Ninth Sunday after Trinity 02 08 2026
OLD TESTAMENT READING: Genesis 32.22-31
NEW TESTAMENT READING: Romans 9.1-5
GOSPEL: Matthew 14.13-21
People in thousands have come to hear Jesus speak and to be healed by him. They have travelled long distances and have been listening to Jesus. It became evening and the disciples see that people will need food and their suggestion to Jesus was to send the people away. Since they were all in a deserted place, let them go in search of food and find food in the nearby villages and towns for themselves. For the disciples, if people are hungry, they should go and find food. If anyone needs food it is their problem, let them find food for themselves.
Jesus our Lord surprises them by replying, ‘they need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ The disciples replied we only have five loaves of bread and two fish. This may be the food they have for themselves; Jesus asks them to bring whatever they had to be shared. Jesus makes the people to sit on the grass and blesses the food, breaks the bread and share the food with the multitudes of people. The gospel writer tells us that all were fed and they even had food in surplus. This event is celebrated as the feeding of the multitude and this is so significant that this is the only event recorded by all the four gospel writers.
Peoples hunger is a matter of great concern for God.
When the people of Israel left Egypt, a land of slavery and journeying through the wilderness towards the promised land, they ran out of food and people started to complain to Moses and Aaron ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’ Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not. (Exodus 16:2-4)
The writer of Psalm 146 writes about the nature of God, Gos is someone ‘who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free;’
Prophet Isaiah proclaims a message from God to the people. ‘Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, (Isaiah 58:6-8)
James the apostle writes in his epistle, ‘What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?’ (James 2:14-16). Faith in God should make s compassionate to people in need.
In our context, in the UK in 2024 14.1 million people were food insecure and one in 6 households experienced food insecurity and 6.5 million people turned to charitable food providers. We also learn that globally, 266 million people in the world live in acute hunger.
May Christ who offered himself on the cross inspire us to offer food to the hungry and whatever way possible. One thing we can do is to donate food to our local food bank that the needy in our community may get food.