A Child's Offering

ONLINE REFLECTION, ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY

AUGUST 19, 2020

TEXT:               John 6:1-15

I would encourage you to read the gospel lesson assigned for today – John 6:1-15.  It is John’s version of a gospel passage we had just a few Sundays ago from Matthew – the feeding of the multitude.

This passage has a place close to my heart.  It was the text for what I call “my first sermon with live ammunition,” and was delivered in my hometown parish when I was a first-year seminarian.  The lesson made a real impression on me – and still does.

This lesson includes the essential elements of all accounts of the feeding:  Jesus trying to find solitude, the crowds pursuing him, the masses of people, the need to feed them, the helplessness of the disciples, the meager supplies – but ultimately, the people are miraculously fed.  It is a scene that occurs in each of gospels.  It obviously made a deep impression on the disciples.

But there is something unique in this account. The disciples are facing the daunting challenge of the large crowd.  Looking for resources, they apparently search the crowd for available food.  They find only one boy – likely a young fisherman – with a knapsack of five loaves and two smoked fish.  The young boy offers them to Jesus.

In the next few minutes, the offering is blessed, the food is distributed, and the people are fed. All of them.  Because the one boy offered what he had.

After the feeding, the disciples gathered the remnants. They recovered 12 baskets of fish and bread.

All because one boy stepped out in faith.

What have you got to offer God?