Five Loaves and Two Fish; a sermon for the ninth Sunday after Pentecost

John 6:1-21

After this Jesus went across the Galilee Sea (that is, the Tiberius Sea). ² A large crowd followed him, because they had seen the miraculous signs he had done among the sick. ³ Jesus went up a mountain and sat there with his disciples. ⁴ It was nearly time for Passover, the Jewish festival.

⁵ Jesus looked up and saw the large crowd coming toward him. He asked Philip, “Where will we buy food to feed these people?” ⁶ Jesus said this to test him, for he already knew what he was going to do.

⁷ Philip replied, “More than a half year’s salary worth of food wouldn’t be enough for each person to have even a little bit.”

⁸ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said, ⁹ “A youth here has five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that for a crowd like this?”

¹⁰ Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass there. They sat down, about five thousand of them. ¹¹ Then Jesus took the bread. When he had given thanks, he distributed it to those who were sitting there. He did the same with the fish, each getting as much as they wanted. ¹² When they had plenty to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather up the leftover pieces, so that nothing will be wasted.” ¹³ So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves that had been left over by those who had eaten.

¹⁴ When the people saw that he had done a miraculous sign, they said, “This is truly the prophet who is coming into the world.” ¹⁵ Jesus understood that they were about to come and force him to be their king, so he took refuge again, alone on a mountain.

¹⁶ When evening came, Jesus’ disciples went down to the lake. ¹⁷ They got into a boat and were crossing the lake to Capernaum. It was already getting dark and Jesus hadn’t come to them yet. ¹⁸ The water was getting rough because a strong wind was blowing. ¹⁹ When the wind had driven them out for about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the water. He was approaching the boat and they were afraid. ²⁰ He said to them, “I Am. Don’t be afraid.” ²¹ Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and just then the boat reached the land where they had been heading.

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be pleasing to you,

LORD , my rock and my redeemer.

Disclaimer: We’re taking the text from 2 Samuel and pushing it into next week, because otherwise we rip the story into two parts, which makes it really hard to deal with.

And because I don’t want to try to juxtapose it with today’s Gospel reading. And if you think I’m lazy, then you take those two texts home tonight and see what on earth you have to say about the two of them together.

So.

Five loaves and two fish.

It’s Springtime; magic-healing-hands Jesus is gathering great big crowds, which is something we’ve taken note of in our readings for a couple weeks now; and he takes his disciples up a hill to hang out for a little while.

And he looks out on the crowd gathering, smirks a little, and says to the other two Persons of the Godhead:

“Hay, y’all. Watch this.”

True story. In my head.

“Man, Phil, that’s a lotta people. Do you think we can get a deal at the market in town to feed these folk?”

“Yeah, I doubt it, J.C. I couldn’t feed that crowd with half my annual salary!”

Andrew overhears this and plugs in his $.02:

“Lookit that kid over there. He’s doing all right for himself. Five barley loaves, two fish. That’ll be plenty for his family, but not for a crowd like this.”

And Jesus, who hears his cue right there, says, “Oy! All y’all! Sit!”

How many of us smell the wafting aromas of this afternoon’s covered dish meal already?

I want you to think about the time it took you (if you brought a dish) to throw something together for this afternoon. It’s typically, what, half an hour to throw together something relatively easy? An evening for a more complex meal? A couple days’ work if you’re doing something really elaborate, but you’ll usually save that for bigger occasions than this.

If you had the facility available to you, imagine the man-hours involved in preparing a feast for five thousand people. What’s the biggest crowd you’ve ever fed? A dozen? A hundred? Five hundred?

Five thousand. Just imagine the labor involved.

Now think about the labor involved in preparing five loaves of bread, including harvesting the barley and grinding it into flour. Think about the labor involved in catching two fish. Or selecting two fish from a day’s professional catch.

Because I doubt this kid made his own catch. I’m guessing he was at market and got caught up in the crowd who heard Jesus was just outside of town. Something like that.

Jesus took that little gift, enough to feed one family; in fact, enough bread for probably the whole week before it started to spoil. Jesus took that little effort, fractured it, fractioned it, and somehow made it enough to feed to full that whole crowd.

Einstein says you can’t do that. Matter cannot be created or destroyed. You can’t make something out of nothing. I don’t know if Jesus bent the rules of physics or pulled matter from somewhere else or just magicked the increase of food, but it happened.

It happened.

And we in the Church live today like God maybe made that happen once upon a time - or twice upon a time - but there’s no way God is still doing crazy stuff like that now. Not today.

Well, why not?

Sometimes we say, well, Jesus’ miracles happen when people are faithful, when they believe a miracle is going to happen.

Oh, yeah? Show me where that’s happening in this story.

No, this is just God doing something cool because God wants to do something cool.

Ever have a moment like that in your life? Have you ever seen a moment like that in this community? In your church?

Because this isn’t just a once-upon-a-time story. This is the way God always acts. Because God’s love doesn’t quit. God just keeps giving and giving and giving.

Now, that’s not to say that some people don’t receive it. And that’s through no fault of their own. People aren’t just poor because they choose to be poor. Most people are poor because it’s almost impossible to break out of the cycle of poverty. Because we have, in most global cultures, set up systems that protect those who have at the expense of those who have not.

But Jesus is Robin Hood to the rich and the poor. Jesus isn’t a fan of hoarders, of stuff-mongers, of people who exercise greed. Jesus is a fan of those who share, who offer, who give.

Because they are acting like Jesus. Because they get that giving-giving-giving love of God. They recognize where all their stuff came from and they choose to act as generously as God has for them.

Because at some point, they recognize that God took their five loaves and two fish and multiplied them not just for their family, but for the feeding of a multitude.

