>>Having visited Israel the holy land more than once, I have a very vivid picture of the landscape there and it does not include much green grass.

The rich color of grass that we are used to seeing outside of our homes is seldom seen anywhere in the places Jesus would have walked to and visited. That would be unusual.

Maybe something that you’d see a little bit of in the spring time. And that’s why the word ‘grass’ jumped out at me when I first read this gospel from John.

Remember Jesus asked for the people to recline and we’re told there was a great field of grass in that place.

So, why the word ‘grass?’ Well, it’s an interesting fact that the Greek word for grass is not the same as something we know and would have to mow. The Greek word meant ‘fodder’ or ‘hay.’ Something that you would feed to the animals.

So why would Jesus tell them to recline on the ‘fodder’ when He is about to feed them? Well, you see John uses beautiful eucharistic language to show us how the Lord’s abundance was unexpected.

Phillip does the math and He knows that not even a 100 days wages would be enough to bring food for all those gathered. And so, he asked the question: “How can we feed these folks?”

Remember Elisha in the first reading? The servant, asked the same thing, “How can we do this?” But our God is surprising. The Lord’s abundance is unexpected.

God works through an unlikely person, that unnamed little boy. God’s ways seem to be radically different from our expectations. And so you see, today’s readings invite us to think about: what unpredicted ways has God met our needs? Or, answered our prayers?

Is there someone who has shown up, who’s help we did not expect? And so, I encourage you today when you’re outside or even if you’re just looking outside your window when you look at the rich, green grass think about how astonishing God is, in totally unexpected ways.