midrash” and it imagines details that may give us a deeper understanding of these readings. I’m not claiming this is exactly what happened, but let’s give it a try.

When the crowds followed Jesus it appeared to be spontaneous but they were in need because Jesus was moved with pity and healed the sick. When Jesus told them to sit in the grass we can imagine they began to talk among themselves. Jesus’ messages consistently talk about caring for the poor and being aware of the need around us and the idea of the wealthy sharing their surplus food with those who didn’t have any isn’t much of a stretch.

And maybe that was the miracle. Not so much that Jesus had the “magic bag” that multiplied food but that the hearts in the crowd were moved to share among themselves. We often build community over meals and this would have allowed people from different backgrounds to build communities.

Three weeks ago I spoke of how we’ve progressed a great deal in agriculture and we can now grow much more food than we could have at the time of Jesus. We celebrate that progress but we’re still learning how to evenly distribute what we grow.

Estimates vary but it’s generally thought that about 50 million people in the United States experience food insecurity in a population of nearly 350 million. The popularity of stairmasters and other fitness equipment points to this disparity: while some spend time seeking adequate calories, others of us spend money on things that will burn calories.

I say this not to promote guilt but awareness. This will continue as long as we spend our money for what is not bread and our wages for what fails to satisfy. But I don’t think we begin this process by writing checks so much as by building community. If the crowds followed Jesus on his journey and returned having shared a meal with strangers, that would be a wonderful miracle and a good way to “spend our money.”

Finally, in our quest for this we need to cut ourselves some slack. A perfect distribution of food is a tough ask and so is the perfect balance of our food consumption. Without going too far afield I think we can agree that we sometimes subsidize food in a way that the cheapest food contains the most calories and the least nutrition. We can talk about policy and legislation, which party has the best ideas but it begins when we all begin to observe what we see around us.

At the end of the day, if we are to keep our eyes on God for what we need then we need to keep our eyes on Jesus to see our role in this.