Photo by Brian Cook on Unsplash
I really don’t like being hungry. I’ll do a lot to avoid even the possibility of hunger. And I don’t like to think of those I love being hungry. In today’s gospel reading, I’d be the one who made sure that my kid had plenty of food with him when he went off to follow the great teacher and healer.
All four gospels contain this story; the story of the 5000 hungry people. But today we heard from John, and of course, John gives it his own particular twist. He tells us “Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews was near.” What does this remind us of? It reminds us of course of the events of holy week and the Passover which happened at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion.
John’s gospel does not include the familiar story of the last supper with Jesus breaking the bread and the disciples drinking the cup of the new covenant on the night of his betrayal. Instead John’s account of the last supper tells us about Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. But here, in the middle of the gospel, there is an extended section of Jesus’ teaching about the importance of us eating and drinking him, taking him into ourselves in a visceral way.
We will be hearing much more about that in the next few weeks. But today we hear that Jesus used what the disciples brought him to feed a crowd the size of one third the total population of Los Osos. And by telling us that this took place near the time of the Passover, John is signaling that this miracle is somehow fundamental to the way God works in our lives, foundational to the mysteries of our faith.
This miracle is a description of the reign of God manifest among the people of the day. They followed Jesus because they were hungry for his teaching and they were hungry for healing. But Jesus saw that they needed something else too. They were physically hungry. And he asked his disciples how they were going to buy enough food to feed them all. That must have been a WTF moment for Philip –even if they had six months wages between them, there was no grocery store nearby. The only answer he could give Jesus was, we can’t, we can’t do it. But the reign of God is a reign of abundance, and God delights in using the small and the weak to make a big difference. God delights in taking a small contribution and making it into something huge.
Jesus took the boy’s lunch and made it into something much bigger. They all ate their fill and there were baskets left over. This is like the parable of the mustard seed. God takes something very small and makes something big enough to feed and nurture those who need it.
We live at a time when there is tremendous need all around us. The effects of climate change are upon us and they are devastating. Millions of people are facing starvation in East Africa and Yemen because of drought and war. Yet environmental regulations intended to reduce our contribution to global warming are being rolled back. Closer to home, the chronic housing shortage is getting worse, and more and more people are struggling to survive. Recently I heard of an apartment building in Morro Bay where the rent has been increased by 300%.
It often seems overwhelming and we wonder how we can do anything; sometimes it seems as if we can’t. But in the gospel story of God’s abundance, one mother made sure that her son didn’t go hungry and that act of loving care was transformed by Jesus into loving care for thousands. Each one of us can only do so much, but when we do the bit that we can we contribute our part to the great quilt which we are piecing together in the power of the Holy Spirit, the quilt of the reign of God.
Here at St Benedict’s we are doing many small things to help those living on the edge in our community. Through the Abundance Shop we keep tons of stuff out of the landfill and provide clothing and both necessary and fun things for people who need or want them and just as importantly, we provide a place to go where people are treated with love and respect, whoever they are.
We are working with our neighbors through Los Osos Cares to offer a community meal, to provide a warm shelter on cold or wet winter nights, and we are working on a safe parking program. In addition we serve at Peoples Kitchen and give breakfast to those living rough in San Luis *Obispo. This past week at Laundry Love we provided many people with the gift of clean laundry. None of these are big things. Just as the *letters we write to our elected representatives and to the newspapers, the petitions we circulate and sign, the donations we give to support others’ work are not big things. The volunteer work we do in other organizations to help people, creatures and the planet – these are not in themselves big things.
But they add up, they matter. They are the barley loaves and the fishes. *They are the lunch shared that feeds the community. They are the love that sustains and builds, transforms and heals. They provide the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to grow the reign of God in this place where we have been planted, where we have been called to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
But this gospel reading is not just about God’s love expressed through food, it is not just about how one loving act, the preparation of lunch, can be transformed in the reign of God into something much bigger, it is not just about God coming to us in bread and in wine until we become bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. There is a whole other story. What happened that night.
I imagine the disciples were tired when they set out for home. They left without Jesus and headed home. But in the darkness a storm came up. They weren’t expecting it. From Karen Evan’s experience in the coast guard she tells us that such unexpected storms are very rare on inland seas. But they are not rare in our lives.
The disciples were probably feeling happy with the way things had worked out. Life seemed to be going in a good direction. The people had been so pleased with Jesus that they had wanted to make him king. And then, bang! Out of nowhere the storm came and changed everything. From a relaxing sail home to a warm bed, their trip across the lake became a struggle to row against the weather.
And in the midst of their struggle, they saw Jesus walking towards them. Not surprisingly they were terrified until they heard his well-known voice, “It is I; do not be afraid.” And before they knew it, they were across the lake and home. I bet they wished they had taken Jesus with them to begin with. But in a way they had. Because Jesus was never far away. He knew just where to find them within the 64 square miles of the sea of Galilee.
I’m not sure why the writer of John included this story. He was very careful about what he included and what he left out. John was not writing a quick life of Jesus but a careful text to guild the life of the faith community, and one which was influenced by the way they were experiencing the resurrected Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
I imagine that John wanted us to know that often storms come when everything seems to be going well. And that Jesus is never far away. The same Jesus who had just taught and fed the huge crowd came in an exciting and successful time, came to them in their time of difficulty with those gentle words, “It is I; do not be afraid.”
Yes God is with us when all is going well, yes God is in our ministry and is blessing us with abundance, yes God is multiplying our small efforts. But when things are not going so well, God is with us then too. At those times when we ask, “Why did God let this happen?” Jesus comes to us walking across the water of the storm. At first we may not see him; the disciples couldn’t believe their eyes. But then he walks with us, he climbs into the boat next to us and takes our hand with his quiet voice saying, “It is I; do not be afraid.”
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