Feeding the 5,000 Sermon

Sometimes things just don’t add up. The math ain’t mathin. Years ago, I was helping to prepare for a large bereavement meal for around 50 people, much like the ones you helped provide recently. I was making the menu , delegating phone calls and asking for help with sides. One lady agreed to bring green beans for 50 people. So we get to the day of the funeral and I am receiving dishes to place in the warmer and in walks this sweet soul with the tiniest Corning Ware dish of beans that I ever did see. I smiled and nodded and thanked her. The whole time I thought to myself “I think we have different understandings of what a serving size is.” Is this a one bean per person scenario? Maybe I should have told her we were serving 100 people and she would have prepared two cans of green beans. Either way, this just wasn’t gonna work. It simply wasn’t enough.

The disciples on the shore that day thought, “there is no way this is going to work.” These people are hungry. There are way more of them than there are of us. Jesus is tired and grieving after news of John the Baptist’s death. The crowds wouldn’t give him a moment’s peace and followed him anyway, longing to be healed. But it’s getting late. It’s nearly dark and they gotta eat something. So they come up with the only logical solution. Hey Jesus. You gotta wrap it up. These people need to head on into town and grab some dinner.

The disciples know Jesus will handle it. He can take care of this. Easy peasy. Except…..he looks at them and says the thing that makes everyone uncomfortable. “They need not go away. You give them something to eat.”

Can you imagine their reaction? Us? There are twelve of us and nearly 18.000 of them. That’s right. Men, women, and children would have made this the miracle of the way more than 5,000. What do you want us to do? Some of the other gospels share some of their sarcasm. In Mark’s gospel they say “are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” In John’s gospel, we see Philip saying that “six months wages wouldn’t be enough to give each person even a little.” All we have are 5 loaves of bread and two fishes. That’s not gonna last 20 people let alone thousands. Don’t you see all these people? There’s no way that our little bit of bread and fish is gonna be enough to feed this crowd. This is another Corning Ware and can of beans situation. Are you seeing what we are seeing?

Jesus does see. In fact, before any of this takes place- the healings or the hillside fish fry, Jesus sees the people. Jesus sees their needs. It isn’t a look of pity but sight that comes from the lingering gaze of compassion. In seeing them, their worries and their fears and their hunger and their grief and their longing to be healed, Jesus is moved with compassion. This compassion isn’t an “awwww” kind of thought and prayer. It’s more than feeling sorry for someone else. This compassion is the kind that stirs up your insides and won’t leave you alone. The word for this compassion literally means your guts, your insides. This is gut-level compassion that propels one into action. Jesus is physically drawn to heal them and care for them. Now they are hungry. The disciples see them as a problem to be solved but Jesus sees them as people to serve and share with.

You give them something to eat. Here’s the irony of this. Feeding the people was the responsibility of the empire. In fact, the cornucopia was printed on one side of imperial coins as a symbol of abundance and nourishment to the people of Rome. And yet, the very systems meant thad morphed into ones that were now oppressing them. Eating with someone was a measure of status and nothing was for free. You were either a patron or a client. Masses of hungry people at your feet. The need is too great. We can’t do all of this ourselves. We don’t have enough. And we hear:

“You give them something to eat.”

But with what? And how? They are surrounded by the narrative of not enough. The need is overwhelming. Anything they do at this point is gonna feel like a tiny drop in a very large bucket. Have you ever felt that way? Ian Mobsby says “Perhaps that is where many of us begin. We look at our energy, our money, our patience, our congregation, our ability to change the world - and we see five loaves and two fish. We see the need and feel immediately the border of what we cannot do.”

How many times are we faced with a need and say Lord I don’t have the resources or the right skills or the time and meanwhile Jesus is saying “bring me what you have and let me bless it.” Bring me what you have and let me multiply it. Notice how the disciples didn’t even take into account what was on hand. They automatically assume there isn’t enough. If we only ever judge what we are capable of by what we lack, we will never be able to see what God can do with what we have.

Jesus simply says “bring them here to me.” He takes it. He breaks it. He blesses it. And then he charges them to share it with others. Notice the motions here. Take. Break. Bless. Share. And suddenly there is more than enough. More than enough to go around with 12 baskets of leftovers remaining. Leonard Sweet estimates depending on the kind of basket it was, that we were looking at anywhere between 24-48 gallons of leftovers.

Now you may interpret this as a scene in which bread and fish appear everywhere all at once. Or maybe it’s a scene in which the disciples go back and begin really taking into account what they already have on hand.

It reminds me of the story of Stone Soup, an old folk tale about a young boy who cleverly convinces an old woman to share ingredients to end up making a giant pot of delicious soup. At first she says “I have nothing to give you. I have nothing in the house. Nothing in the garden.” But the little boy says well I really only need a stone. The old woman becomes intrigued and begins going to find what she has and offering it to make the stone soup. Each time she says to herself “Soup from a stone. Fancy that.”

Walter Brueggemann said “ Jesus demonstrated that the world is filled with abundance and freighted with generosity. If bread is broken and shared, there is enough for all.”

Oh how many ministries have begun with mere loaves and fishes: zero budgets and hardly any volunteers. Just people who have been shaken by the gut-level compassion of Christ. Cliff Pickens started the St. Luke Food Pantry (now joined with your own Helping Hands) years ago out of the trunk of his car. I just read the article about your backpack ministry for kids and how it began twelve years ago because three women noticed a need with children not getting enough to eat over the weekends. You started Beds for Kids in 2019 because you realized children were sleeping on floors or inadequate spaces. I once knew a lady whose entire ministry was about what you do with leftovers. On Wednesday nights we always had too many baskets left if you will and so she took it upon herself to box up the leftovers each time we gathered and distribute them across town. Sometimes she would drive to an apartment complex. Sometimes she would drive to shut-ins. She didn’t have a particular route or plan, she just believed in extending the leftovers.

The question isn’t whether or not we can meet every need. Of course we can’t. The question is whether or not we will trust the generosity of God more than we trust the scarcity of the world.

Paul Dazet says “If you have been standing in front of a task that is bigger than the loaves you brought — if you have looked at what needs to be done and what you have to give and know that the math does not work — hear the good news. Christ does not ask you to make the math work. He asks you to bring what you have. He takes it, and he blesses it, and he breaks it, and he gives it. The abundance is his. The offering is yours.”

That day years ago, I placed the woman’s small dish of green beans out along with everyone else’s offerings and in the end, all were fed. Each offering matters. Each loaf and each fish come together to provide the feast.

Maybe the real miracle is everyone coming together to offer what they have to one another, not as patron or client but as brothers and sisters in Christ. Maybe the real miracle is the people being invited to share in the compassionate heart of Christ. Maybe the real miracle is watching how the math of grace always seems to multiply when we move with compassion and are willing to bring God what we have on hand.

May we all run to the table of the Lord this morning with an eagerness and an excitement to receive grace and mercy that abounds. We remember Jesus who broke the bread,and we remember Jesus who multiplied the bread. We remember the baskets of leftovers. May we carry the leftovers forward today, our share of grace and mercy into the world....for there is more than enough to go around.