Coffee With God

 

Reflection: John 6:1-15

John was not writing a chronicle of events that happened in the life of Jesus. Today’s passage begins by saying “Jesus went across the sea of Galilee. And a large crowd followed him.” There is no mention of any boat here. How would a large crowd go across the sea? That’s what happened in the Exodus: Moses led the large crowd to cross the sea without any boat. Like Moses, Jesus leads a large crowd to cross over the sea. Jesus goes up the mountain and sits down with his disciples, just as Moses was on the mountain, and taught his people. During the Exodus Moses gave manna and, like him, Jesus feeds those who follow him. In the book of Deuteronomy, 18:18 God speaks to Moses: “I shall raise up a prophet from their midst, one of their brothers, who will be like you. I will put my words in his mouth and he will tell them all that I command.” Towards the end of today’s passage we hear the crowd’s response to Jesus feeding of the 5000 with five loaves: “This is truly the prophet, the one who is to come into this world.” John makes these references to present Jesus as the new Moses who begins a new exodus, a passage from slavery to freedom, from sinfulness to the holiness of God, from death to life. The goal of the journey of Moses was the promised land of Canaan. Now Jesus leads his people to the true promised land, the Kingdom of God. Do not mistake this with an afterlife, but, it is about the here and now. The sign performed by Jesus indicates that in the Kingdom to which Jesus leads his people, everyone has sufficient resources, begins here and now. John is the only evangelist who notes that the one who has made available the little food he had “was a child” and that his bread was made “of barley” (v. 9), the staple food of the poor. But in our understanding, children would be the first to consume their snacks! The symbolic value of the detail is obvious: in the gospel, the child is the model disciple: Those who want to enter the kingdom of heaven must be like little children (Mk 10:15). Now the message is clearer: the poor child is the disciple, who is invited to make available all that they have for the benefit of their brethren. This is the key of the miracle! It is enough that people put aside their selfishness, overcoming the greed to possess, “which is the root of every evil” (1 Tim 6:10). When we make available all that we have to our sisters and brothers without reservations, the miracle happens: all are fed to the full and even have leftovers.