Luke 9.10–17:
When the crowds found out about it, they followed him; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.
The day was drawing to a close, and the twelve came to him and said, ‘Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a deserted place.’ But he said to them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said, ‘We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.’ For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, ‘Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.’ They did so and made them all sit down. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.
The communion meal rituals influenced this text, in the way it reports about organizing, and expanding a modicum of food that exists. This story is not quite about manna falling from heavens, as in Exodus. Rather it is about the sharing a new community can begin and develop.
One comment about “he looked up to heaven”: this gesture is often spiritualized and hence normalized in modern interpretations, as a ritual gesture and therefore a rather unimportant detail. But what if this looking up is actually expressing a direct demand for the miracle, and is done or reported by the evangelist in full awareness of what it meant in a society in which goods were limited, and miracles were to be compensated? I suggested that someone had to pay for the disturbance caused to the “limited good” economy, in the ancient view. I mentioned a story found in the talmud which neatly shows what was at stake. It is found in the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Ta`anith 24a (Soncino translation):
Once R. Jose had day-labourers [working] in the field; night set in and no food was brought to them and they said to his son, `We are hungry’. Now they were resting under a fig tree and he exclaimed: Fig tree, fig tree, bring forth thy fruit that my father’s labourers may eat. It brought forth fruit and they ate. Meanwhile the father came and said to them, Do not bear a grievance against me; the reason for my delay is because I have been occupied up till now on an errand of charity. The labourers replied, May God satisfy you even as your son has satisfied us. Whereupon he asked: Whence? And they told him what had happened. Thereupon he said to his son: My son, you have troubled your Creator to cause the fig tree to bring forth its fruit before its time, may you too be taken hence before your time!
Aramaic and Hebrew:
ומא חד הוו אגרי ליה אגירי בדברא נגה להו ולא אייתי להו ריפתא אמרו ליה לבריה כפינן הוו יתבי תותי תאינתא אמר תאנה תאנה הוציאי פירותיך ויאכלו פועלי אבא אפיקו ואכלו אדהכי והכי אתא אבוה אמר להו לא תינקטו בדעתייכו דהאי דנגהנא אמצוה טרחנא ועד השתא הוא דסגאי אמרו ליה רחמנא לישבעך כי היכי דאשבען ברך אמר להו מהיכא אמרו הכי והכי הוה מעשה אמר לו בני אתה הטרחת את קונך להוציא תאנה פירותיה שלא בזמנה יאסף שלא בזמנו