Why should we hear the same story twice in one liturgical year? Is there something important about the fact that we're hearing Mark's version now, or is it just a quirk of the lectionary? Naturally, such questions led me to a detailed comparison of Mark's version with John's, and I can summarize my findings, relatively briefly. Hold on to your hats.

You'll recall that in John's version, a boy comes to the disciples with five loaves and two fish, and the rest, as they say, is history. In my previous sermon, I suggested that to St. John-who never uses the word "miracle" but always "sign"-what makes this story significant (as opposed to miraculous) isn't the multiplication of the loaves and fish itself, but the people's response to the abundance that Jesus makes out of one little boy's offering of his lunch. That one boy, trusting in the God of abundance rather than the god of scarcity, does not hoard what he has, but shares his resources freely with the multitude. The crowd, seeing this act of childlike faith, begins to share its own hidden and hoarded abundance, with the result that twelve baskets of leftovers are taken up by the disciples.

But in Mark's account, no mention is made of any boy. Rather, those five loaves and two fish are provided by the disciples themselves. So, what? It seems an insignificant detail. But wait, there's more: remember last week's gospel? Jesus sends out the twelve disciples two by two and instructs them to take "no bread, no bag, no money in their belts." Apparently, they were faithful to this instruction, for we are told in this morning's gospel that "many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat." Tired and hungry from their recent missionary activity, Jesus invites the disciples on a retreat day: "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." Bonnie Bowman Thurston, a professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, suggests in her commentary entitled Preaching Mark that the loaves and fish were "probably the meal intended for their 'retreat day.'"

But the disciples don't get that needed R&R after all, for like paparazzi chasing after Hollywood celebrities, the Galilean crowd runs after Jesus and his disciples, cornering them on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. And, like Hollywood celebrities, the disciples are understandably put out by the unwanted attention. But not so, Jesus. Mark tells us "he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things."

The disciples put up with this-after all, he's their fearless leader, and besides, they might even be happy to see Jesus well-received again, after being rejected by his kinsmen in Nazareth, as we heard about two weeks ago. But, after a while, any enthusiasm the disciples were able to muster wears off: "When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, 'This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.'"

A reasonable request, given the circumstances. But then Jesus piles on the straw that breaks the camel's back, for when Jesus replies to them after a long day by saying "You give them something to eat," their reaction is one of incredulity: "Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?" Obviously they don't have this kind of money on them, for implicit in this question is the accusation "Or don't you remember, Rabbi, that you told us to take nothing for our journey-no bread, no bag, no money in our belts?! Hello! What kind of an impossible thing are you asking of us?" Two hundred denarii, after all, was roughly equivalent to two hundred days' worth of wages.

Jesus' response is characteristically non-anxious: "And he said to them, 'How many loaves have you? Go and see.' When they had found out, they said, 'Five, and two fish.'" So Jesus ordered the crowd to recline in orderly groups of hundreds and fifties. (It's important to note here that the Greek word Mark uses for "recline" specifically refers to how one sits at a formal banquet.)

Then the miracle story proper begins. Jesus takes the loaves and fish, looks up to heaven, blesses and breaks the loaves, and gives them to the disciples to set before the people. And, lo and behold! Five thousand men were fed until they were filled (to say nothing of the women and children who were probably also present)-and there were leftovers aplenty.

Professor Thurston comments:

The miracle is in the leftovers! This abundance is an image of divine bounty. And a messianic expectation is also depicted. It was popularly held that, when the Messiah came, he would host a great banquet for Israel, and only the Messiah could host it. Certainly this must have entered the minds of some in the crowd and later in Mark's community. Here the inclusive fellowship meals that were part of Jesus' ministry become an image of the kingdom he inaugurates.

So far, this interpretation seems to square with the interpretation I offered of John's story. But in the very next paragraph, Professor Thurston hits us with:

One common line of interpretation of the miracle suggests that what "really happened" is that Jesus got the assembled multitude to share. When people saw the disciples pull out five loaves and two fish, they began to offer the bits and pieces they, too, were carrying, and in the sharing there was enough to go around. This interpretation destroys what Mark is doing with the story. He is comparing the kingdoms of this world (Herod) with "the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ." Jesus is doing the work of God.

So it would appear that while John's story opens itself up to an interpretation that emphasizes its naturalistic significance, Mark's version emphasizes the supernatural and miraculous. Why would Mark want to emphasize what, to contemporary minds, is a less credible interpretation? Thurston writes that Mark "is comparing the kingdoms of this world (Herod) with 'the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ.'" That parenthetical reference to Herod is important, because it reminds us to take a look at this story's context in Mark's gospel itself.

Mark places this story of the loaves and fish immediately following the story of the execution of John the Baptizer. It's an oldie, but a goodie: on his birthday, the enchanting Herodias dances before wicked King Herod, who with drunken bravado promises the girl whatever she asks "even half of my kingdom." The girl runs to her mother, who's nursing a grudge against John, and she has her daughter inform the king that she wants John's head on a platter. Herod, suddenly sobered, is "deeply grieved," but he has made this promise at a great "banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee," and "out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her." So he orders the dastardly deed to be done, and his banquet ends with a head on a platter. (Talk about a party. Today happens to be my birthday, but I've got something much simpler planned.) When John's disciples hear that John has been beheaded, they come to collect the body. They take what is left over of the martyr-prophet, laying it in a tomb.

The very next verse begins the story of the feeding of the five thousand. An execution and a miracle: a strange juxtaposition. But Mark intentionally sets up both stories so that there are eerie parallels: Herod gives a formal banquet for the rich and powerful-they recline in a palace. Jesus gives a formal banquet for the poor and powerless-they recline in "a deserted place," albeit one with "green grass." Herod offers one person up to half the kingdom as a reward for pleasing him. Jesus offers all present the fullness of the kingdom as a gift, even after they inconvenience him by crashing his planned quiet time apart with his disciples. Herod orders a subtraction: namely, John's head is to be subtracted from his body. Jesus makes a multiplication: the loaves and fish. Herod's banquet ends with the disbursement of one head on a platter and one woman satisfied in her appetite for blood. Jesus' banquet ends with a distribution of the loaves and fish and five thousand men satisfied in their appetite for food. After Herod's banquet, John's disciples gather up the leftovers: namely, John's body, and they entomb it. After Jesus' banquet, Jesus' disciples gather up the leftovers: namely, twelve baskets full of broken pieces of bread and fish, and they take the leftovers with them. Obviously, what we are expected to conclude is that the kingdom of this world (as epitomized by Herod's banquet) is a kingdom of death and burial, while the Kingdom of Heaven (as epitomized by Jesus' banquet) is a kingdom of life and resurrection.

Mark's story of the loaves and fish thus isn't about the crowd's sharing its abundance with each other, as might be the emphasis in John's version, but about Jesus' sharing of God's abundance freely, as a gift, with the crowd. Contrasted with Herod's "natural" banquet, Jesus' "supernatural" banquet points beyond the deadly kingdoms of the earth to the life-giving Kingdom of Heaven.

We often receive invitations to both types of banquets. At the banquets given by the Herods of this world, we will be enticed by lust for power, and heads will roll. But I hope we will prefer a dinner roll at Jesus' banquet instead. When you get your invitations in the mail, make sure you R.S.V.P. to the right banquet, for ultimately, you are what you eat.