We all know the basic story that is told in today's Gospel (Mt 6: 34-44), the feeding of the 5,000 as a result of the multiplication of the five loaves and two fish. But it might be worth a bit of time to reflect on what precedes that great miracle. Why is the crowd out in the deserted place until "very late" to begin with? Matthew tells us that Jesus has kept the crowd which was following Him there because "His heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd." So what does Jesus do? He "began to teach them many things." Note that. Jesus doesn't give commands, or orders, or lead them like a shepherd would lead sheep. He doesn't tell them where to go. While Jesus uses the simile of sheep without a shepherd, that is only a figure of speech. Jesus plainly treats the people in the crowd as intelligent adults capable of learning from Him, and of using that learning to govern their own affairs in the correct way. He acts as a teacher, not as a shepherd. We might remember that distinction. All too often, it seems like we allow ourselves to be treated like sheep in the Church. We're told what to do. We're "catechized"-- which sounds like some sort of medical procedure that gets done to someone-- and if we don't obey (because the teaching makes no sense to us), we're told we have been "insufficiently catechized." Jesus wants to teach us, and to have His Church teach us. That's more than just laying out a set of rules-- "thou shalts" and "thou shalt not"-- and telling people to obey them. Teaching means explaining things, giving examples, articulating reasoning, engaging in dialog. Great teaching involves getting a student to care about, and ultimately to understand, the "why" of things-- not just the rules. My first-year contracts law profession was an expert at that. Contract law is filled with rules that can, in some circumstances, conflict with each other. He was a master at getting the class to follow two different paths of logic-- each completely sensible on its own terms-- until, right as the class ended, he would show how they would collide with each other. We would walk out of class pondering which principle was right, since obviously they both couldn't be but since they each seemed so correct. He wouldn't solve the quandry for us-- he'd just let us sit with it. That's what great teaching does, and I'm guessing that is what Jesus did as well. If you read the teaching documents from Pope Francis, that's what he does as well. He respects our intelligence and gets us to think logically about what he is proposing, rather than just saying that he is the shepherd and we have to follow him. I once heard the expression "telling ain't teaching" and I think that is exactly right. Let's insist that we be taught, not just told.