Once there was a young man who was a bachelor, and he told his mother that he finally met the girl of his dreams, and he desperately wanted to impress her. And so he asked his mother what best advice 

She would give on how to do so.  

And the mom said, “send her flowers and a card “Inviting her to dinner.” And so the young man did this, and a few days later, the girl of his dreams came to dinner. When the young man’s mother called to find out how things were going or how they went, the son said, “I was totally humiliated.”  

She insisted on doing the dishes. And mom said, “well, what’s wrong with that?”  

“Mom,” he said, “we hadn’t started dinner yet.”  

What a dinner party that must have been. And what a dinner scene we have in the gospel today. We see Jesus with the crowd of people, and he says to Philip, “where are we going to buy enough bread for all of them to eat?”  

The disciples answer, “it’s impossible.”  

And haven’t we all had that feeling at times, faced with what seemed impossible situations? We all have had challenges that seem too much for us. We find ourselves up against something beyond our ability to control, and we feel we might just as well give up. We’ve all been there, and maybe we’re there right now. Today’s gospel gives us some practical advice on what to do at times like this.  

First, we have to come to terms with our limitations. There are some problems you and I cannot solve. It was humanly impossible for the disciples to do what needed to be done in that situation we heard about. Common sense would tell us, “just give up.” But our faith has a better answer, and it tells us to turn these things over to God. Just because we feel overwhelmed doesn’t mean God does. God can manage what god has created. A little boy in the crowd brought lunch. 

Andrew looks at it and says, “what good is this going to do?” 

Jesus holds that same lunch in his hands, And he gives thanks to God and all ate on it. They started with the same fact, a lunch. But they approached it with different attitudes. And that option is always open to us.  

We cannot always control the events of life, but we do have control over our attitudes. We can give up in despair or trusting in God. We can also look up in hope. No matter what the situation in life might be, we have that option to look up in hope.