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.