Detail of a mosaic depicting the feeding of the 5,000 in the "Burnt Church" in Hippos, an archaeological site on a mountain a mile east of the Sea of Galilee.

The church was built around 1,500 years ago.

The miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has, for centuries, captured peoples’ imaginations. It is the only one of Jesus’ miracles that is recorded in all four Gospels, perhaps because of the sheer size and scale of the event. As Matthew retells it, the story is bursting with activity. Late in the evening, a huge crowd of people, hungry to hear Jesus speak, are now hungry for food. Rather than sending them away to the villages to buy food for themselves, Jesus blesses, breaks and shares five loaves and two fish with 5,000 men, plus women and children. The whole crowd eats until they are filled, and there are still twelve baskets of food left over. We are left to imagine how Jesus’ disciples must have been feeling as they witnessed the miraculous power of God’s love on a scale they had never seen before.

However, whilst the feeding of the great crowd of people is a miracle of epic proportions, it begins with something quite small and apparently insignificant. Perhaps this should not come as a surprise. After all, Jesus has already taught his disciples that the kingdom of heaven is most like the small and seemingly insignificant miracles of everyday life – a tiny mustard seed that grows into an enormous tree or a portion of yeast that can make enough bread for a wedding feast. Here, the disciples witness the kingdom of heaven at work in exactly the way that Jesus has described it to them. Who would have ever believed that a meal of five loaves and two fish could possibly feed thousands of people? Certainty not the disciples, who look at what they have and describe it as ‘nothing’. However, whilst it is may be true that what they have to offer seems meagre and insufficient, it is still ‘something’. It was enough of an offering for Jesus to take and use to enable the disciples to feed the great crowd of hungry people. But when they think that what they have to give is ‘nothing,’ the disciples are unable to imagine that with God, all things are possible.

I wonder if like the disciples, we often think that what we have to offer God is so inadequate or insufficient that we would describe it as ‘nothing’? Even when we don’t have any difficulty in seeing the value of the gifts and talents that others have to give, we can still think that our own offerings are so meagre that they hardly matter at all. When we see the enormity of the world’s problems, we might feel as though we don’t have the resources to make any significant impact. Perhaps if the disciples had attempted to feed the great crowd on their own, they might not have made much impact at all. However, Jesus transforms their humble offerings into more than they could have ever imagined. Whilst the miracle that Jesus performs is about feeding hungry people, it is also about transforming the way in which the disciples see themselves. It is a call for them to change their ideas about the power that God has to work in and through ordinary people, just like them. When we need it most, God gives us the power to work for good in the world. However, he can only equip and empower us if we are willing to offer ourselves to be the hands and feet through which God’s work is done. It doesn’t matter how meagre and inadequate our offering seems; what matters is that whatever we offer is ‘something’ that God can take, bless and use to make fulness of life a reality for the world that he loves.

‘So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an

offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.’

(The Message, Romans 12)

Loving God,You are our Creator and Sustainer.When you open your hand,you satisfy the hunger and thirst of every living thing.And so we look to you whenever we are in need,trusting in your love and your abundant goodness.Pour out your Spirit on us.Fill us with your compassion and love,so that we would willingly share some of our abundancewith those who have need.In times of doubt, remind us that you are the ultimate power of the universeand that with you, all things are possible. Help us to take our everyday, ordinary livesand place them before you as an offering. Equip us to be the hands and the feetthrough which your work is done in the world. In Jesus’ name we pray,Amen.