I well remember my first year in New York on the Upper East Side and noticing Food Emporium's advertisement stating that they had “a thousand Passover items in stock”. Unleavened bread is required for Passover as well as much else. So the question Jesus asks Philip “where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” was most apposite. You cannot have Passover without bread and you need bread for hungry people. Bread in the wilderness is powerful Biblical image. Some of you may have heard me tell of a remarkable experience I had while on a month long course with St George's College, Jerusalem some years ago. As part of the course we headed down to the Sinai for what was programmed as an “Exodus experience”. Crossing the arid Sinai in four wheel drive vehicles was an experience in itself. The Sinai is made up of rock and sand and few roads. So our crazy Egyptian drivers drove us across the roadless waste. After several hours of driving one morning we turned a corner into a valley and there ahead of us was an oasis with trees, shade, animals, people and of course water. We headed for the oasis where it was planned we were to have our lunch which we were carrying with us.

When we arrived we were surrounded by Bedouin children and dogs. In the background we could see veiled women bent over little fires. What they were doing was baking simple pita type bread for our lunch. We sat down in the shade for lunch of tomatoes, olives, sheep's milk cheese and this bread warm from the fire. It was the most welcome bread and a marvelous sign of simple desert hospitality. It evoked so many memories of the Exodus and of God's feeding his people with manna from heaven and of Jesus' feeding the 5000 with bread and fish. But my story does not finish there. That night we journeyed on to the base of Mount Sinai ready to ascend it early next morning. We set out at 4.30am in moonlight with some of our party on camels and some of us on foot. It was our intention to celebrate the eucharist half way up the mountain on what is known as Elijah's plain between his famous cave where he heard the “still small voice” and Mount Sinai itself. I was to be the celebrant and it was agreed that we celebrate a mass of the Transfiguration where you will remember Jesus appeared in glory to the disciples flanked on each side by Moses and Elijah. I enquired of our young American volunteer the evening before as to the availability of bread and wine. He said we had brought a little wine but that there was sufficient of the Bedouin bread left over to become the eucharistic bread. So the bread of hospitality became the bread of heaven.

I recount that experience because I think of it each time I read the Gospel accounts of the feedings and of the experience of the children of Israel in the Exodus and in the Sinai wanderings. They had the unleavened bread of the Passover to eat on their journey, unleavened precisely so it would last; and then when that ran out God rained down bread from heaven in the form of manna. Remember that sign was given in response to their grumblings. Like the children of Israel, the disciples doubted the possibility of God's provision. “Philip answered Jesus, six month's wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” Philip stands for all of us when we are fearful of taking risk; when we cannot see beyond the immediate to the bigger picture; when we forget with whom we are dealing. After all Philip and the other disciples had seen Jesus perform several signs by this stage. Did they not get it? Andrew chimes in rather naively: “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish But what are they among so many?” But Jesus is in command and he takes charge. John makes it abundantly clear that Jesus knew the answer to his rhetorical question but said it to test the disciples. John's Jesus is always portrayed in full christological light. Jesus is the Son of God from start to finish in John. He is not a work in progress as it were. But this interchange between Jesus, Philip and Andrew has an interesting antecedent which links in with the Second Book of Kings being studied in Adult Christian Education at present. In Chapter 4 we read:

“A man came from Baal shalishah bringing food from the first fruits to the man of God: twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.” But his servant said “How can I set this before a hundred people?” So he repeated, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the Lord, “They shall eat and have some left.” He set it before them, they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.” This makes the crowd's perception at the end of the Gospel passage that Jesus “is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world the more powerful. But the memories being activated here in the ministry of Jesus are even more rich. The verse before today's Gospel reads as follows: “Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples.” Innocuous enough except that conjunction of the mountain and Jesus sitting down to teach has overtones of Mount Sinai and Moses handing down Torah. Here already in this account of the feeding there are ample reminders of God's activity throughout salvation history.

John's account of the Feeding is no stand alone account of a sign performed by Jesus. Rather its full of associations which recall the past and anticipate the future. It is such an appropriate gospel for Mid Lent Sunday when we can look back to Lent so far as well looking forward to the events of Holy Week and Easter. This Gospel is full of remembrances of things past as I have indicated: Moses; the manna in the wilderness; and of the miracles of feeding in the Elijah and Elisha narratives. Remembrance is always important in the spiritual life: remembering what God has done for us in the sacred story and in our own story. It is so easy to think like Philip and Andrew, to allow one's imagination and remembrance to become clouded by immediate events, by doubts and fears. It is rather like in the current recession not behaving as if we have never been here before but remembering that this is nothing new: that the our nation and world have known recession before and have come through it. But on an individual level Mid Lent is a great time to make a personal inventory of the activity of God in your life: of the people and experiences that have brought you thus far.

But this Gospel passage is not only filled with reference to the remembrance of things past but is also full of anticipation of things to come. So Jesus commands the people to sit down. In fact the Greek means to incline which was the posture for eating. The green grass of Spring made that more comfortable. One recalls the 23rd Psalm: “He makes me lie down in green pastures.” The 5000 was simply a large number. “Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated.” We immediately recognize the action of the eucharist which we will recall in the words of institution from the Last Supper to be recited later in this service. Again in John's gospel that will have a Passover setting. This feeding in the wilderness is as I said no stand alone account of a sign but rather looks backwards in remembrance of what God has done for his people and forwards in anticipation for what is to come both to the events of Holy Week but beyond that to our life in Christian community and indeed beyond that to the Messianic Banquet itself.

The final feature of the feeding is the detail surrounding the left overs. As with any big celebration there is always the issue of what to do with left over food. Can anyone use them? Is there a charity we can give them to? Can we keep them for another event such as coffee hour or whatever? Or do we simply trash them because it is all too difficult? Again Jesus is clear with his directions: “Gather up the fragments left over so that nothing may be lost. So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.” Again the references abound. Unlike the manna in the wilderness which rotted unless eaten the food Jesus provides lasts for ever. For this is the food of eternal life. But this gathering together of the broken pieces also has eucharistic reference as well as an ecumenical one. So in Communion today we will be united at the altar rail as we share in the broken bread of the eucharist. And the 12 baskets point towards the completeness of that process. The unity of the Church is not our construct but is God's desire and plan for all his faithful people.