“You Give Them Something to Eat”
Mark 6:30-44
Pastor Deb Troester, STHPC, July 7, 2024
I remember “The Feeding the Five Thousand” from Sunday School as a child. A colorfully dressed multitude is seated on the bright green grass, blue sky and fluffy clouds overhead, mountains in the background. Jesus is teaching them, as the disciples stand reverently to one side. But behind this pastoral scene is a harsh reality: in Jesus’ day, much as in ours, only 2% of the population lived a life of ease. The other 98% struggled from day to day to have enough to eat. Jesus knew this. His disciples did, too. The crowd was hungry. They were far from a town where food could be bought, and many of them probably didn’t have even the few coins needed to buy a meager supper, even if there had been any food to buy.
Our world today is like this: a few are doing well, while most others are barely making it. According to U.N. statistics, about 13% of the world’s population doesn’t have enough food to eat, and 9 million people die from hunger-related causes each year, many of them children. Most of these deaths are in areas of conflict, where it is difficult to get food aid to those who need it. Those of us who have visited Cameroon, or other developing countries, have seen things that tug at our hearts – malnourished children, families living in sub-standard housing, people dying of treatable diseases like malaria. Even if you have never left the U.S., you may have seen situations that break your heart. Here in the so-called land of plenty, too many children go to bed hungry each night.
Faced with these seemingly insurmountable needs, it is easy to throw up our hands and say, “What can we do?” Confronted with a hungry crowd of 5,000 people, the disciples probably felt much the same. In fact, Mark says that there were 5000 men, not including women and children, so the actual total may have been much higher. Jesus tells them: “You give them something to eat.” The disciples probably thought Jesus was crazy. They reply, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread?” The disciples may have been wondering what they would eat for supper – much less how they would feed an enormous crowd like this. It would take a lot of money.
There weren’t any ATMs in ancient Palestine. Like the disciples, when we look at the face of human need on this planet, we are tempted to despair. Some of us barely get by as it is; how can we help when the needs are so great?
But this scripture shows that we do not think like God does. The Bible proclaims again and again that God has a different vision of what the world should be like: a place where everyone has enough to eat, safe water to drink, where there is no violence or abuse. God wants all people to have a place at the table, to be fed, clothed, warm, and safe. Jesus calls this vision “the Kingdom of Heaven.” Some people have called it the kin-dom of God – the word “kin” emphasizes that we are all family. We are all related, and God expects us all to help each other. The Lord could have rained manna down on the multitude that day, as he did in the wilderness of Sinai, when Moses led the enslaved people out of Egypt. But instead God chose to use the generosity of those who were present. Somehow the disciples were able to find two fish and five loaves of bread.
John’s Gospel adds that it was a little boy who offered the bread and fish – probably the lunch his mother had packed for him so he wouldn’t go hungry. The disciple Andrew provides that information. While the others were feeling overwhelmed by the impossibility of feeding so many people, Andrew was making friends and forming relationships with the people in the crowd, including the little boy – not a bad way to start any ministry. John tells us that this child was willing to give his food to Jesus, even though it was obvious that it was far from enough. Jesus accepted the food and told the bewildered disciples to make the people sit down. Then he took the loaves and fish, gave thanks, and distributed them. And all ate and were satisfied.
Notice that Jesus did not check to see if the people were good enough or hard-working enough before he fed them. He didn’t ask if they were immigrants or native-born. He didn’t ask about their sexual orientation. Jesus fed people because they were hungry. He saw a need and he met it. He tells us, “Go, and do likewise.”
Jesus is also showing his disciples what it means to be a servant leader. For once, the poor and downtrodden were seated served together with any more well-to-do folks who might have been present. They all sat at the same level – the same table, so to speak. For some of the women, this might have been a first. In that culture, women usually ate last, after all the men had been served. Women and men, rich and poor, all seated together, eating as one big family, that was also a miracle.
And, as the bread and the fish were passed out, not only was there enough food for the entire crowd, but after all ate and were filled, [the disciples] took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces [of bread and fish] – one whole basket of leftovers for each disciple! Those who had helped serve also had plenty to eat. So in serving others we, too, are fed - both spiritually and physically. Indeed, the kingdom of God had come upon them all that day.
Some skeptical readers have speculated that maybe, shamed by the boy’s generosity, others in the crowd began to take their meager lunches out of their pockets, too, and offer to share them. In this way, with no one hoarding their food, everyone had enough. I myself do not doubt that Jesus could do this miracle – after all, He was the Son of God. But in some ways, given the selfishness of human nature, if Jesus got hungry people to share their food with strangers, it might have been an even greater miracle still.
Many people today labor under the illusion that more money and more stuff will make them happy. As Christians, we know that is not true. We live under the illusion of scarcity, but God has provided abundantly for all our needs – if only we are willing to share. As Gandhi once said: “There is enough for our need, but not for our greed.”
We may think our resources are slim, but when we give what we have, God will bless it and multiply it so that all may be fed. God has called us, the church, to become co-workers with him just as this little boy was. Perhaps God wants to do more miracles, but is waiting for us to be generous, to share what we have with others. Jesus still says to us today, “You give them something to eat.” In other words, “Don’t just stand there and say it’s not your problem. Do something.
I will be with you and help you, so that even the little you have will be enough.”
Can this kind of bread and fish miracle still happen today? A few years ago I was visiting an area near Lake Victoria, Tanzania. The local Lutheran bishop showed me around. Everywhere we went, he kept showing me cows, cows, and more cows! “Those are the Heifer cattle,” he explained. About 20 years ago, Heifer International sent some cows which were great milk-producers, better than the local cattle. The people of that region have traditionally raised cattle. They know how to take care of them, so the Heifer International cows thrived and had calves. Part of the plan was that each person who was given a cow must give one of its offspring to someone else who didn’t have any cattle. People in the U.S. donated money for the cattle, and the Tanzanians applied their expertise in cattle-raising. Just like the fish and the loaves, the cattle keep multiplying and have yielded food and milk for many. If you look, you will find many stories like this, each of them a small miracle.
Santa Teresa Hills offers many opportunities for small miracles to take place: helping farm-workers and their families in Pajaro, providing school supplies for the Santa Maria Urban Ministry, pajamas and socks for homeless youth, toiletries and baby quilts for the Maternity Clinic in Buea, Cameroon. If you haven’t contributed to our Christmas in July project yet, today is a good day to do it. Many small gifts can add up to something big!
In the Gospel of John, this story concludes, “When the people saw the sign that Jesus had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’” It is not any different today. Whenever the church reaches out to those in need, people recognize that God is at work, and begin to believe that Christ is truly among us. The Good News is that there is enough to go around if we bring what we have to Jesus, if we share our resources unselfishly to help others. There is enough and we don’t have to worry - our baskets will return to us filled to overflowing. And in the end, we shall all be satisfied.
Amen.
©Deborah Troester 2024