+ 25 July AD 2021+

Reflection for 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B 

Are you familiar with the story of the little boy who turned over his lunch box to Jesus and Jesus miraculously turned the lunch box into a bakery? This is one of the most fascinating miracles in the Bible. In fact, it is the only miracle of Jesus recorded by all the four Gospels (Matthew 14:13–21; Mark 6:30–44; Luke 9:10–19; John 6:1–14). Although in the Bible this miracle story is rightly titled the Multiplication of the Loaves or the Feeding of the Five Thousand, I do think that there is a way in which these titles gloss over a central character in that story: the unnamed little boy who selflessly offered his lunch for the good of all! 

While this miracle points to the power of Jesus over nature, I am really interested in the unnamed little boy spotted out from the crowd by Andrew. In today’s Gospel we read that Jesus, on noticing the hunger on the faces of the crowd that was gradually converging around him inquired from Philip where they get food for the crowd. Unfortunately, rather than answer the “where” question Philip was more interested in the “how” question. Overwhelmed by the crowd size Philip conducted a quick economic appraisal of the situation and advised Jesus not to even bother. He was convinced that even “two hundred days’ wages worth of food” would be grossly inadequate to provide lunch for the crowd. Here, Philip misses the opportunity of becoming the hero in this story by focusing not on the power of Jesus but on their powerlessness. Andrew also fails the test when he references a little boy with five loaves and two fishes. That unnamed little boy for me changed everything. Aside Jesus, he is the hero of the story. Although Jesus would have provided for the crowd out of nothing, he chose to use the unnamed boy and his “insignificant” lunch box to perfect his divine plan. 

This little boy is fascinating for a number of reasons: He did not hide his basket, if he did Andrew would not have known he had five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish. Although he might not have understood why an adult was asking him for his entire food reserve, he did not refuse to turn over his lunch box for the good of all. He was not the “it’s mine…it’s mine” kind of guy! He did not disappear into the crowd once he noticed his lunch basket was the subject of discussion. Once he saw Jesus pointing at his lunch box, he yielded to Andrew’s request. 

What about the unmentioned mother of the unnamed little boy, who packed the lunch box for him. Could she have ever imagined that her son’s lunch box would become a resource for Jesus? Although she was simply taking care of her son, she was unaware that the “silent work of her hands, the gifts from her kitchen, and her faithful love for her son” will be turned by Jesus into one of his greatest miracles.  This is a great lesson for parents today. You never know where your love for your son or daughter, your silent effort today, will lead tomorrow. You never know where your son’s lunch box will end up? 

No doubt, this miracle of the multiplication of loaves has great lessons for us today. Let me share with you a few: We never know who or what God will use to bring about a great change in our lives. We are never without anything in the sight of God, everyone has got something to offer! God can do unimaginable things with the fragments of our lives “that we are carrying around and that we tend to think aren’t worth much” God can turn our inadequacies into abundance, but we must be ready to let go and let God be God. We must be ready to focus on the power of God and not our inadequacies. We must be ready to focus on what God is able to do and not what we are not able to do. God will not demand from you what is beyond your reach. He will take what you have and transform it to what you need. If all you have are five loaves of bread and two fish, don’t worry, Jesus can turn them into baskets of breads and fish. What do you have? 

    Fr. Lazarus Onuh