“Man of God, there is death in the pot!”
Elisha said, “Fetch some flour.”
He threw a handful into the pot and the poison disappeared.
“Now, serve it to the people and let them eat.”A man came … and brought Elisha twenty loaves of barley bread, and some fresh grain in his sack.
Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.”
His attendant replied, “How can I set so little before a hundred men?”
But Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.
For thus said the One Who Is: ‘They shall eat and have some left over.”‘
So he set it before them; and when they had eaten, they had some left over, as the One Who Is had said.——- 2 Kings 4:40- 41
Much of what you consume is poisoning you. The amount of calories you eat; the quantities of violence you absorb; the weight of your possessions; the overwhelming amount of data that inundates you daily-all of this and more is burying you alive. You are drowning in a sea of choice that gives you no guidelines for choosing wisely. You no longer know how to tell the difference between truth and well-packaged lies.
The prophet knows how to transform what you consume. He adds a bit of flour, the staff of life; the truth of justice, kindness, and humility; and you can eat and be satisfied.
The prophets’ task is to help you eat in a way that feeds both self and other. There are two aspects of this mission. The first is to demonstrate the falsity of zero-sum thinking: The pie is not fixed; there is enough for all. The second is to invite you to partake of the banquet that is God’s bounty in a way that reveals that you are filled only when others are sated as well. If even one stomach goes hungry, yours too should growl at the injustice. This story most likely provides the impetus for the tale of Jesus feeding the masses with five loaves of bread and two fish (Matthew 14:17ff).
