Dionysus on a Bike

Matthew 15:32-39 – 8/5/2026

Jesus’s feeding of the 5000 with only a few loaves and a couple of fish is one of the only deeds from his ministry that is recorded by all four canonical Gospels. Only recorded in Matthew and Mark is a second similar feeding of the crowed, this time 4000 men plus women and children, as recounted in today’s reading. What strikes me on this reading is that Jesus is moved to feed the crowd by compassion. He witnesses their hunger and is compelled, simply by experiencing their need, to fill that need.

One gets the sense that by including both the feeding of the 5000 and the 4000 that Jesus did this kind of thing fairly often. Perhaps other times the crowds weren’t so large and the starting amount of food not so little, but I would not be surprised if there were not frequent moments when Jesus experienced need among those following him to listen to his teachings. I imagine when Jesus had this experience of others’ need, he often worked to fulfill it.

As a reader, I am drawn to these stories feeding people. Shared meals are powerful in bringing people together. Even more powerful is when people are deeply in need and have that need met. As someone who is well fed most of the time and around people who are well fed most of the time, it can be easy to miss the full power of Jesus’s feeding of so many. What does this mean for following Jesus now? Two things come to mind. First, we need to identify what functions as food for the people we minister to today. What are they hungry for, if not literal food? Second, we need to be around people who are, in fact, literally hungry. Following Jesus’s example means to seek out those who lack the basic means of sustenance and making sure they are fed. We have to expand who we are in contact with if we are not around those who need fed as the crowds did as Jesus taught.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for 8/5/2026:
Exodus 16:2-15, 31-35
Matthew 15:32-39
Psalm 78:1-8, 17-29

Reflections of a Dionysian Lutheran, comments on the daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary by Justin Marquis