A homily for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 2, 2026
Isaiah 55:1-3, Romans 8:35, 37-39, Matthew 14:13-21
Almost 100 years ago (holy cow!), The New Yorker magazine published a cartoon in which a fussy eater’s mother tells her, “It’s broccoli, dear.” The young girl famously snaps back, “I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.”
In most households of the 1920s, and probably right up to the present, the mom’s next line might be, “There are starving children in [XYZ land],” and the zippy retort to that usually is, “Fine; they can have my stupid broccoli.”
The tragedy is, they can’t. Though they’d love to.
We in the United States continue to be among the wealthiest people in the world, per person, on average. Even in years of drought or fertilizer shortages, our farmers are incredibly productive.
Which doesn’t always square with the fact that 30 to 40 percent of the entire U.S. food supply, totaling more than 100 billion pounds of food, is discarded annually.
XYZ Land? The land of food insecurity, or other economic uncertainties? Some of us live there. Or our neighbors do. Our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, near and far. Some of them really far.
The crowds who followed Jesus weren’t the only people who were hungry, with little prospect for an evening meal. Thousands of them — men, women and children — all counted on the charity and belief in justice of some wandering strangers, just as millions and, yes, billions do today.
Five loaves of bread, each the size of a s’mores marshmallow. Two fish, probably the size of sardines.
Infinite divine love, wisdom and goodness.
Twelve hampers of leftovers.
Our Gospel passage today scatters some religiously significant numbers through its text: seven food items, 12 baskets of fragments, 5,000 men (with the implied 5,000 women and perhaps another 15,000 children). The math is intended to emphasize the scope of the miracle in palpable terms — that’s a hearty meal! — as well as the momentous nature of the event.
Divine numbers point to one thing:
A miracle.
A miracle, never to be taken lightly or taken for granted.
Yet isn’t that what we do daily, we who can scrape our plates after every meal?
The miracle of the loaves and fishes is one of the rare events chronicled in all four Gospels, with each telling varying only slightly from the others in its length or details.
The miracle of the loaves and fishes, therefore, is A Big Deal.
The miracle is widely accepted as a foreshadowing of the Last Supper and of Christ’s gift to humankind of the Eucharist.
Absolutely.
But when Jesus implores us to “do this in memory of me,” he’s talking about more than the transubstantiation of bread and wine into his body and blood, which he sacrificed for our salvation at Golgotha.
He’s commanding us to re-create and re-re-re-create as many of his miracles as we imperfect humans can.
To heal the sick. To comfort the afflicted (and afflict the all-too-comfortable). To love our neighbors as ourselves; to love them as Jesus loved every person he encountered, even those he disagreed with.
To bring water to the desert.
To feed the hungry.
To balance the scales on Earth by shifting excess goods, services and care that become waste to places and people in need.
In our modern times, refugees stream across borders because their homelands can’t support their basic human needs. They’re not looking for adventure; they’re seeking security.
What if our excess, our five McNuggets and two fries — as a start — could make their homes livable? Their lives bearable? Their every living day secure?
From that charitable beginning, we add the essence of social justice. We teach the people to fish, and to build, and to knit and weave, and to farm and herd.
To be self-sufficient, because they all have skills and intellect. Because they all are children of God, created in God’s likeness.
Like us.
We can, and we must, as life allows, turn what we consider our trash into someone else’s treasure.
Here in our neighborhood. Wherever we can on our shared Earth.
Whatever we can, each according to our time, talents and resources.
And we will do it in memory of The Son of Man who fed throngs with a handful of hand-me-down victuals.
