Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

It is easy to sympathize with the disciples in this moment. They are tired. The Lord himself has already endured so much this day. His relative, John the Baptist, has been killed—beheaded.

The Lord withdraws to a deserted place to be alone, surely to spend time in prayer and to prepare for all that is to come. But the crowds hear of it, and they follow him. It does not matter what he is going through; they have needs too. And the Lord has pity on them. He heals their sick. He continues to labor for them.

Now they are hungry. The disciples are worn out by the day and all that has taken place. And so they say what I think any of us would say in that moment: “Send them away. Send them away so that they can take care of themselves.”

But the Lord, despite his own weariness—his real exhaustion—says, “Feed them yourselves.” The disciples must have been stunned. They look at their meager supplies and know they are not enough. They may not even be enough for themselves. They show the Lord what little they have and say, “This cannot possibly work. We do not have enough.”

The Lord’s only answer is, “Bring them to me. Bring me what little you have, and it will be enough.”

And it was. It was not merely enough; it overflowed. Twelve baskets remained—twelve baskets representing the twelve tribes of Israel, the fullness of God’s people. The Lord took the disciples’ meager provisions and made them enough to feed five thousand men. In that abundance, he reveals: now it is enough to go out and feed all Israel.

Through his grace, our littleness—even our nothingness—can become something immense and complete.

This is so often how it is in Scripture. How often does the Lord remind us that power is made perfect in weakness? We recognize God’s presence most clearly when we are weakest, because it is then that his grace becomes most evident, most manifest in the world. God chooses the lowly of this world to humble the proud, to bring down those who think too highly of themselves. God continually works through weakness and littleness.

And this is important for us to see, because we often find ourselves in situations where we feel overwhelmed. Sometimes we may not even feel overwhelmed; we simply know, in a practical sense, that we are not up to the task. The problem before us is too great, too immense, and we are certain that we do not have the resources to bring it to completion. We know that.

And yet the Lord shows us that these are precisely the moments when we are most likely to encounter him in the most extraordinary ways. What he says to us in those moments is, “Bring them to me.” Take whatever little we have to offer and give it to him, so that his grace may multiply it. His grace can supply what is lacking. His grace can turn our meagerness into an abundance that is truly sufficient.

And his grace does not simply enable us to complete the task; it overflows, so that an even greater good than we imagined might come from it.

And so, as Christians, we never look at a situation that seems beyond us, that appears impossible, and fall into despair. We have hope, because God has shown us time and again that these are the very moments when his grace becomes most visible. He desires to use our weakness, our littleness, and even our sufferings to bring about great goods. We can trust his grace in these moments to carry us through and lead us to a better outcome.

So let us place all of our faith, our hope, and our trust in the Lord. Let us continually bring all that we have and all that we are and place it before him, so that he might multiply it, make it abundant, and truly help us overcome those challenges we once thought impossible but, with his help, are now being overcome.