From Scarcity to Abundance

By Pastor Lanny Peters,

August 4, 2002

Matthew 14: 13-21

The story of the feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle by Jesus to appears in all four of the New Testament gospels. Clearly, the story was of great importance to the gospel writers. In fact, Matthew tells an almost identical account in the next chapter. The first is usually referred to as "Feeding the Five Thousand," and the second, "Feeding the Four Thousand." The writer says those numbers represent only the number of men, and does not include the women and children. (In our congregation today I see we have about 75 people present, not including women and children.) Counting a crowd this way seems silly to us, but it is another indication of how women and children were devalued in Jesus’ time. This helps us appreciate how radical Jesus was in challenging this cultural assumption.

So counting everyone, there may have been 20,000 present that day, which I assume was an estimate anyway. When I lived in Washington, DC, it was always amusing to see how the size of crowds gathered for various rallies on the National Mall differed between the number the organizers said were present compared to what the media estimated which was usually also different from what the Park Service estimated.

The context of today’s story is important. It follows directly after two major setbacks for Jesus and his disciples. The first occurred when Jesus went back to his hometown synagogue to share his message. Expecting a supportive environment, he was met with unbelief and even hostility. Coming right on top of that, Jesus received the horrifying news that Herod had beheaded John the Baptist while in prison. John had been a strong influence on Jesus. His baptism by John in the river Jordan marked the beginning of his public ministry. As close as he was to John, Jesus realized how much danger he faced. Grieving and unsure about his safety, Jesus needed to get away by himself. He had the disciples take him by boat to a place he thought would be deserted that would allow him some time alone to pray and think things through.

But word leaked out as to where he was headed, and thousands of folks from the towns nearby set out on foot to find him. He saw them pursuing him around the lake. What he wanted was solitude to sort things out, but another feeling overcame his grief and tiredness, that of compassion. What a great word: compassion. The dictionary defines it as "a sympathetic emotion created by the misfortunes of others, accompanied by a desire to help." (Webster’s)

We often feel sympathy for others, but compassion is something beyond that. It is the urge to do something, even if it is just to be present with someone who is hurting. The writer of the Letter of James says, "What good is it, brothers and sisters, if you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and do you not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith, by itself, if it has no works, is dead." (James 2: 14-17)

I don’t know about you, but I have a lot more sympathy that I do compassion. I probably would have advised Jesus, "Take care of yourself. Tell those people that you are in grief and you just don’t have anything to give right now." But Jesus’ heart, while broken by the loss of John, was still filled with compassion. His heart went out to them and he spent the day walking among them, touching them, healing them, and saying things they needed to hear.

A tough issue each of us faces almost daily is how to keep a balance between taking care of ourselves and reaching out to help others. It is important to pay attention to our own needs. But we can also fool ourselves. We live in a culture obsessed with taking care of our own needs, fueled by an advertising industry continuously determined to expand what we think our needs are. We often fail to realize that one of the ways we can best take care of ourselves is by showing compassion to someone else.

One of the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous is that the way to stay clean is to give something back. You take care of yourself by helping another addict.

That is true even in grief. Studies have shown that one of the best ways to get out of depression is to reach out to someone else who is hurting. The temptation is to stay home and take care of yourself, which may be necessary for a time but can easily lead to isolation and even more despair. Kate Hauk told me that one of the most touching visits she received in the hospital was from Donna Woolf. She was not expecting to see Donna, who she figured was still reeling from the death of Sarah. A few days after Donna’s visit, Kate reached a low point when she realized her beautiful sixteen-year-old boy was dying. When she left the hospital, she went and knocked on Bill and Donna’s door. She was welcomed in and spent the evening there.

The grieving Jesus spent his day reaching out to others, and it was healing for him as well. He even hated to see the day come to an end. As the dusk began to approach, the disciples came to him saying, "Jesus, it’s getting late, and this is a deserted place, so it is time to send the crowds back into the villages to buy food for themselves. We need to take care of ourselves now."

Imagine the consternation of the disciples when Jesus said, "They need not go away, you give them something to eat." The disciples objected, "We were worried you might say something crazy like that so we checked our supplies already and all we have is five loaves and a couple of fish."

They showed the meager food to him and looked askance at the crowd before them, hoping he would say, "I guess you are right, send them away."

Instead, Jesus said, "Bring the food here to me." Then he had the crowds sit down on the grass. "Taking the five loaves and two fish, Jesus looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate, and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full."

A miracle! How did it happen? Well, at first glance it would seem that Jesus performed a bit of magic, multiplying the bread and fish as it was being passed. Of course, it may have happened just that way. However, the text does not explicitly say that, and it is worth pondering other possibilities.

The most skeptical would be that everybody in the crowd acted like many of us do when we come to the Lord’s Table. I have noticed that many people pinch off the tiniest little piece of bread off the loaf. I have noticed that folks who pull off a bigger piece than they intended look a bit embarrassed. We are polite and concerned that if we take too much there will not be enough for everyone, but there always seems to be more left over than we actually eat. We at least need to take enough to taste that it is bread.

