GOP Gospel: Loaves and Fishes

Day 3 of my Lent project. For background, please read this.

A reading from the Gospel according to the GOP:

And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognised them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; should we give them some food so they do not go hungry?" But he answered them, "It would take two hundred denarii worth of bread to feed all these people. If they wanted to eat, they should have brought food. It is not for us to feed those who have failed to make adequate preparations, and thereby reward them for their folly; doing so would only encourage them to be foolish again. Is it not written, 'If you give a man a fish, he will eat for one day; if you teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime'?* Indeed, a fisherman will supply himself with food and sell the surplus to buy what he cannot provide for himself. Thus everyone prospers. Send them away to purchase their meals in the nearby villages. Who are we to deny the vendors there the blessing of this multitude's custom?" So the disciples sent them away, and the people ate in the villages, and the local economy flourished.

( Mark 6:32-44 )

*This proverb does not appear in the Bible, and seems to be a surprisingly recent invention.