Having Enough - Covid

Remember When?

Remember when you weren’t sure you had enough? I do.

I remember a road trip that we took once upon a time. We were driving along I-35… and we had been for hours The kids were fast asleep. And I remember seeing one of those road signs that said, “Rest Area in 1 mile, next Rest 34 miles.” And I remember having a brief wrestling with myself about that sign. I realized, in that moment, that I kind of needed to use the bathroom. But… the kids, like I said, were fast asleep. And Ashley didn’t need to stop. And so I decided I could hold it another 30 minutes. So, I passed the rest area.

And I recall as the minutes ticked by that I started to regret that decision just a little. But the miles were ticking down… we were getting closer. Soon relief would come! And as the moment that I had awaited for neared that I might take the exit ramp to that next rest area… there was an orange sign draped over the blue one that read, “Closed for Renovations.”

I remember thinking some choice phrases about the person who placed the sign but didn’t offer me warning 33 miles earlier! In the moments that followed I seriously wondered if I had enough bladder space to make it to the next town which was another 15 miles away. I’m fairly certain I said I prayer of thanksgiving when I finally pulled into that Conoco station.

Remember when you weren’t sure you had enough? I do.

Remember at the very beginning of Covid there was that race for toilet paper. You could go from store to store and the shelves were empty. The rolls had been called up yonder.

There were churches dipping into their toiler paper reserves and would offer them on the street corners to those who needed one. There wasn’t enough toilet paper to feed the fears that we might run out. But it wasn’t just toilet paper, was it?

No. As fear ran rampant and kingdom of civilization that we had constructed for ourselves seemed like it might potentially be on the verge of coming apart… people stocked up. I remember going to Brauhms to buy some pork but the meat was all gone as was the bread. Products were flying off the shelves… people were going from town to town trying to get what they could as they prepared for whatever might be coming.

I remember ordering several boxes of poptarts, ritz crackers, and yes of course summer sausage and cheese so that if we ran out of other resources… there would still be something to get us by for a time.

For the first time in a long time, nearly every person in our country knew what it was to question if we were going to have enough food in the days to come.

And then there was the question… would we have enough ventilators to care for the sick. An interesting statistic on ventilator production… according to statista.com in 2019 (so prior to covid) we averaged 700 newly produced ventilators in the US each week. By the end of March 2020, we were producing 2,000 ventilators each week. And by the end of April 2020, 7,000 a week. And they were, unfortunately, put to use.

And while we have enough ventilators now and other good treatments… if you listen to what’s going on in the world there are other places that still don’t have enough. Earlier this month, Indonesia ran out not of ventilators… but oxygen tanks to support those ventilators. 63 people died in one hospital not because of a lack of ventilators… but because of a lack of oxygen. Not having enough is scary.

Right now, we’re embarking on a new wave of Covid. The Delta variant is no longer something far off… it is something that is present.

And, yes, it is real. The good news is that we have better methods of treatment than we did last year. And we have a vaccine that works. This week, as cases have started soaring in Oklahoma again and projections are being made of another significant peak in late September… we have also received the news that of those being hospitalized… only 1% of them are people who were fully vaccinated. And that means fewer people will need ventilators.... fewer people will need oxygen… and that means we will hopefully have more resources so that more people will be saved.

So if you haven’t been vaccinated yet and you’re waiting for the right time to do it… now’s a good time. It might very well not only help you… but someone else as well. Or if you have been vaccinated but you know someone who hasn’t… it’s a good time to encourage them to get it for their sake.

As this new wave comes there are many people who do have fears about not having enough. This time, however, what I hear and see is not a fear of having enough toilet paper, pork, or even ventilators and oxygen (though again, Stillwater ICU has already filled their Covid Ward)… but what I hear is a fear of not having enough stability.. not having enough normalcy. As the last months and the introduction of the vaccine have offered many of us the opportunity to have even a taste of normalcy again, this new wave threatens that stability we have longed for. And to be stuck between the desire for normalcy and the reports coming from our state epidemiologists is a challenging place to be.

And it’s unfortunate that an issue that is truly a medical issue has become a political one.

But when something feels like it is beyond our control… and we just don’t like what is happening… when we’re afraid we won’t have enough… whether that’s enough toilet paper… enough food… enough medical supplies… or yes even enough normalcy… we yearn for what was or what might be… and unfortunately lines in the sand are drawn and things become political.

