If you are like me you probably understood that the miracle in the story is the breaking of the food and feeding 5000 people. However, like all gospel readings, there is a lot more going on that what Jesus does. We should probably disregard the title to the reading as some kind of clickbait.
As I read this, there is a great miracle here, and it is not done to those who receive the bread, they are active and willing participants in something far more powerful than food.
The Spirituality of Stopping
During the Covid 19 restriction period I became keenly aware of my vulnerable friends inability to get out of the house. For some this was because of compromised health, for others it was a sense of crippling anxiety and for some it was because their care-homes had been locked down. It was this revelation that brought home to me the blessing of walking.
I live in the Dandenong Ranges and am surrounded by reserves and parklands and large gardens. I have a son doing remote learning and a daughter doing remote kinder, this experience has driven me to leave the house for an hour to just walk and be alone. I am also struggling, as many people are, with employment uncertainty and income insecurity. This is the current reality for many though.
I began walking during winter and so the glimpse of a flower was rare, so I began to photograph them. When I posted them to social media it brought responses from my isolated friends trying to name them or just appreciating that someone was walking for them. Suddenly my time and space had a greater meaning.
This meant I was challenged to walk different paths, with eyes open and very much present in what I was doing.
I posted my intent to walk share my walks to bring a sense of joy to those who could not walk themselves. While this was appreciated by a number of my friends at the time, I have noticed a dramatic uptick in the number of people who are doing the same thing. Walking with the intent to find and photograph flowers and share them.
This experience has deepend my discipline of walking, but also my mindfulness and connection to community.
Give to Caesar
Taxation via the temple system was a strategy that Rome used to subdue Israel into paying taxes. While not popular, the tax collectors should have had a wonderful life giving role however, given that they took money for themselves and collected taxes for an imperial power, they were extremely distrusted.
In this reading, Jesus is challenged about paying tax to Caesar and he responds. However he does not just rage against Rome, he points a finger at the systematic abuse by the temple structure who play along with Rome.
Feeding the 5000
I may be totally off on this, but I don’t think that Jesus multiplying bread and fish was the miracle in this narrative. While trying to read the text through a lens of first century Jewish eyes I see righteous actions of Jesus’ home community as the lynchpin to the miracle.
If Jesus was Jewish, which he was, what was happening for him as he learns of the death of John the baptist, how was he expected to lament and grieve?
How are the disciples expected to respond to him?
How was crowd, good and faithful Jews that they are, supposed to respond to him?
And what was God doing, commanding and prompting in the midst of it all?
Was Cain’s entitlement Eve’s sin?
When reading Cain and Abel I can’t get passed Eve’s reaction to having Cain, intense celebration, compared to her reaction to have Abel, Meh. This huge contrast can’t help but set up a conflict between the two. We know how it ended, but does the issue sit with Eve’s parenting?
Also, once you read about Cain and Abel, try reading the parable of the Prodigal Son again and see if there is a bit of Midrash going on.
Common language means Godlike power?
The Tower of Babel paints an intersting picture of how humanity works. As technology advances, so does the power of a unified people to control their surroundings and destiny. However, for this to be a creative force for good a common language is needed. How often do we see a perversion or corruption of an advancement because we are talking different languages?
The Knowledge of Good and Evil
Genesis 2 gives us a whole lot of interesting stuff to consider, argue with, lament and place hope in. Remember that it is a theological text and not an historical text.
One major issue is the choices made by Eve and Adam to eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Usually Eve gets blamed for the event called “The Fall”, however this is a very simplistic understanding of a far more complex and engaging theology of life as we know it.
This video was created to assist in generating discussion of something beyond COVID-19 statistics and the sense of helplessness.
All understandings displayed in this video are subject to change as wisdom and information causes growth.
Who is wise?
There are 3 great parables in Matthew 25 that seem to argue that Wise people are the ones who gather to themselves and refuse to share. Our culture echoes this, but more often we find ourselves venerating people who pour themselves out rather than keep for themselves.
Holy Week #2
The Kingdom of God calls us beyond the violence of human made kingdoms. If a people are called to be a light to the nations, then what would the world look like if all nations behaved as ours does?
3 Squares 