Today we have read about the Feeding of the 5,000 is also known as the «miracle of the five loaves and two fish».

In Exodus (1–10), we read: ‘Let My People Go’ (said by Moses).

Today we here: “Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.”

Seemingly similar words but there is such a great discordance! As in the first situation, “let them go to the Lord” and in this situation – “let them go from you, oh Lord”.

Everyone can be mistaken, and often it is the intention that counts, and the disciples wanted good for the people. But the Lord wishes eternal life, and the Kingdom of Heaven, that is in this unity with Him, which is impossible without Him.

And in our current state, the state of discord, the contradictory state, the state and condition of sin – that is, when we have to choose between good and good, and when too much good can be harmful for us… as there is often no concordance, symphony, or harmony. And we should choose something which is not quite good right now and here, for the sake of obtaining something better, or even the best…

And we also remember the words from the Gospel of Matthew 6:33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

That is when the need of the earthly things takes over us, we can guess where those things will lead us, lead our life: to constant competition, aggression, and then also the other words from the same Gospel come into effect: “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

But all this begins and can be seen even in this life: if you put your goal lower, so will be the achievement, and if we put our goal higher, we could achieve all that though is lower than our goal, but still is quite good for us.

So, let us not give too much power to the things that tell us (or demand from us) to leave Christ, check and tempt them and give them right priority, and putting all our hope (for all things, both food physical and spiritual) in the One who is our only hope, Who once, temped by Devil to use His divine power to make stones to bread for Himself, preferred to suffer there for our sake. But today the Lord cares that the people who follow Him are not hungry. And he shows the sign not just equal to Moses’ (mentioned today) [when that one had given manna in the desert], the Lord doing this today ‘with power’, as God, and the apostles as a collective Moses…

So let’s put our hope in the only one Who is Love, and Who cares for us and Who has the words of eternal life, and Who Himself is the Bread of Life. Amen