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A large pot was found and put on the fire. The visitor put the soup-stone into the water. Whilst the water was warming, the woman of the house rushed to her neighbour next door, and by the time the water had begun to boil, all the neighbours had gathered to see the stranger and his soup-stone.
He dipped his spoon into the water and tasted the water with relish, "Ah, delicious! All it needs is some potatoes." One woman shouted, "I have potatoes in my kitchen" In a few minutes she was back with a large quantity of sliced potatoes which were thrown in the pot. The stranger tasted the brew again. "Excellent!" he said, but added wistfully, "if only we had some meat this would become a tasty stew." Another housewife rushed home to bring some meat which the stranger accepted graciously and flung into the pot. When he tasted the broth again, he rolled his eyes heavenward. "Ah, tasty! But if we had some vegetables it would be perfect, just perfect."
One of the neighbours rushed off home and returned with a basketful of carrots and onions. They were thrown into the mixture. The stranger commanded, 'Salt and sauce!" "Right here", said a housewife. Then came the command, "Bowls for everyone." People rushed home in search of bowls. Some even brought back bread and fruit. They then sat down to a delicious meal as the stranger handed out large helpings of the incredible soup. As they all shared their common meal everyone felt strangely happy as they laughed and talked and shared together. The stranger slipped quietly away, leaving behind the soup stone, which they could use any time they wanted to make the loveliest soup in the world.
As a moral story, this is a perfect example of what can be achieved when people share in common the gifts they have. It requires little exposition for the hearer to recognise this truth and interpreting it more completely, it would be easy to extend the meaning to see the stranger as God or His agent.
There are many who believe that the Miracle of the Feeding of the five thousand is a similar tale. Though not in Matthew's version, a boy with loaves and fishes is brought forward in response to Jesus's request that the disciples feed the crowd. What is offered is meagre but generous. A rational explanation of what happened goes along the lines that when people saw the generosity of the boy, the crowd suddenly unwrapped the parcels of food some had bought and they shared it with those who had nothing.
The miracle becomes a story of what happens when generosity is released by a small act and how it snowballs. This interpretation would make this an excellent story to be used int eh face of disasters like the present one in the Horn of Africa and each day our televisions are filled with images and appeals which rend the heart. In the face of such need how can we fail to respond. How can we not share what we have with those who have nothing?
If the feeding of the 5,000 can be used to unlock the hearts and purses of the world's rich in order to help the world's poor then it is a marvellous story and ought to be told and re-told. But then, it would not be a miracle. It would be an excellent moral tale and whilst I would not wish to detract from its use to help people to a greater generosity and sharing, that's not the true purpose of this miracle.
To understand that true purpose, we have to re-wind the events a little to the moment before the young boy with the generous heart is found. Jesus was mourning the violent and untimely death of his cousin John the Baptist, the herald of the Good News and the one who was immensely special to Jesus. As with most of us when a loved one dies, Jesus needs to be alone. He needs a time to grieve and to bring his thoughts before His Father. The crowds, however, did not respect this and followed him. Characteristically, despite his own need for solace, Jesus responded to their need. He had compassion on them. He cured the sick. He touched their lives with the healing love of God. But there were so many of them that the day grew into dusk and the disciples, perhaps being protective, urged Jesus to send them away so they could buy food for themselves.
At this point, Jesus became Impossible in the way that God can sometimes seem to be - making ridiculous demands on us. "They needn't go away", he said, "you give them something to eat." Can you imagine the look that passed between the disciples and the sense of exasperation. How ridiculous! How can they feed so many with so little? Whatever was Jesus thinking of! He really can be infuriating.
The boy isn't mentioned in Matthew but is part of St John's version of this miracle and it is John who supplies us with the real meaning of this miracle.
As Matthew has it, following Mark and sharing this story with Luke, Jesus makes the impossible request because he knows that he is going to act. He asks for the bread and fish to brought to him. He no longer expects the disciples to do the impossible. He is going to do it himself. This is a Divine moment when Jesus demonstrates that He is God. Only God can perform miracles because a miracle is a supernatural intrusion into the natural order of things which transforms the natural world in a particular way. Something impossible becomes possible through the direct intervention of God. We can probably all think of situations where this is so - such as someone with an incurable disease who suddenly gets better, but we have to be careful with that one, because so many with incurable diseases die. That brings into question whether God cares for some more than others, which gets us into difficult ground. However, if we see a miracle as a Divine Disclosure, which reveals to us just who God is, and, in this case, who Jesus is, then we see it for what it is - a display of God's divine activity which is possible in the world and in all our lives.