So I’m not going to tell you today to expect God to bless you if you’re faithful. What I’m going to challenge you to today is to recognize those places where God has blessed you, where God has taken your five loaves and two fish and multiplied them. And I’m going to challenge you to recognize that God didn’t do that for you. God did that to give you an opportunity to share that generosity with your neighbor.

Look around you. Look at this place. Look at your life. Look at this community. Look at who you are here and in your social circles.

What is God doing for you? What is God doing for us? Where is God blessing us? Where are our five loaves and two fish?

Look around. And when you find that, look to see what God is calling you to do with it.

Yeah, you.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

On the Importance of Rest; a sermon for the eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

³⁰ The apostles returned to Jesus and told him everything they had done and taught. ³¹ Many people were coming and going, so there was no time to eat. He said to the apostles, “ Come by yourselves to a secluded place and rest for a while. ” ³² They departed in a boat by themselves for a deserted place.

³³ Many people saw them leaving and recognized them, so they ran ahead from all the cities and arrived before them. ³⁴ When Jesus arrived and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Then he began to teach them many things.

⁵³ When Jesus and his disciples had crossed the lake, they landed at Gennesaret, anchored the boat, ⁵⁴ and came ashore. People immediately recognized Jesus ⁵⁵ and ran around that whole region bringing sick people on their mats to wherever they heard he was. ⁵⁶ Wherever he went—villages, cities, or farming communities—they would place the sick in the marketplaces and beg him to allow them to touch even the hem of his clothing. Everyone who touched him was healed.

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be pleasing to you,

LORD , my rock and my redeemer.

It’s during the reigns of the first kings of Israel that the nation establishes itself as a nation. It’s one thing to conquer an area and claim it as your own. Colonists did that within a hundred or so years of first landing in the New World (well, as long as you discount the Leif Erikson episode). It’s another thing to decide that you deserve the same luxuries and comforts that your neighbors have. Like a king. A capital. A temple.

The most popular interpretation we hear about God not allowing David to build the Temple involves God reacting to the Bathsheba episode, but I’m not sure that’s what’s going on here. I have a certain sense that it’s more complicated than that.

I read Ezekiel later, with the creatures spinning on wheels and floating with wings wherever the breath of God leads them, and I realize that God can’t be contained in a box. A tent, a tabernacle is much more fitting for a moving, living God.

I read the history of Israel to this point and I see God trying and trying to slow the people down, to help them depend upon YHWH alone, and I wonder if establishing a Temple isn’t just a step away from God rather than a declaration of God’s presence with Israel.

I read David’s character, impetuous and reactionary, and I wonder if God isn’t saying, “Listen, man, just chill and get your head together right now. You’re overreacting just a bit.”

And I read God’s love of David, particularly juxtaposed with our gospel reading, and I wonder if God isn’t just saying, “You know, this isn’t about what you can do for me. This is about what I want to do for you.”

I know that a lot of us know how to run ourselves ragged. Some of us find our identity in doing so. “I wouldn’t know what to do if I stopped working.” “I’d feel lazy if I wasn’t constantly on the go.”

We quote things to ourselves like “God helps those who help themselves,” which is Benjamin Franklin, not the Bible.

In fact, Biblical teaching is quite the opposite.

We’re really good at claiming to uphold the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, but we’re really bad at actually doing so. Remember, one of the ten is to sabbath.

So what is sabbath?

We use the word sometimes as a noun and sometimes as a verb. Sometimes sabbath is a particular day, most popularly Sunday, even though the Jewish sabbath begins at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday. But sometimes sabbath is something we do.

I want to focus on that, because I think the practical application of sabbath as a verb is more meaningful to us today, and because I think that’s what Jesus is aiming for when he talks and does things about sabbath.

Sabbath is rest. Sabbath is refreshing, not in the sense that a Coca-Cola is refreshing, but in the sense that having a date with your spouse while the kids are with a babysitter you trust is refreshing. It reminds you of an energy, of the source of an energy that can be very easy to lose track of.

That is why we sabbath. We sabbath to refresh our spirit. Because our spirit is not a self-generating energy source. We need to stay connected to the Source of our strength, and that’s not possible to do when we’re out doing ministry all the time.

Even Jesus couldn’t pull off self-generating spirit.

³⁰ The apostles returned to Jesus and told him everything they had done and taught. ³¹ Many people were coming and going, so there was no time to eat. He said to the apostles, “Come by yourselves to a secluded place and rest for a while.” ³² They departed in a boat by themselves for a deserted place.

We need rest. We need to recharge. We need to reconnect.

Which is exactly what our culture tells us not to do.

If you need rest, you’re lazy.

If you need to slow down, you’re stupid.

If you need to take a break, don’t even bother coming back. We can find someone to replace you.

But God says, Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy; Don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow has enough troubles of its own; and God says to each of us, you are beloved, unique, priceless, irreplaceable. I love you.

Come and rest.

Unfortunately, sometimes the world and its cares and its need for Jesus beat at our door even when we’re trying to find rest. That’s what happens to Jesus in our story today. And Jesus doesn’t turn them away.

Because love trumps command.

But Jesus doesn’t stop trying to find time away. This is not the only time he takes the disciples aside and makes them take a breather.

Sometimes the world doesn’t want us to slow down. And that’s why it’s even more important to intentionally sabbath.

Forget what folk tell you about specific days. That’s not the point. What I want you to do, this week, is to make - not find, but make - a day apart when you can stop and sabbath. Find that thing that gets you close to God, that makes you aware of God breathing life into you. Commit a day to that. And do it next week, too. And the next. And the next. And see if God doesn’t have a miracle in store for you.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.