Reflection for 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Give them some food yourselves.” They responded, “Five loaves and two fishes are all we have.” And he said, “Bring them to me.” There are two life lessons in this familiar story. The first is found in Jesus’ direction to his disciples when they were faced with an overwhelming situation: “Give them some food yourselves.” Somewhat embarrassed, they hold up a few loaves and fishes before him and shrug their shoulders. Jesus takes the food and blesses the little they have to offer. But then, rather than hand out the loaves and fishes himself, he returns them to the disciples who are told to distribute them to the crowd.

There we are. This first lesson is clear. God depends on us to take part in the aid and nourishment and redemption of the world. Our poor, limited, small talents, taken and blessed by him, are returned to our hands to share with others. If we fail to do so, both our gifts and his blessing go wanting.

There was a little sparrow lying on his back with his feet up in the air. A rooster comes along and asks him what he is doing. The little sparrow replied, “Chicken Little said the sky is falling and I’m trying to hold it up.” “What?” exclaimed the rooster. “Do you think a little twerp like you can hold back the sky?” The sparrow replied, “One does what one can.” With what we have, no matter how few loaves and fishes, we do what we can because Jesus asks us to.

I think the second lesson is to be found in Jesus’ words, “Bring them - bring that insignificant five loaves and two fishes - to me and don’t back off. Don’t say, but it’s so little, what can we do? I know the problems are great and your resources are tiny, but don’t give up. Bring them to me to be blessed.”

A bus driver greeted a blind lady when she got on the bus. She sat down directly behind the driver and they carried on an animated conversation as he drove. When they reached the woman’s stop, the driver got out and escorted her through heavy traffic to the other side of the street. When he returned to his seat, the woman was still standing where he had left her. “She won’t budge till she knows I got back safely,” he said to another passenger. He honked his horn three times, the woman waived and he drove off. A blind lady and a lowly bus driver, two insignificant people, hardly five loaves and two fishes between them, if you will. But Christ blessed what they had, so to speak, and handed it back to them. Each then made a contribution from what little they had. They could have complained that they had so little and withheld their meager gifts. But instead, they fed each other from their small store of compassion and love. And that was enough. And it is enough to teach us that our small talents have been blessed and returned to us, and so we, too, must feed the crowd from what we have, however few our gifts.

That “what can we do?” with our “so little” is sometimes our cry. Some of you are parents who worry about your children and the pressures that they face. Many of us have been challenged so much by Covid-19. Some of you might be struggling financially and may be tempted to cut corners at work. Some of you might be a spouse who is desperately trying to make a go of your marriage. Some of you might be young people struggling to be faithful when so many others don‘t seem to care.

So, what are we to do? We have nothing but five loaves and two fishes, perhaps not even that. What is that when you are drowning in so many cares and anxieties and sorrows? What are we to do? For those at their wit’s end, those stuck with a mere five loaves and two fishes in the face of so many challenges, we realize that we have a friend who whispers, “Bring them to me – your skills and weaknesses, your strength and fears, your children and their future, your health concerns, your love, what little you have. Bring them to me – your hopes, your dreams, your convictions. Bring them to me - your burdens, your challenges, your responsibilities, your hurts. And I will bless them.”

When life gets the best of us, perhaps it is often because we focus too much on how little we can do and too little on how much Jesus can do. In any case, know that he will have the last word anyway. When all the anxieties have passed, the worries gone, and the crosses disappeared, one thing will remain – God’s love.

If you have a brief faith reflection on today’s reading that you would like to share, please send it to me at deaconruss@holyspiritunoh.org.