We have to ask ourselves what Jesus was actually doing when he fed the 5,000 with a meagre ration of fish and bread. He was doing the impossible but in so doing he made it possible.
For a truer meaning of this miracle we have to go to the version written by St John. By the time John was writing there was a development going on which linked the actions of Jesus to the richer meaning behind the actions.
Following the feeding of the 5,000 the crowd kept following Jesus. They wanted more bread. They wanted Jesus to keep showing them how he could do impossible things. They behaved like people who go to magic shows to see new and more amazing tricks. They haven't grasped the meaning of the feeding as a sign of God's power and engagement with the world in order to save it. And Jesus tells them so:
You are looking for me not because you saw
signs (that he was God) but
because you ate your fill of loaves.
And then comes the explanation of what this
miracle is all about. We are to work not for food which
perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life. Jesus
goes on to claim that He is the Bread
of Life. This is one of the seven I
am sayings in John's Gospel - the seven signs that He is
God. In using I am Jesus
deliberately takes
the title of God which God gave to Moses.And the connection with Moses doesn't end there because it was God who provided food from heaven when ll the people were grumbling at Moses that they had nothing to eat. Better, they said, that we starved in Egypt than die in the wilderness without food. So God showered Manna upon them. The action of God providing Manna from Heaven and the action of Jesus in feeding the 5,000 are meant to be connected. Jesus is presenting himself as the new Moses, the new leader who is taking his people to the Promised Land - though that is not Cana - it is the Kingdom of Heaven.
And suddenly the crowd is not historical; the people walking through the wilderness are not escaping from Egypt - they are both us. They are the Christian Church, the people Jesus claims for His own who are travelling with him as companions on the journey to heaven. Companions - which literally means, those who eat bread with each other and in our case, with Jesus.
Now, let's just go back to Matthew and his miracle. What did Jesus do when the disciples gave him the bread and the fish. He took them, blessed them, broke them and gave them. This is the classic action of the Eucharist. At the Last Supper, Jesus took, blessed and broke the bread and gave it to the disciples. This miracle and we understand it best in John's version - is about the Eucharist. It is about the way Jesus intended to feed his people. The miracle finds its true meaning in the Last Supper - the sacred meal which Jesus commanded the Church to do in order to bring him into our midst every time we assemble together - in order to receive the manna from heaven which is the food for our journey.
By the time the Gospels were written, the Church was already the Eucharistic community. We read in Acts 2:42 that the first Christians met together daily for prayer, teaching, fellowship and the breaking of the bread. In other words, the Eucharist.
Because Jesus insisted on it - this is the central act of worship of the Christian Church - always has been, always will be. Not because I and generations of priests say so. This is not man's invention. This is the miracle thought up by Jesus himself.
Luigi Santucci, an Italian novelist who wrote a remarkable meditation on the life of Jesus called Wrestling with Christ says this of the Last Supper:
At this point I see his eyes wandering around over the remains of the bread on the table-cloth and then shining with an ineffable inspiration: this, this wold be his hiding place. That's where he would take refuge. That night they would not capture him in his entirety He would hide himself in that bread ....
In so doing, he created a new miracle - He no longer fed 5,000 - he would feed millions and millions, billions and trillions - with bread and with wine - his spiritual food given to every Christian as manna for the journey to God and His Heavenly Kingdom.
This amazing miracle which may have begun in a point in time goes on endlessly. And today we are gathered with Jesus as it were on that hillside and he feeds us. And in so doing he opens up another miracle in which we can play a divinely inspired role.
Through his lavish gift from God of his sustaining grace - freely given, he shows us the absolute generosity of his nature. Our response must also be generosity. The desire of God is that we must be generous to others and feed them not only with the graceful insights we have of God's loving nature - but also as part of his provision for others - including, and especially, the starving in our world today - because in a truly generous world, no-one would starve. We are fed by God not just for our own journey, but in order that we can feed others, that they too may be companions of Jesus, with us, on the journey to eternal life.