This week I am reflecting on the challenges of catering for people’s food needs, linked to my Bible reading one day on Matthew 14. vs 13 – 21 where Jesus feeds the 5,000 plus.
I have been spending a week away with 5 friends, all of whom normally cater for themselves as singles in their own homes. Given that we all do things differently at home and have individual likes and dislikes I wondered how things would work out. As I write this, we are on Day 5 and I am happy to report that all has gone well up to now.
Probably this is down to prior planning. We had a meeting 9 days before going away and agreed on some of the meals, and I wrote a list for a supermarket order. We agreed that we would each take our own breakfast foods, as we all have different preferences for what we eat at that time of day. The only thing that has gone wrong is that the supermarket delivery didn’t happen, as the van broke down, but we were able to go and ” click and collect” instead- notice I am not giving away which supermarket we used so no one can think I am advertising!!
The food order got us through 4 days and we had a top up shop on Day 5. So prior planning seems to work, alongside showing consideration to each other about our own individual needs and requirements.
The disciples thought they were similarly showing consideration for the crowd who had listened to Jesus’ teaching and came to him for healing in Matthew 14. Evening was approaching and they knew everyone would be getting hungry. Any packed lunches would long ago have been eaten – or would they? So, with thoughtfulness and local knowledge they say to Jesus, ” this is a deserted place and the hour is now late, send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves”.
Yet perhaps they should have realised by that stage in Jesus’ ministry that he said some unexpected things. They never knew quite where they were with him. When he replies, ” They need not go away. You give them something to eat”, they must have thought ” Are you mad? How can we feed that lot of people?!” Their plan to send the people into a nearby village was the sensible one. Yet once again Jesus reveals his divinity in this amazing miracle and uses the disciples to find the loaves and fishes, to distribute the meal and to clear up afterwards.
Some of you reading this may be involved in cooking or helping at church luncheon clubs, coffee mornings or other welcoming events and fellowship meals. Or you may take meals to people who are recovering from an illness or have just had a baby. These tasks are not lowly ones. Jesus, as the unique and divine Son of God, was the only one who could multiply one boy’s picnic into a meal for 5,000 plus people but he needed his disciples to help – in fact he couldn’t have done it without them.
Dear Lord, as we plan meals, do the shopping, cook and clear up, help us to remember that these tasks, performed with love, are part of your will for us and can be enriched when we do them in your name for others with a willing heart.