Today's Gospel reading tells the story of Jesus feeding over five thousand people with a few loves of bread and a couple of fish. "Then taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven," we're told, "he said the blessing over them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. They all ate and were satisfied."

The bread, broken and shared, was more than enough to satisfy everyone. That is the message this Sunday, and of course that is the message of the Gospel. Jesus, the Bread of Life, was broken and shared, and his brokenness unleashed the saving mercy of God to a desperate world. This is the reality that we participate in at every Eucharistic celebration, and call special attention to today.

Those of us who aim to follow Jesus Christ must accept the fact that we follow him on this path --- a path of brokenness and shared life. I don't know about you, but the idea of being broken doesn't appeal to me very much. I mean, I've broken my nose and broken my hand, and those experiences hurt a lot. I've also broken promises, and broken trust, and experienced broken relationships, and those experiences hurt even more.

Jesus Christ followed God into a broken world and allowed himself to experience the very worst violence that this world could summon. We, too, are called to embrace this broken world and share its pain in Christ's name, that his saving presence might be shared through us and the more of our brothers and sisters might be "satisfied" at God's hand.

The brokenness of the world has rarely been more apparent to us. The atrocities that human beings inflict on one another in their fear and their pain are staggering. Global conflicts rage, as do community and family conflicts. We humans seem at times to be ingenious in our ability to harm one another emotionally and physically.

What does it mean for us to follow Jesus in this environment? If you're like me, you're not in a big hurry to step into the line of fire. But, first and foremost, we are called to share our lives and our resources with the neediest members of our communities. Certainly, if all of us who claim to follow Jesus made this our first priority, I suspect we would experience more satisfaction and less brokenness.

The Eucharist is not a mere historical re-enactment of a dinner that happened some 2,000 years ago. It is a Sacrament; it is a re-experience of the reality that the breaking and sharing of Jesus' body and blood was and is in our world. We are called to remember it, and in this case "remember it" means to be a part of it.

If we do so, like Jesus at the feeding of the five thousand, we stand a chance of seeing and experiencing the miraculous love of God at work --- the love that can overcome the very worst that this world can deliver.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.