I live near the heart of the world’s commodity markets in Chicago where everything is built on scarcity. The rarer the commodity the greater the value and the more likely that some will have it and others will not. A lot of conquest has been made for “gold” (one little letter “l” may be a point of confusion?), and not just by the Spanish in the 1500's.

I’m told that when John D. Rockefeller was asked the question, “How much is enough?” he replied, “Always a little more.” Which is why scarcity is accompanied by hoarding. (See René Girard’s ideas of mimetic violence.) But what if the story of feeding is not simply the prophet Jesus’ counter to Rome’s commoditization of the resources of the Sea, as Borg and Crossan suggest, but is also a Eucharistic paradigm of The Story of One who does not hoard even his own life?

At any rate Jesus refuses to play any games based on scarcity. He pushes Phillip to think and act in different ways. And then Jesus himself goes on to act upon his trust in God in an ultimate way. Which is why he is not ready to be king - not now, not in this way. His is a different “reign,” a different bassilia. And although the participants in the meal had already lived in it and been recipients of this abundance from God they are still anxious to establish Jesus’ authority out of an old paradigm. They wish to turn Jesus himself into a commodity.

No wonder he seems so strange to them...and perhaps still to us...moving across the Sea so mysteriously. His way is still a new way.

(from www.goodpreacher.com/blog/)