I would assume that most of you sitting here in the sanctuary are familiar with the story we just heard from Mark’s gospel. But maybe I shouldn’t assume that. Just in case the story isn’t one that you know well, let’s set the scene for the story so that we can dig into it a bit better.
The disciples have come together, after being away for a while. Jesus had sent them out into the world to heal the sick and to cast out demons, while carrying nothing with them all the while facing the possible rejection of those they were serving. It was hard, exhausting work. Together they are not only trying figure out what all they did and saw meant, but they are grieving. For the disciples of John the Baptist have shared the news of Jesus’ cousins’ beheading at the hands of King Herod. It was too much. They need a moment to catch their breath, to reorient life.
Jesus, joining them, sees that they are struggling, that this group of men are scared, tired and grieving. So he suggests stealing off to a quiet place where they can talk and rest. That sounded good… so the disciples and Jesus climb into a boat, and start making their way to wherever it is that Jesus is taking them. Mark doesn’t tell us exactly where they are going, the gospel simply mentions they are going to a deserted place. Which sounds lovely after dealing with people for as long as they had. Unfortunately, it turns out this deserted place isn’t as deserted as they thought it would be.
They hear the crowd before they see it. A low-level rumbling, a vibration of thousands of voices talking that causes the water around the boat to ripple. As the horizon comes into view, Jesus and the disciples look out to see a very large crowd of people all looking for Jesus, desperate to be near him and to hear him. Jesus looks between the crowd and the disciples, and without a sigh or turning the boat around, and with great compassion for the crowd he keeps moving towards the crowd. He sees that they are lost, wandering without a shepherd, and he hops out of the boat and starts to teach them.
Jesus’ teaching takes time, and as the sun begins to set, the disciples stomachs start to grumbling. And if they are hungry, then the crowd must be too. So they approach Jesus. “Teacher, we need to send these people away so they can get some food. And while they are getting food, maybe we could do the same.” Jesus responds telling the disciples to give them something to eat to which the disciples respond with we can’t afford that! It’s going to cost more than half a year’s wages to feed all these people. You want us to buy that much bread to give to these people?” What happens next is so incredible, so unexpected, that people of faith are still talking about it 2000 years later.
A miracle happens. And like most miracles, there’s a lot of mystery involved. The gospel isn’t clear on how Jesus makes this miracle happen – maybe the gospel writer didn’t know, or maybe everyone at the time knew making it so obvious that the author didn’t need to write it down. Maybe it was truly supernatural phenomenon that was beyond explanation. No matter the how, five barely loaves and two fish managed to feed five thousand people. At least that is what we are told…. Could be that everyone who had extra decided to share with strangers… but that is a potluck miracle not a Jesus miracle.
What the gospel does tell us is that Jesus got people to sit down in groups of a hundred and fifty (which in and of itself is an incredible feat), lifts the food that the disciples grudgingly handed to him, blesses the loaves and fish, and starts passing it around. And by the time the meal is over, everyone was fed. Not just fed, but full, like Thanksgiving supper stuffed.
It’s an incredible miracle story. It’s so great, in fact, that all four gospels’ writers tell the story six different times with only slight variations. And whether it’s 4000 or 5000 or 20,000 fed, the intention of the writers seems to be the same. Firstly, they want us to know that Jesus really and truly fed a whole whack of people a whole lot of the time, and secondly, that this feeding people thing was an important part of his ministry. Literally putting food in the bellies of the people was important to Jesus. It was the core element of the good news he had to share.
So far this Lent, we have heard the miracle of water turning into fine wine, we’ve heard the story of extravagant love and forgiveness shown to someone who had been considered unworthy of it, and today we have so much food that even after feeding thousands of people, there are leftovers. All of these stories have been about the same thing – abundance.
These things – the wine, the love and forgiveness, the bread – were ways for Jesus to show the people what he has been talking about – that the good news, clearly, is that through God there is abundantly more than enough to go around. And these stories show Jesus telling this truth with people who were unfamiliar with the concept. These were people who lived hand to mouth. If they were lucky enough to get wages it went to buying food and paying the tribute they owed to the empire. There was never anything left over. And here’s this man, traveling from town to town with nothing but the clothes on his back and the sandals on his feet, telling the people about a love from God that is so big, so generous, so ridiculously over the top extravagant that it couldn’t be contained. It was unbelievable…. And yet they believed him. They believed him because when they were with him, they weren’t hungry anymore. It was that simple.
But abundant thinking isn’t how most of us are hardwired these days (or in Jesus’ day). I harp on this all the time, and I am sure you are getting tired of it. But we live in a world where the dominant thinking tends to be rooted in the concept of scarcity… the idea that God couldn’t possibly be around ALL the time or really there isn’t enough to go around so we have to take matters into our hands. That kind of thinking that fuels our fear of not enough to the point that we give into the impulse to take care of me and mind first and to hell with everyone else. Remember the toilet paper crisis of the pandemic? Panic sets in when we think there isn’t enough, and let’s just say that when the panic sets in we tend not to be our best selves.
I read a story this week about a presbyterian church in a place called Black Mountain that has a communion table with a particular phrase carved on it. Now most of us long time UCC folk would probably have some guesses as to what that phrase is based on our experiences… lots of communion tables have a phrase carved on them. Some say “in his service”, others say “do this in remembrance of me” but this church’s communion table was a little different. This one says, “has everyone been fed?” Imagine for a moment, coming to the table and that being the question being asked of us, Sunday after Sunday…. Has everyone been fed? The answer will most likely always be, not yet. The question isn’t meant to instill fear or scarcity; it’s not bad news or hopeless despair. It is a call to discipleship, a reminder that we still have work to do to share the abundance we’ve been given through God – and this is good work with good news to share.
How the miracle happened doesn’t matter, nor does it matter what the people ate. What matters is that we open ourselves up, heart and mind, to this faith that calls us to look for the abundance of God’s life giving grace all around us and then to allow that abundance to impact how we live and move and act in the world now. For as Karoline Lewis wrote: “the offer of abundant grace compels us to see when it (appears) absent…and then to do something about it. [Abundance is] about lives touched. It is about making a material difference in a broken and shattered world.”
So friends, our God is a God of abundance. Say that with me “Our God is a God of abundance.” And no matter how loud the scarcity of the world grates, God delights in feeding the hungry, in accomplishing what we dare not imagine. For the good news is together, the impossible is possible.
Thanks be to God
Amen.
