How many loaves do you have?

 In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.  And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar."  Then His disciples answered Him, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"  He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?"  And they said, "Seven."  So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground.  And He took the seven loaves and gave them thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude.  They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.  So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments.  Now those who had eaten were about four thousand.  And He sent them away, immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and came to the region of Dalmanutha.

- Mark 8:1-10

Yesterday we read that Jesus went to the Gentile region of Tyre and Sidon, north of Galilee.  And He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden.  For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet.  The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.  But Jesus said to her, "Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs."  And she answered and said to Him, "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs."  Then He said to her, "For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter."  And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.   Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee.  Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him.  And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched His tongue.  Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened."  Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.  Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it.  And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, "He has done all things well.  He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak." 

  In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.  And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar."  Then His disciples answered Him, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"  He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?"  And they said, "Seven."  So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground.  And He took the seven loaves and gave them thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude.  They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.  So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments.  Now those who had eaten were about four thousand.  And He sent them away, immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and came to the region of Dalmanutha.   Matthew's and Mark's Gospels both tell us of this second feeding in the wilderness, in addition to the feeding of the five thousand men earlier.  And the texts make it very clear that these are both meant to be separate incidents (Jesus will refer back to both).  Of course there are similarities in both events.  Both have clear allusions to the Eucharist:  giving thanks, breaking the bread, to be distributed to the people by the disciples. Both are feedings in the wilderness.  But we should also look at the details that are different.  In the earlier miracle, there were five loaves, here there are seven.  My study bible says that five is symbolic of the Law.  Seven symbolizes completeness and here would indicate spiritual perfection.  These crowds have now been with Jesus and the disciples for three days, the number of days Jesus will rest in the tomb.  It indicates a participation in Christ's death, the Cross, and tells us about what it means to undergo spiritual transformation, and thus "perfection," completeness.  In the earlier feeding miracle, the crowd was clearly Jewish.  As we have been told in yesterday's reading that Jesus is now in the region of the Decapolis, this miracle may include both Gentiles and Jews -- symbolically, all the nations.

Jesus' healing of the Syro-Phoenician woman's daughter, and the miracle of the deaf and mute man in the Decapolis from yesterday's reading combine to tell us something about the now further expanding nature of Christ's ministry.  His work and the miraculous occasions of healing have begun to expand outside of purely Jewish community, into the regions beyond.  That the "little dogs may eat of the children's crumbs" (said by the Syro-Phoenician woman in yesterday's reading) is a far more prescient statement than could be imagined from that reading alone.  Here in today's reading we're told of the "seven large baskets of leftover fragments" that will be taken into the whole world, completing the mission of Christ to all the nations, and indeed we know that "the little dogs" or puppies of this world who also beg to be fed will be nourished with the leftover "crumbs" from the children's table.  What it tells us is that with God's help and effect -- which we can't predict -- we just don't know what will be the outcome of acts done in faith.  I find the following dialogue central to the reading today.  The disciples ask, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"  And Jesus' response is simply to ask them, "How many loaves do you have?"   Jesus always starts with whatever is available, whatever resources His disciples have on hand.  In fact, in tomorrow's reading He will chastise the disciples for mistakenly thinking He's upset because they haven't bought enough bread with them.  There is a tremendous lesson contained in this understanding that Jesus' emphasis is not all about advanced material preparation, but rather about the power of faith to take whatever it is we have on hand, and start there.  We seize the moment through faith; this is where we begin.  It also teaches us about time and patience.  None of the disciples know the results of what they have begun, this journey with Christ.  They could not possibly have imagined where the seeds of their faith would lead.  But the end isn't important here, especially in material terms.  It's the beginning that is important.  It's starting -- with Christ and with faith -- with whatever we have on hand, His way.  Jesus' actions take us out of purely material-based thinking, and into a place where we trust God.  It's like an adventure, not a mathematical calculation.   Wherever we are, we are "good enough" to just start -- with faith, with prayer.   God invests in us when we are opened up to dialogue and communion.  This applies to "who" we are as well.  We need not wait for some kind of "perfection" in our own sight.  We don't even have to have a self-invented game plan; along the way Christ may provide us with better goals than we start with on our own, better values, a better way to see what is of real worth.  There is always fertile ground to grow what we cannot begin to expect.  All He teaches us is persistence, faith, endurance, communion.  The parables of the Kingdom given to us in Mark's Gospel --  the Sower, the Mustard Seed, the farmer whose crops grew at night while he slept -- they all tell us this same thing.  Can we have the patience, and faith,  and courage to do things this way?