THE REVOLUTION THAT FEEDS THE CHILDREN
Apart from the resurrection, there is only one miracle told in all four Gospels - the Feeding of the 5000. In fact, it was such a popular story that the gospels of Matthew and Mark also duplicated it with a second, near identical loaves-and-fishes storyw - the Feeding of the 4,000.
Six mass feedings. Four Gospels.
For those who've never truly been hungry, it's impossible to intellectualize or explain the vast cosmic importance of food. But the poor know.
Successful revolutionaries know too.
When the pigs raided the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party headquarters in 1969, it was the supplies for the Breakfast for Children program that they sabotaged. Because it was the Breakfast for Children program that won the loyalty of the people.
Fred Hampton stated plainly that those in his community who had no political ideology whatsoever - people who otherwise feared socialism - would still fight and die for the Breakfast for Children program. "This," Hampton tells us. "Is how the people learn."
So what was Jesus doing here?
The same thing.
It started when the apostles came to Jesus mid-sermon, and advised Him to send the people home so that they would have a chance to buy dinner before the markets closed. So what did Jesus do? Jesus fed the crowd.
So the people would learn.
Spiritual nourishment - political education - these things are on a higher level of the Basic Needs Pyramid than actual food. You need food first.
(While, yes, the Christian Tradition is full of asceticism, fasting, and emphasis of the needs of the spirit over the wants of the flesh, when you're doing mass work - when you're building a people's movement - bread is still of the utmost importance).
Sharing it is a form of communalism - an expression of solidarity.
And that is exactly what Jesus does here.
He doesn't raise His voice and command the fish to leap from the sea. (That kind of motif is common in quite a lot of mythology, and would not have been wildly unfamiliar to the original recipients of the Good News nor the original authors of the Gospels). Jesus does not create the food at all.
Those who came to see Him gathered all that they had with them, and from these meager collections the masses were fed.
This is no small detail. It is absolutely central to what Jesus' ministry - what His movement was all about.
Throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus wandering secluded parts of the countryside, seeking shelter at random locales, and relying on the charity of others. These are poor and working class people feeding each other.
When rich people receive a blessing or a miracle, they, as an expression of their gratitude and their faith, donate all that they have to the poor. Everywhere that Jesus goes, He gives away miracles, and everyone who receives them gets real enthusiastic about sharing.
This is how the people learn.
Not just in Jesus' time on Earth, either.
This practice is mirrored in the Apostolic Age as is reflected in the Book of Acts. Every Christian communist loves to quote Acts 2:44-47:
"All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people."
Like the miracle of the feeding of the multitudes, this distribution to the poor starts with the faithful sharing what they have in common.
Mutual aid.
This tells us volumes about how Jesus was perceived in the earliest generation of Christianity - that this communal miracle was retold more than any of the healings that He had performed on individuals. It also tells us who Jesus really was as an organizer, and how He used alternative economic structures to build real independent power amongst the people.
