Samantha Christopher

And all ate and were filled [...].

Dear Friends in Christ,

Our Gospel reading for today provides a slightly different narrative of the Feeding of the Five Thousand than we heard Sunday morning. However, what is common to both is a need for the crowd to be fed, and the apostle’s stubborn insistence that it should not be their responsibility. In Mark’s account, they respond to Jesus’s command to give the crowd rather sarcastically, pointing out that it would take two hundred denarii worth of bread.

This response is striking, especially in context with the beginning of Mark 6. The apostles have just returned from their teaching mission, where they were told to “...take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts….” (Mark 6:8) The apostles, who have returned from a journey where they were entirely dependent on the welfare and generosity of others, reject the opportunity to show the generosity shown to them when an opportunity presents itself. And yet, Jesus rejects their scorn, and performs a miracle of generosity, asking nothing in return.

This is not unlike our society, is it? So often we are told that generosity, kindness, that feeding the stranger and healing the sick would cost too much, that it should be their responsibility, that they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. And yet, we are shown a different way, a better way.

God showers us with his loving grace and kindness and expects nothing in return. When he manifested himself in Christ Jesus, taking on the form of a carpenter from a backwater town in 1st century Palestine, he knew all that was and is and is to come, and still suffered and died a deeply degrading death on the cross so that we might live. God comes to us with unceasing generosity, providing us with a gift that we can never earn, that no matter what good things we do in this life, we still don’t deserve--the gift of salvation and eternal life.

What a challenge, then, for us to seek to live a Christlike life. We are called to walk through the world with a spirit of unceasing generosity, of knowing that there is enough for all to be fed, for all to have a home, and for all to have a life of dignity. So often our society tells us that we should be selfish, that we should deny others so that we can have comfort and luxury. How much better and more generous life would be if we rejected that mindset of greed and scarcity for an attitude of loving care and generosity for all.

Your sibling in Christ,
Sam Christopher