In Matthew 14:13–21 we read the well-known story of Jesus feeding the five thousand, where five loaves and two fish were miraculously multiplied to satisfy a crowd. Below is a modern retelling of that parable, with Judith Collins taking the role of miracle worker, not with bread and fish, but with teacher salaries. Judith Multiplies the Little of What a Teacher Gets to an amazing $140,000.
13 As soon as Judith Collins heard the news, she withdrew by government limousine to a private chamber. But the teachers saw where she was headed and followed her from every town and school.
14 When Judith stepped out and saw the great crowd, she had compassion on the journalists and public and fed them inflated statistics.
15 And later that evening her aides came to her and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s getting late. Send the teachers away so they can buy their own dinner—or maybe some whiteboard markers.”
16 But Judith said, “That isn’t necessary. You feed them with salaries.”
17 But the aides replied, “we have only one starting wage of $64,724 and a two glue sticks.”
18 “Bring them here,” she said.
19 Then she told the people to sit down on the grass. Judith took the $64,724 and the two glue sticks, looked up toward Parliament, and gave thanks. Then she began to divide the numbers and hand them to her aides, who spread them among the media.
20 And everyone was amazed as the $64,724 was multiplied into $140,000 in the retelling. The reporters all ate it up, though the teachers checked their payslips and found only reality.
21 About five thousand teachers were present that day, not counting principals and support staff.
Commentary
The true miracle in this story was not the feeding of teachers, but the feeding of headlines. Judith shows that in Wellington, a starting wage of $64,724 plus two glue sticks could be stretched so that the public, other politicians, and the media believe that average wage is a mammoth $140,000. Politicians are not fed just with bread and fish, but with miraculous maths.
shem banbury 
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