I think it probably startled the disciples when they came to Jesus with what seemed to be a perfectly reasonable request. “Look, Master, it is getting on toward evening and there are a great many people here who are soon going to be hungry. You had better draw this session to a close and send the people home so that they can find provisions. But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.”
This is a familiar story and you know the rest. The disciples had only five loaves and two fish. Jesus blessed and broke the bread and as they followed his command and passed through the crowd with the food, there became sufficient to feed all of them...there were, it says, five thousand men and who knows how many women and children in their company.
The disciples were uncertain about...having enough. Jesus was certain and as they passed through the crowed, there was enough.
Before we try to unpack this miracle, let’s recall for a minute that Jesus was very fond of eating with people. It was a central part of his ministry, although you may never have thought of it that way before. Remember little Zacchaeus; he was a tax collector and a profiteer. His neighbors did not like him because he was one of those who cooperated and made a living with the system of Roman taxation that oppressed the Judeans. When Jesus came to town, this little man, mostly from curiosity but also I would guess from some discomfort about the prospect of standing shoulder to shoulder with his peers.... climbed up into a tree. It was Jesus who spotted him there.... “Come down, Zacchaeus...for today I am going to join you for supper.” Gathering at the table was a time of interaction and apparently special joy for this man Jesus because he did it often.
It was his practice the Gospel writers say, to break bread with not only those who sought to follow him, but also with the Pharisees, his would be enemies (remember last week’s story about Simon the Pharisee who tried to trap Jesus in a compromising situation) as well as with sinners and those who had lost their way. It was one of the ways he had of modeling what he called the Kingdom of God. John Dominic Crossen talks about the “Kingdom of Nuisances and No-bodies” which Jesus seemed to embody in his walk among us. Walter Wink, another New Testament Scholar, refers to Jesus’ ministry as something like a “you all, everybody come, banquet....” It was a church social and a potluck supper.... a celebrative feast of life that offered healing and recognition for those who were otherwise marginalized and left out.
Many of the parables talk about the Kingdom of God in such terms. This Jesus, the man who is God among us...is the one who manifested the Kingdom's nature by offering each and all of God's children...each of us a place at the table.
In addition to the wonderful symbolism in a picture of eating together; it is my contention that sharing nourishment, the stuff of life with people, is an act, first of all, of trust. There are no official tasters in the Kingdom of Heaven.... or at our typical potluck supper either. We share a table and share in the preparation of the meal with the confidence and an expectation that it will not only all be good...but that each dish brought, each gift shared will be a special gift of the person who brought it.
Sharing gifts is part of the picture then, in the reign of God. And the gifts we share are God's. Ralph Waldo Emerson once observed: “The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant, friendly party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them silently away.”
“A distant, friendly party….” The Kingdom of God is a place of giving and receiving gifts – a way of life that calls us not only to praise God for what we receive in the nature of God’s love for us and the blessings of our lives, but also to learn how to give of ourselves.
“You won't have much to do at that church,” the bishop had told her. She was a young Methodist minister being assigned to a small congregation in a town not unlike many which surround us out in the county around Cedar Rapids.
When she arrived, she told the congregation that she enjoyed working with children.
“That's a shame,” they had said. “No children at this church for many years, just us old people. We have no children for you to work with.”
But she noticed that each weekday afternoon, children on their way home from school walked down the sidewalk in front of the church. What to do? She prayed for help...according to the story as I heard it.... and one day a few weeks later she was visiting with one of her church's members, an older woman, widowed for many years, who casually told her about the how she once played the piano in nightclubs when she was young.
And an idea started to form.... “Will you play for us on Wednesday?” the young pastor asked. The woman agreed to meet the pastor at the church next Wednesday...a couple of others agreed to make some sandwiches and punch.
When Wednesday afternoon arrived, they opened the long-closed doors of the fellowship hall at the church, pushed the old piano onto the porch, and the woman began to play. She played a bit of Jerome Kern and some Hoagie Carmichael, a lot of Scot Joplin’s Rags, and she played Jesus Loves Me. That was the first of many Wednesdays. A year later, that church has nearly doubled in size – still not very big, but bustling like it used to. The fellowship hall is open for games and activities; the children come and they have brought their parents and they are there on Sundays, too.
There are lots of little congregations like this that have given up on themselves – dwindled down to just a few loyal souls who have somehow forgotten why they are there; forgotten about their own gifts and built a wall between themselves and their neighbors. This is what happens when you forget how to share. It happens to churches and communities of any size – it is a slow progressive shutting down. It could happen even to us.
The secret of rebirth for the little Methodist church was not any more of a miracle than a realization – a waking up to the fact that they were not without resources. “All they had was a retired piano player, a piano and some punch and cookies...but now, so to speak, all are being fed. It was enough.” They learned again how to give.
On the hillside where the crowds had gathered.... people from all over Judea had come to hear Jesus. They had come to receive from him and he helped them see that in many ways they already had access to the reign of God – that Kingdom of God about which he spoke.
When supper time came, each had, we can guess, in their bundles and bags a little scrap of this or that...a bit of bread, some cheese or fruit. Maybe a dried fish or two...squirreled away against the time when they might need it. When Jesus said to his disciples, pass the baskets.... the miracle was in the sharing of these many gifts. For I am certain that as the baskets went around...as many put something in as took something out. As members of the crowd began to lose their fear about saving a bite for themselves, and their sense of neediness about not only their little bit of provisions, but about who they were and how the world was treating them; their fear of not having enough...the gifts they already had were set free. God's gifts...already given. And there was enough!
The miracle of the meal is that Jesus helps us understand what we already have and gives us the confidence to share it. As a congregation of people we related to each – or at least we should, as one big gift exchange. There are times when we have special needs and we are blessed by the gifts of friendship, support and care of our neighbors. There are times that we are freed to share ourselves with someone in need. Learning how to give even beyond our little community of friends and family is the first step toward understanding the Kingdom of God. Whether it is a school in Pakistan or a hospital in Haiti, a Habitat House; a covered dish for a fellow member of the church who is recuperating at home from an illness or a chance to begin a new program which will open the doors of the church in some new way with welcome. If we all learn to give – the miracle is that we find ourselves receiving in new a wonderful ways.
You feed them, Jesus said to the disciples, they passed the baskets with a few pieces of bread and fish and the baskets were filled and all were fed – and there was enough. Amen.
