February 3, 2013
More Than Enough
by James McCrea
John 6:1-14
- “In a certain year, a long time ago, in a place most of us never knew, a community was blessed. The vision was planted long before the birth, but in that year, only the History Committee was sure of the exact time, a birth was announced and a church was born.
“The Young Church was a vital church, determined to grow and to reach out to the community; it was determined to serve the needs of the people who lived there. The people of The Church were wise in their understanding of scripture and they shared their faith. They invited people to worship with them. They invited people to study with each other. They invited people to come and eat, and yes, even to feast together. They committed to building buildings, which would meet the needs of the community and its people, and they invited people to share and to use those beautifully new and clean buildings.
“The Church did serve the people of the community by providing worship and Bible studies and a variety of program ministries and mission events and outreach activities; perhaps an ice cream social or barbeque or harvest festival. The Church believed their vision was blessed by God and they proclaimed the good news they knew, knew no limits. And The Church grew strong and became wise.
“One day, I can’t be certain of the exact day — I don’t know if anybody can say the exact day — but one day, fear sauntered into that Church. It wasn’t seen for many a year. In fact, fear was never seen. But fear stalked the halls and hung around the classrooms and fellowship halls. The people of The Church were afraid they wouldn’t be able to take care of the beautiful buildings they had built so they quit giving to the mission causes around the world and even to some community projects they loved so dear.
“The money just wasn’t there, some said. And the ones who said the money wasn’t there were right. The more The Church held back, the less The Church had to give away. The less the people gave, the less they had to give. Their hearts grew cold while the spirit grew old.
“It’s strange, isn’t it? In the hands of a small boy, a lunch of five barley loaves and two fish will be insufficient. But given to the prophet who is to come, it will make possible the feeding of five thousand.
“There was enough to go around. And there were twelve baskets full of the leftovers. There was so much left over that there was more at the end of the feast than there was at the beginning of the meal. Our God is more than a God of possibility and promise. Our God is a God of possibility and promise fulfilled in our midst.”
The story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 is the only incident in the three years of his ministry — prior to the last week of his life — that is reported in all four gospels. Each gospel writer gives this story his own slant, attempting to make different points with it. That raises the obvious question: What does John want us to learn from his description of this miracle story?
All four gospel writers were very careful in their use of detail, but perhaps none of the others wrote on some many levels at once as John did. There are no incidental details in John’s gospel. So when he begins his account of the feeding of the 5,000 by saying that it took place along the “Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias,” you can be sure that he isn’t just helping who have never been to Israel understand its geography. There’s a deeper reason for giving that second name for the sea.
Tiberias was one of two large cities built in the 50 years before Jesus’ crucifixion. Within Jesus’ lifetime, Tiberias grew to be the second largest city in Israel after Jerusalem and Sepphoris, the other new community, the third largest.
Both Tiberias and Sepphoris were largely populated by Gentiles — that is people who didn’t worship the same God and who didn’t follow the same customs as the rest of the country. That might be enough to cause those cities to be despised by the rest of the people, but there were even greater grievances than that.
To support this relatively sudden influx of population, the government imposed onerous taxes on food production that had the effect of either lowering farmers’ production to the point of threatening their ability to feed their own families or it forced them to take out loans.
Believe it or not, the interest rates on those loans were often as high as fifty to sixty percent! That meant that those loans often ended with the landowner losing their farm and either winding up in debtor’s prison or becoming a slave — sometimes on the very land they used to own. Or they might become homeless beggars, prostitutes or thieves.
If you’re ever wondered why large numbers of people were able to follow Jesus around from place to place as he traveled, now you have some idea of the answer. Those people weren’t taking time off work to follow Jesus because they had no work to go to. Many third world farmers have experienced similar things in our lifetime.
In fact, many American farmers lost their farms in the 1970s due to defaults on ill-advised loans. Sadly, it’s not that hard for us to understand the dynamics that drove the economy of Jesus’ day. And that’s what John is trying to hint at to his readers when he tells us that this event took place by the Sea of Tiberias.
A mere two sentences later, John gives us another clue as to what Jesus is doing in this story when John mentions that this incident took place near the Passover.
There’s no guarantee that the way modern Jews celebrate the Passover is the same as the way it was celebrated in Jesus’ time; however, the broad outlines are the same. Passover is a recreation of the story of when the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt and God commanded them to share a victory meal on the night before they were freed.
One of the greatest symbols of that freedom is that the ancient Passover meal was taken while reclining. That functioned as a reminder of the leisurely attitude made possible by freedom. That’s how the Passover meal was taken in Jesus’ time and that’s what Jesus asks the crowd to do before he feeds them with the little boy’s lunch.
Reclining on the ground means that the disciples would have to stoop to serve the crowd, just as Jesus would stoop to accept the cross on behalf of us all. But, more importantly, reclining was the posture of the wealthy. Jesus was treating this faceless crowd of disinherited and impoverished people as if they were royalty. Or, more to the point, it’s as if these people who had been squeezed out of their homes by their neighbors and their king were still cherished by God. Because they were.
Isn’t that still one of the functions of the Lord’s Supper for us today? Doesn’t it remind us that no matter who we are, no matter what challenges we may face or what regrets we may labor under, God loves us still? Beyond that, through communion Christ offers us his Spirit to strengthen us as we undertake his work in the world.
If Christ’s blessing can stretch the contents of a lunch pail to satisfy a huge crowd and leave even more remains than they started with, how can we not believe that Christ can multiply our sometimes meager efforts to bring true blessing to those around us?
One obvious modern example of that may be seen in the Souper Bowl of Caring Offering. The story goes that a youth group in South Carolina had gathered for a Super Bowl party and their leader, who was then a seminary intern, offered a simple one-sentence prayer before they ate. It’s the prayer quoted at the top of today’s bulletin.
“Lord, even as we enjoy the Super Bowl football game, help us be mindful of those who are without a bowl of soup to eat.” I imagine that, at first, he was simply pleased at the clever turn of phrase he had come up with.
But somewhere along the line, that prayer inspired the thought that if everyone watching the NFL’s Super Bowl each year were to give even just one dollar to help fight hunger, it could make a huge difference for those in need.
That idea spread from the Spring Valley Presbyterian Church to other churches in Columbia, South Carolina and before long, the idea had become a national movement.
The Souper Bowl invitation to help others has become so powerful that last year nearly $5 million was raised in the U.S. to fight hunger, all of which was donated to local causes selected by the groups taking the offering.
In our case, we always donate our offering to the Galena Food Pantry. We give the entire amount to the Food Pantry and then we call in our total to the national Souper Bowl of Caring headquarters, which adds our total to all the other amounts raised around the country.
It’s a very simple idea, but our gospel lesson teaches us that even simple things given to Christ for his blessing can have an impact far beyond our imagination. And since that is the case, we can be assured that we never have to face the fear that crippled the church in the parable I shared at the beginning of this sermon.
As long as we trust in Christ, his blessing will rest upon us and we will be empowered to build God’s kingdom with a joy that will drive out all our fears and hesitations. Amen.