Let's start by looking at the last sentence in our gospel today: “Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children.”
To all the women and children hearing this: what is your reaction or feeling about not being counted? Maybe you feel excluded, angry or disgusted? Is there a sense of discrimination or inequality? What about the idea that women are put in the same category as children?
To all the men: do you feel honored, privileged and special?
Or is it simply an insignificant detail?
More than likely, there were so many women and children following Jesus and His teachings that it was just impossible to count them.
Now let’s look at the first sentence of today’s gospel: “When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, He withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by Himself.” We already know what happened to John the Baptist. He was violently executed over a silly incident involving a dancing girl, Salome. In appreciation for Salome’s dancing, Herod offered Salome a gift, anything she wanted. Salome checked with her mother, Herodias, who told her to ask for the head of John the Baptist. Herodias wanted John the Baptist dead because he had publicly stated his objections to Herodias divorcing her first husband (Herod’s brother Phillip) to marry the also divorced Herod.
How did Jesus react to the distressing news of His cousin’s death? The gospel merely states, “He withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by Himself.” It would be safe to assume that Jesus reacted, like so many of us upon hearing of someone we know being murdered, with shock, sadness, sorrow, fear and anger.
What the gospel is very explicit about is that Jesus wanted to get away and grieve. He wanted to be by Himself.
While we don’t know how long Jesus was in the boat, His privacy was short-lived. Obviously, Jesus wasn’t jet skiing around the lake because the crowd of full-time parishioners, seasonal parishioners and vacationers, along with the sick and lame, the sinners and prostitutes, the tax collectors and the curious onlookers were able to follow Him on foot.
What is so important to continually remember in this familiar gospel story is that the story is told in the context of death; a death that is a hideous murder. Notice the absence of vengeance, revenge, or an eye-for-an-eye mentality. Jesus is not out for payback against King Herod for killing His cousin and best friend.
What happens instead? Jesus sees the crowd and, “His heart is moved with pity.” Not pity in a sense of looking down on someone but rather having compassion for the crowd.
To me, this line of Matthew is what motivates all of Jesus’s actions, choices and responses: to have compassion.
To be compassionate is to be kind and gentle to those who are hurt. There are countless examples in the scriptures of Jesus’s compassion to the blind, the paralyzed, the lepers, the deaf-mutes and the widow of Naim who lost her only son. In today’s reading, Jesus shows compassion to the crowd of hungry and thirsty men, women and children.
The disciples realize how exhausted Jesus is, and they want to send the crowd away to buy food for themselves at the nearest 7-11 or McDonald’s. But Jesus challenges his disciples, “… give them some food yourselves.”
This had to be blunt and devastating to the disciples. It was not a suggestion, but rather a command. Isn’t Jesus commanding us to do the same every day? How many times are we asked to do the seemingly impossible, just as the disciples were commanded?
Jesus didn’t just click His fingers and there was a miracle. He asked the disciples what they had available. He invited them to share the little they did have. Christ asks the same of us, to share what little we have with those who have less.
“Five loaves and two fish are all that we have here.” Look at what Jesus does with the little that is given to Him. He takes it, He looks up to heaven, He blesses it and then gives it to His disciples who give it to the crowd. The meal is served by His disciples.
This is what is done every time we celebrate the Liturgy of the Mass.
Jesus gave us the bread of life and asks that we give it to each other.
The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes is so central to the gospel message that it is one of the few miracles found in all four gospels. Give what little you have to Jesus, and it will be multiplied to benefit others. And this does include women and children.
The seemingly impossible becomes possible when we invoke God’s assistance.
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