Gospel: John 6: 1-15
The story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes is remarkable in that it is entirely unremarkable. It is a story filled with the ordinary that comes to be realized as extraordinary. A hungry multitude needs to be fed. Jesus has everyone perform ordinary tasks: they recline, he gives thanks for what they have, and he distributes food for all. There are no grand gestures, no magic words or phrases. Just the ordinary acts of everyday that only in their completion do we come to see the miracle.
The response of the crowd to the miracle is to push for making Jesus a king, but just as God rejected the idea of a king in Israel in ancient times, so Jesus flees to avoid becoming king here. This is not the proper response to what God has done for us in the person of Jesus. It was not to create a ritual or to make Jesus a king.
What, then is the proper response? It is to give thanks and to do this in remembrance of him - not in a vicarious religious ritual, but in feeding others as God has fed us. If the religious ritual we have created does not lead us to this concrete task of feeding hungry people in our world, then the ritual has no meaning, and the action of God in the world through Jesus loses its power to transform our lives into his own.
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