Enough
I have never seen a miracle. Or at least I haven’t heard the voice of an angel singing through the fog of a deep blue night. I haven’t received a message on the rocks nestled in the sand as the rolling waves washed over. I haven’t witnessed water becoming wine. Now that is one that I would love to see. I would put in a request for spectacular Chianti. I have never seen a miracle like this. And there is something about the miracle stories in the Bible that drive me a bit mad. They are much too frustrating. And this one in particular, this story of feeding over five thousand people appears in all four Gospels. So it is obvious that we are supposed to notice it and be awed by it. We are supposed to be knocked to the ground in shock. But how is it really that spectacular that Jesus would be doing something like this? What is the point? Why is it so amazing for Jesus to feed a huge crowd with just two loaves and a handful of fish? Isn’t this the kind of behavior that we should expect from the Son of God, from a Savior? I mean really. It would be so much more exciting, so much more engaging and far more interesting to read a story that includes an odd cast of characters who somehow find a way to perform a miracle. But I don’t understand why it is such a big deal when Jesus does.
He does perform this one with a broken heart. His trailblazing God-loving cousin has just been killed. He was Jesus’ partner in preaching about the Kingdom of Heaven and he paved the way for the “one to come after” which was Jesus. John the Baptist was beheaded in prison by Herod. And before that, Jesus had his heart broken in his own hometown. He was rejected in Nazareth for being who God called him to be. He returned to his home Synagogue, the place where he had fallen in love with God only to feel the harsh judgment of his own people. He returned there to preach and teach and instead of celebrating, his people said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? Is not this the carpenter’s son?” In other words, who do you think you are? His community, his neighbors and friends and fellow faithful had rejected him. His heart had been broken twice. And now he needed a quiet place, a deserted place… He was probably fearful for his own life and he needed some time to grieve. He needed some time to sit and be and catch his breath.
But in a world as hungry and parched as ours, the one offering nourishment cannot hide for long. In the rolling green of the Galilee they found him. It was his footprints in the sands of the hillside and his footprint on their lives; they followed him to be healed and renewed and revived. They followed him to be fed. They found him and they needed him. They needed him to fill them. They needed him to quench their longing to and to heal their bodies and aching hearts. So they found him. The world wanted to creep in and curl up in has lap so they might take in just a piece of the abundant life he offered. And when the sun began to drift below the hills, his friends came to him to tell him that it was getting late. They came to tell him to send the world on its way. They came to tell him that it was time to let go and let the people go on living. They came to tell him that Jesus had done enough. Enough…they said. You have done enough.
And the disciples have a way of making Jesus’ job easier. They tend to do things almost entirely counter to what Jesus has in mind. So it is with ease that Jesus can point to what they are doing, how they are seeing the world and say nope that’s not it, but this is. And as they sit with Jesus perched on the edge of the Kingdom of Heaven, standing at the gate of abundance…the threshold of something different, something other than, the power of never enough, never enough time or energy, never enough space or resources, Jesus shows them another way. They wanted to go home and take care of themselves, to rest and eat and pray. But Jesus says, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”
Did you hear that? “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” I have heard this story again and again. I have heard it preached and seen it in poetry, but I never quite noticed that word that probably changed the hearts of the group standing with him. It is the word “you.” Jesus doesn’t say sit back and I’ll get it. Don’t worry I have this under control. Wait here and watch. He says, “…you, yes you! Give them something to eat.” Flustered, his friends can only see what isn’t there, what isn’t possible, how little they have to work with. They complain that there are just five loaves and two fish. But as Barbara Brown Taylor says, where the disciples saw scarcity, "Jesus operated under a different set of assumptions…. Jesus knew beyond a shadow of a doubt...that wherever there was plenty of God there would be plenty of everything else."
You, give them something to eat. Maybe it was the fact that John had just been killed and Jesus probably suspected that it wouldn’t be too long before he faced a similar fate. Maybe it was the right time or maybe he saw that he needed to show them in a big way what his life was really about. This is a miracle story, but I think the miracle is not so much about what Jesus did, but what he inspired the people around him to do.
And I have seen a miracle like this and so have you. I saw it here last winter when we prayed for God to send two of us to be trained as Stephen Leaders and there was enough. In fact if that had happened in the first century it would have definitely made it into the Bible. Money was found in a dress pocket from the rummage sale and money was gathered from one person and then another and generosity overflowed. I a miracle when we gathered money to extend a blessing to our next door neighbors and there was enough. I saw a miracle when we wanted to share Vacation Bible School with our community and there was enough. I saw a miracle when we committed to outreach and there was enough. The miracle of this story isn’t that Jesus fed five thousand people. The miracle is that he didn’t, his friends did. The people around him who loved him and believed that with God there is always enough moved the gathered group to radical generosity. One person says, well I have this and from coat pockets and satchels and hungry souls rises abundance and enough. If we soak up enough God, there will always be enough. As we begin another year together, let us put on the lens of Christ and let go of fear. Let us commit that we will not fear being without, that we will not live in the bondage to the myth that we won’t have enough money or people or time to do what God is asking us to do. Let us remember that God uses us to create miracles. Let us remember the words of Teresa of Avila, Lord Christ,
You have no body on earth but ours,
No hands but ours,
No feet but ours.
Ours are the eyes through which your compassion
Must look out on the world.
Ours are the feet by which you may still
Go about doing good.
Ours are the hands with which
You bless people now.
Bless our minds and bodies,
That we may be a blessing to others.
If we have enough of God, there will always be enough of everything else. Amen.