Word to the Wise
Monday, August 5, 2019 - Monday in the 18th Week in Ordinary Time
[Num 11:4b-15 and Matt 14:13-21 ]"Where can I get meat to give to all this people? For they are crying to me, 'Give us meat for our food.' I cannot carry all this people by myself, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way you will deal with me, then please do me the favor of killing me at once, so that I need no longer face this distress." [Numbers] When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, "This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves." [Jesus] said to them, "There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves." But they said to him, :"Five loaves and two fish are all we have here." Then he said, "Bring them here to me..." [Matthew]
Once in awhile the first and second scriptures at a daily Mass coincide in a remarkable way. The story of Moses finding a way to feed the Children of Israel in the desert in the Book of Numbers appears side by side with the multiplication of the loaves and fishes from the Gospel According to Matthew (he has two accounts). This "coincidence" can be a consolation to anyone in leadership faced with great human need and few resources to meet it.
The fundamental image here is hunger and food and leadership in the situation. In the case of Moses, God threatens to send so much quail to eat that it will be "coming out their noses." There is exasperation on the part of God, who has to deal with an overwhelmed leader [Moses] and a disgruntled bunch of "parishioners," God sends the food and Moses is taught to delegate. [Read the whole chapter 11].
In the gospel account, the disciples complain about finding food for a huge number when Jesus tells them to feed the group. Jesus multiplies the food and then delegates the disciples to distribute it. Given the fact that Matthew's portrait of Jesus is that of a "new Moses," the story is really no "coincidence."
Parishioners will always find something to complain about. Pastors will always feel overwhelmed. God will send help if the pastors can learn to delegate the job of feeding. One can only hope that this lesson will sink in somewhere! AMEN ,