"...looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke..." Familiar sounding words. Reminiscent of the Last Supper. A foreshadowing of what we ourselves will do today.

Our lesson is a well-known one, the feeding of the 5,000. Of all Jesus' miracles, this is the only one repeated in all four gospels.(1) Five loaves, two small fish...and by the time it is all over, 5,000 men PLUS their women and children had been fed and were satisfied, with twelve baskets of left-overs collected.

How did Jesus do that? I have no idea. One suggestion made is that these folks all had food with them to start with, but none wanted to show it for fear that they would have to share; then Jesus confronted them with these meager morsels, and they were more or less shamed into digging into their own picnic baskets (or…