But the fact that a small amount of food was shared generously was exaggerated into a miraculous tale. What was quite a wondrous yet natural event was converted to a supernatura l tale for the sake of persuading people, including us, that Jesus is the one through whom God's goodness and power are pre-eminently felt. The feeding story is just a literary shell for other important themes that lie in the narrative itself. That 5000 were gathered is a way of saying that Jesus had gained a wide following and merited attention. If we believe this way, our response is to delve into the issues that lie in the sub-text of the miracle tale.
Truth can happen at different levels.
Of these four possibilities, the one which I am unable and unwilling to affirm is the first. While I have experienced things in my life that have no clear, unassailably natural explanation, I am not attracted to Jesus because of his ability to do supernatural things. I am attracted to Jesus because of his ability to get to the bottom of things , to cut away the layers of pretense. Jesus had the best crap detector in the history of the universe, and given how much crap there is circulating around, I call him Lord and Savior because his teachings do not allow me to rest in the comfortable status quo to which I am naturally attracted. One of the amazing things about the gospel tradition, and especially about the way in which it talks about power, is that no matter what our economic status is, and no matter how much access to power we have, we can still all be captivated by Jesus' power.