In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.

When the Lord heard the report of the execution of his cousin, the Forerunner, we hear in the verse immediately prior to today’s Gospel reading, “He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by himself.  But when the multitudes heard it, they followed him on foot from the cities.” (Matthew 14:13)  We, the multitudes, go out from the towns and cities of this world into an apparently lifeless place—the wilderness—because there we see Life, we see Christ.  And Christ does not leave us there to die in the desert: as he had compassion us after our exodus out of Egypt so, too, he has compassion on us now.

Would we, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, sitting in the crowd have seen the miracle?  Or would we have seen simply that to be a disciple of the Lord is to take out food to feed those who hunger?  But that we may know more fully what it is to be a disciple of the Lord, the evangelist records for us the miracle.

When it was evening, the disciples came to [Christ] and said, ‘This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’

The disciples noticed a problem, a challenge, a difficulty and they came up with a solution, but they did not take it upon themselves to act.  Do you, do I, do the same?  Or do we rush ahead with what we think before we turn to the Lord?

They need not go away; you give them something to eat.

The Lord hears their request but states their solution is wrong and tells them to do the impossible.  And what the Lord asks of each of us is impossible: not just hard, not challenging, impossible.  How do we respond to the impossible?  Do we accept it, or do we go away thinking “I cannot do that, I’ll give up,” or “I’ll just do what I’d thought of first,” justifying ourselves by stating, “this is foolishness”?

The disciples, though, accepted “the foolishness of God [which] is wiser than men, and the weakness of God [which] is stronger than men.” (First Corinthians 1:25)

They said to him, ‘We have only five loaves here and two fish.’  And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’

And we are called to do the same.  If we are to be true disciples, if we are to be Followers of the Way, then we are to bring our problems to the Lord along with our solutions and the Lord will direct us to act.  And when we see it as madness and foolishness, we are to turn back to him with what we have.  And then he can work the miracle.

Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass; and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied.

Notice the everyday nature of the miracle—it is not spectacular, it is simply a normal occurrence when we are with the Lord.  To those in the crowd no miracle was wrought, they sat and were fed, but when we are disciples we see the miracles.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us turn to the Lord in prayer and let us follow wherever he would lead; and when we see madness and foolishness let us not be scandalised but offer to the Lord whatever meagre gifts we have that he may work the miracle.  And when we start to act in this way, being his disciples and followers, we may start to see the miraculous as everyday, the extraordinary as ordinary, and by taking up our own cross we may be transformed and transfigured into the human persons we were created to be and inheritors of eternal Life.

To our crucified and risen God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, be all glory, honour and worship, together with his unoriginate Father and the All-holy, Good and Life-creating Spirit.  Amen.

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