In our family, when a great holiday comes around, there are always plans for a big dinner with everyone seated around a table that is full of lots of good things. Sometimes it is buffet style, sometimes there is a barbecue, but there is always a time when we wonder how with what we have, we are going to feed all of the people who are coming and the ones that show up at the last minute. We used to say “family hold back,” but that has changed to “loaves and fishes,” a reminder of who it is who is really in charge of our feast. I love this because somehow it always seems to work out. There are enough buns or burgers or whatever we need to feed not only the guests but also the family who has no need to “hold back”.
The story of the feeding of the five thousand is probably the best known of the stories of Jesus’ ministry. It is told five times in the four gospels and with that repeated telling is most likely authentic. Each of the times that the story is told, there is a little nuance. Here, in the Gospel of John, Jesus asks the disciples “Where are we to buy bread for all of these people to eat?” It goes on to say that he did this to test them because he knew what he was going to do. The response of Simon Peter’s brother Andrew, is to tell Jesus that there is a boy present with five barley loaves and two fishes, but he asks, "what is that among so many people." Jesus asked the disciples to have the people sit down. He took the loaves and the fishes, gave thanks and distributed them to the people and there was enough and more than enough. The disciples gathered twelve basketsful of leftovers.
This is a marvelously Eucharistic story. Every week we take the loaves that you bring to the altar along with the pitcher of wine, give thanks, bless it and give it back to you and not only is it enough, but it also becomes the body and blood of Jesus to feed our bodies and our souls for the week ahead. God touches our meager offering and makes it enough to satisfy our need.
It is also a story that we need to take to heart as a message to the church. It always looks like what we need to do is eclipsed by the shortage of our means. Some of this is because of the enormous demands our facilities make on our income. Taking care of the church and its equipment, its utilities and its staff can eat up a large portion of our resource before we ever get started on our mission.
In all of my years as the rector of a large church it always seemed to me that mission, though stated as primary, really came in second when it came to the real estate and the staff. We always seemed to be able to find money for our own needs, but when it came to mission, we were usually able to find ways to talk ourselves into diminishing what we paid into it when the other things that demanded our money cried louder. We were always able to rationalize that somehow. In all honesty, it is very difficult to keep mission in front of our eyes always when all of the other material things make their louder demands. How are we going to explain to the electric company or the roofers or the people who repave our parking lots that we need to give our money to the poor and they will just have to wait. On the other hand, it is easier to tell the poor to wait a bit longer while we take care of our own needs.
I think that the problem that we have is a matter of trust. Trust that the faith that we all hold dear is up to the challenge of real life. When Jesus told the people to sit down and he gave thanks for his meager resources, he distributed what he had and there were twelve baskets left over. The reason that seems to us to be a miracle is that we don’t really believe that we can duplicate such a thing. But we can. All that we have to do is to put our mission first on our church’s agenda and we will discover that there is more than enough to take care of all of the demands that come upon us. That probably sounds a bit naïve, but it isn’t. When we call upon the faith that is reinforced weekly by this abundant Eucharist, we will discover how abundant God’s bounty really is. Try it. You won’t be disappointed.
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