Jesus to be Crowned

It was no different in Jesus’ time. People back then experienced times of not having enough. In fact, they were far more accustomed to what that was like than most of us are today. While we knew the fear of scarcity for a season… some of us perhaps for a few years… they knew it for a lifetime.

And yes, having enough was a political issue back then as well. Roman politicians would throw bread to the citizens of Rome to buy their favor. If politicians could consistently supply the people with the thing they were afraid they did not have enough of… they could secure a seat of power for themselves because the people would trust that the food wouldn’t run out. And as we know, there is something to be said for finding a sense of stability and normalcy in a world that constantly throws curve balls.

But consistent supply was always a challenge. There were wars.. there were storms on the seas… ships would sink… supply lines would be cut. Even the most connected of politicians could only do so much. Because the challenge of offering bread for political support is that bread eaten today does not feed the body tomorrow.

That’s at least in part why these large crowds were following Jesus. For whatever reason, they didn’t have enough. They had SEEN the signs that he had been doing for the sick. They had SEEN him offering new life for those who had given up hope. They had SEEN him work miracles… he had helped the blind to see the lame to walk the possessed to be made free from their demons.

And the disciples had seen Jesus do this too. In the Gospel of Mark leading up to this feeding of the 5,000… the disciples had even been sent out 2 by 2 and had reportedly done a fair bit of healing and miracle working themselves. THEY had participated in God’s abundance for the world. And yet it speaks something about human nature that even as Jesus asks the question of his disciples, “Where are we going to buy bread for all of these people?” The response is based not in the knowledge of God’s abundance which they had continuously been witness to over and over again… but in the fear of not having enough.

Lord… even if we spent 6 months wages… which is a lot of money Lord… we still wouldn’t be able to make sure that everyone got even a little bit of food. And you can hear Phillip’s additional unspoken comment… this would be a wasted venture. We could spend all of that money and we still wouldn’t satisfy the hunger. So why bother?

And Andrew… even as he offers up this boy’s lunch as a possibility… he also wrestles with that question of not having enough… “But what are these among so many people?”

But despite the disciples’ fear that they wouldn’t have enough… Jesus invites them once again into the work of God’s abundance. That some how, even as the promise of civilization seemed ready to fall for this hungry crowd, God’s abundance would win the day. And as the fragments of leftovers came back from the crowd, the disciples and onlookers alike were amazed to find more food present than what they had started with. That in the midst of their fear of not having enough… that God provided more than they could imagine.

But still, the gifts that were offered at the beginning of this story were important. While the image of a little boy offering up his 5 loaves and 2 fish for the Master to offer 5,000 people but but cute in our minds… Christ took what little was available and made it enough to cover the need and then some.

Today’s Enough

As we face questions of having “enough” today… particularly as we might be wrestling with having enough normalcy or enough stability after being so tired of dealing with Covid-19 for so long and truly wanting to be done with it. As we look at the possibility of some of that normalcy once again being up-ended, we can recognize the gifts of abundance that God has placed around us in our world today.

We can, for one, give thanks that we have toilet paper on our shelves and in our bathrooms. We can give thanks that we have the opportunity to receive a vaccine that does indeed bring us one step closer to that normalcy we yearn for. We can give thanks for the abundance of food that we have available in our communities that we can freely purchase it and even offer it to those who can’t afford it without any fear of not having enough ourselves.

In some ways, I think the society of “plenty” that we live in today can almost make it more difficulty to recognize the abundance of God around us. But as the fears of not having enough wheal up for you whether they are indeed fears of not having enough normalcy or not having enough food or not having enough time or not having enough… fill in the blank… remember that moments like those are when the abundance of God is sometimes most easily seen.

And remember that we are called to participate in that abundance. To use the gifts around us whether it’s food in the pantry that can be offered to someone in need or a vaccine in the arm to make ourselves one less person that the tired nurses might have to care for… one less person in the US that might need oxygen that is desperately needed elsewhere.

As we are receivers of God’s abundance even in the midst of our own fear of not having enough… just as the disciples had fear... let us be good sharers of that abundance to the rest of the crowd. Let us take the morsels that God provides us and give thanks. And let us pass them along for when can trust in the persistent flow of God’s abundant grace even in the scarest of times.

Peace be with you. Amen.