We’re very good at organizing ourselves, budgeting, projecting, appealing and acting out those plans. It’s easy to see ourselves as selfish sparrows with barely any bread. But Jesus challenges us: you have enough. You have everything I need to gather people together, heal them and restore their hope.

The Nearness of Insecurity

We debate whether the story here depicts the miraculous appearance of food or a miracle of sharing what people brought. In antiquity, it would have typically been heard as the miraculous appearance of food… And, as we’ll return to again and again, the point is not the miracle.

For those of us who have never worried about where we’ll pay for groceries or where we’ll get our food, issues of lack of food and food insecurity probably are not the first thing that come to mind. But, for people who were suffering from food insecurity, stories of food appearing miraculously would have been particularly welcomed.

Teaching teaching … and can we….

Here, imagine Jesus has disappeared into sharing and teaching and drawing people in so he can continue teaching and shaping them. And, as it starts to grow dark, the disciples want Jesus to send the crowd away… not cause we’re tired or anything… but so they can go to the nearby villages and countryside and find lodging and food, because we are in a deserted place.

Before we get to Jesus’ reply, let’s consider that for a moment. They were in a deserted place, a deserted place… a wilderness. It reminds me a bit of being over in one of the less populated counties in Montana, say Chouteau County around Fort Benton. I imagine finding a place that no one would run you off. You’d be a ways –driving– from anything. And there are, conveniently for my purposes, around 5000 people in the whole county. I’m not sure 5,000 people trying to find food and lodging in a place like that.

Have them go descend on the towns and go hunting in the countryside and scrounge up dinner… even though the day is almost over.

Is the disciples’ idea even going to work? Do those towns have the resources to feed that many people?

They don’t know what they can do

The catch about being tired is you don’t think anywhere near that far ahead. The disciples, I imagine are tired and want to call it a day.

And he replies You give them something

But Jesus, we signed up to be students and become famous rabbis and teach wisdom to others. Culinary and Hospitality school didn’t show up on our High School assessments.

And he replies You give them something.

It’s like he knows something. If you back up in the story, Jesus sent them out and they healed people. Now, that might be a miracle but, in this series, I’m arguing that miracles are not the point. Getting to sit at the foot of the wise Rabbi is not the point. But, part of the point may be that they are already pulling off things they didn’t know they could do.

The basic challenge of finding food was about to come up again and Jesus says, you give them something.

This is where being the “hands and feet of Christ” takes on a very literal meaning. It is not just you or the disciples or folks in the churches on the street through town that are beloved of god. To see Gd in others, means hearing Jesus say you give them something when it comes to feeding, clothing, and housing people.

What do we do?

“We have no more than five loaves of bread and two fish—unless we go and buy food for all these people.”

Hey Jesus, we could go to the drive through.

It’s a lot of food so we’ll need to organize a committee. Jesus, you should be chair. And, while we’re at it, we could schedule a discussion about arming folks to overthrow the Governor and kick out the Romans.

I wonder if Jesus sighed at moments like these.

But, Jesus says Seat them in groups of about 50. It’s a hint of military precision and the way the Roman military organized a Legion. More importantly, it commited everyone to give them something to eat. It was no longer about sending them somewhere else, going somewhere else, but about what could be done through them. The challenge isn’t what is possible but whether they will have the confidence to trust and act.

Meals

Meals… meals… meals…. The gospels return again and again to meals.

Some point out that Jesus and his disciples may have traveled here to avoid Herod, the man who killed John the Baptist after a massive feast. Jesus is invited to come to the banquet’s of the rich and calls them to stop excluding the poor and invite them in. Judas leaves the last supper to betray Jesus. Meals can be about power, exclusion, betrayal, and punishment.

And there were other meals. The last supper was also when the disciples saw that the way to be the greatest is to be willing to kneel down and scrub the dirty stinky feet of others. At Emmaus, it was the moment people found their faith again. And breaking bread, sharing a meal, was central to Sabbath in an observant Jewish household. Meals can bring people together, anchor faith and restore hope.

And… here are 5,000. Do we break the circle and scatter them to the wind or do we bring out the tables, invite everyone in and move from talking at them to sitting with them, eating with them, being with them in all of who they are.

This passage is strangely prophetic

We can relate to those disciples. If 5,000 people showed up on Sunday, what would we do? We don’t have a committee. We don’t have the money. We don’t have a big enough kitchen. We don’t. We don’t. We don’t.

Hope is enough

But, somehow, a group smaller than this, with less budget, less organization and less food than we’ve got, reluctantly let Gd work a miracle through them. Jesus said You give them something. Sit them down in groups, in circles, and You give them something. He didn’t say it had to be everything but give them something.

And, as they were getting something, how many thought of the great messianic banquet that Jesus talked about. The time when all are fed. Mary and Martha talked about the day when he would fill the hungry with good things and Jesus had promised “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled”

And, in that moment, in the act of Giving them Something, people could see that hope was worth holding on to. That, in the act of being given something, that being filled and blessed was actually possible.

You: Give them something to eat.

Benediction

Now, may the Lord lift up his face to you
and grant you peace

May the Lord show you the
abundance that surrounds us

And when the time comes
May you know you already have more than enough
to Give them something to eat

Take a moment to reflect: If 5,000 people showed up on Sunday morning and stayed for potluck, what would you give them to eat?