I remembered something from a college Baptist Student Union Retreat. We were having communion in a circle, passing a loaf of bread around, each taking a little piece. The son of the campus minister, who was maybe four at the time, tore off a big chunk of bread and began eating it. We all grinned. Then the common cup went around. Each would take our little piece of bread, dip it in the cup and partake solemnly. When the cup came to little Danny, he took it and turned it up and began drinking in big gulps. He kept going until he drained it, then lowered the cup, and said, "Ahhh," with pure satisfaction. Maybe he was too young to understand the meaning of the symbolic meal, or then again, maybe he was the only one to really get it.

In our gospel story, it does not say that every one in the crowd politely took a tiny pinch but that all ate and were filled, at the end going, "Ahhh" with satisfaction.

Let me throw out another possibility. What if the people watched Jesus break and bless the five loaves and two fishes, and hand it to the disciples to distribute to the crowd? What if they were moved by this display of trust? What if they begin to realize that the bit of food they brought might be enough to share as well. Perhaps they need not save some for later for themselves. Overcoming the fear of going hungry, they began "turning their pockets inside out, for one another." Suggesting this, Barbara Brown Taylor says, "The real miracle is in learning one’s own part in God’s plan. Christ’s miracle is not bread and fish so much as it is our participation together in God’s merciful desire for our good."

Christ encourages us to move from scarcity to abundance. William Willimon says, "The disciples are us. We look at the vast needs of the world and despair. ‘Jesus, send them away,’ we plead. ‘Jesus, work some kind of miracle and feed them.’ Well Jesus works a miracle all right. He asks us, ‘What do you have?’ We don’t have much--just a couple of fish in our basket, and a few loaves. But he urges us to take what we have and recklessly share it, give it away, throw it away on the multitudes."

Willimon tells of asking an elementary school teacher how she kept teaching for over thirty years. Lots of folks burn out in a job like that. She replied, "I have found that love is a renewable resource. The more you give it away, the more you receive. As someone said, in giving you receive."

Paradoxically, the best way to take care of our selves is to give love, even sacrificially at times. This applies to us not only as individuals but also as a church. Jesus’ disciples were constantly astounded at how much Jesus expected of them. We as a church should be astonished at how much Christ intends for us to do. I am proud of our church and all that we do.

The newly formed Cuban Mission Group is but another example. But just imagine how many mission groups we would have if every person decided to be involved in at least one. Many give of their money generously to the church. But if each one of us gave as much as we were capable, imagine how much more we could do.

"It is very easy for the church and Christian people to see the vast neediness of the world as a threat. Surely, even our best efforts at meeting that need will end up in shame-faced failure, so why bother? The task of reaching out to a hungry and hurting world is obviously impossible. Still, Jesus says, ‘You give them something to eat.’ It seems impossible, but like the disciples, if we will just go ahead and follow where the gospel leads us, it will get done, with something left over." (Ronald Byers)

Our culture desperately needs people like us to live this way. There is a temptation to grab, hoard, pile up and guard. We are seeing this come to a head with daily reports of new corporate scandals. We do not need to increase our Gross National Product as much as we need to increase our compassion and our sense of justice.

I read something this week that was an example of this. An economist was showing a group of people statistics on the rather remarkable economic advance in the American South over the last few decades. They noted the huge jump in poor Southern states’ economies about 1968. "What happened?" they asked.

The answer: "the Civil rights Movement. We in the South were trying to fight with our hands behind our backs. When black people were allowed into the economy, the economy started to bloom." I remember growing up in an environment where we feared that racial integration would mean the loss of white jobs. Our racism had blinded us to see that our fate was tied together. (from Will Willimon)

It is worth noting that one of the places where segregation was most resisted was in restaurants. Eating together is an intimate act that connects us at a deep level. Jesus was known for his willingness to eat with anyone, whether they be a community or religious leader, or a community outcast or sinner. Scholars who study the historical Jesus agree that it was one of the most significant things about him. As his followers, we probably need a sign outside the church that says, "We’ll eat with anyone!"

Leslie Withers baked the bread for the service today and before the service, I told her I was glad she had baked such nice big loaves, which would fit with what I was preaching. She remembered a story which took place one Sunday morning at Clifton Presbyterian Church, where Leslie worked for many years as the director of their homeless shelter. Joe Coppage, a homeless man who had been connected with the shelter for many years, walked in late. The congregation had just shared communion, and there was a loaf of bread still on the table. Pastor Currie Burris noticed Joe looking hungrily at the bread and motioned to him that it would be fine to come and get some.

Joe sat down and mouthed, "Is there enough?" Currie went and knelt before him with the bread, and said, "By the grace of God, there is always enough."

At the end of a special day, Jesus wanted all those people to eat together. In the account of the Last Supper, Matthew uses the same verbs as in today’s story with Jesus taking, blessing, breaking, and giving bread. He obviously wants to connect these two stories.

And so we are invited to come and eat together as a sign of God’s abundant love. Our host at this table is the one who was known for his compassion. While at Christ’s table, "we can see that all that we have, and all that we are, is but a gift of an incredibly generous God who asks only that we respond to our sisters and brothers in the same gracious, generous spirit." (Willimon)

If it seems like you do not have much to give, don’t worry. If each of us brings what we have, it will be enough. There will even be leftovers.