The Other Miracle of the 5,000 Fed

John 6:1-21

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples.

Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all.

Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

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I have Haiti on the brain and in my prayers these days because of all the unrest and uncertainty there, following the assassination of their President a few weeks ago. Many of you have asked me what I know, which isn’t much, other than that things are as unsettled and uncertain as ever, but on-edge in a heightened way because of it all. Our friends in Fondwa are safe and stable at the moment, though the unrest and instability in the cities, like Port-au-Prince and Leogane, where our project managers from Zanmi Fondwa get their supplies, will likely make the work of building houses difficult for some time into the future.

And this reading about Jesus’ miracle makes me think about Haiti, too, because poverty and hunger are such a thing for our friends there – something most of us can’t imagine, don’t understand, and haven’t had to struggle with in such systemic, long-standing ways. (I got angrier than I should have when I had to wait in line for 15 minutes at Qdoba, on Thursday, before finding out they didn’t have any fajita veggies for my burrito. So when sat down moments later with this Gospel reading before me, I was reminded that the universe and the Holy Spirit have a funny way of reminding us about our First World problems.) All that to say, when I picture Jesus on that mountain in Galilee, in my mind’s eye, he might as well be on a hillside in Fondwa, surrounded by hungry people. But I’ll come back to Haiti in a minute.

This story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 might be his most popular moment, his greatest hit, if you will. It’s such a popular miracle it appears in all four Gospels. And, Matthew and Mark tell of another event altogether, where Jesus fed 4,000 in one sitting. So hungry people and food and making more of it were a big deal for Jesus and people who wanted us to know about God’s love and grace and abundance in the world.

But, I wondered this week if we like to marvel at the miracle of what Jesus does in today’s story precisely because it takes us out of the equation and gives God and that miracle all the credit. I can’t create something from nothing. You can’t turn crumbs into a banquet. None of us can give away what isn’t there in the first place.

In other words, I wonder if we marvel at the miracle of Jesus feeding the five thousand because then we can pretend all those people – the likes of you and me, the average Joes and Janes – had nothing to do with it. When really, all of that feeding and feasting might possibly have stopped before it ever started had those first followers kept eating, refused to be satisfied, or packed up and headed for home without care or concern for those who were still looking to eat.

Because, notice what happens. Jesus doesn’t ration that bread or those fish when he doles it out to those first in line. He simply gives thanks and delivers the goods. He gives them “as much as they wanted,” we are told, “and when they were satisfied,” …after they ate their fill …when they decided that they had had enough, THEN the disciples are told to gather up the leftovers, the crumbs, the scraps, and start to share it with the rest of the crowd.

Now, maybe all of that is meant to point to the size and scope of Jesus’ miracle – that even after they at their fill … even after they were satisfied and stuffed, there was still plenty to go around. But what if today’s miracle has as much to do with their willingness and ability to share that abundance, as it does with whatever stunt Jesus may have pulled.

 I wonder this because, again, all of it makes me think about our friends in Haiti. Some of you might remember Jamalyn Williamson, the CEO of Zanmi Fondwa, telling the story of her friend Jesula, caring for a gaggle of kids, which Jesula always seems to be doing. She has a houseful of her own (4-6 children, maybe more, I honestly can’t keep track) along with whatever handful of neighbor kids and cousins happen to be around at any given moment. Well, Jamalyn tells a beautiful story about Jesula cleverly, expertly, generously, lovingly slicing a single, solitary hard-boiled egg into slices thin, but substantial enough for a gathering of hungry children each to have something to eat. There might as well have been 5,000 of them. It was kind of a miracle.

Jesula isn’t Jesus, of course. So she could – and she would have been justified in the minds of most to – have gathered her own children into her own home and shared that single, solitary egg with her own, fewer mouths to feed, instead of sharing it with the neighborhood. But that doesn’t feel like a miracle, does it?

Now, I’m not saying Jesus didn’t do something magical, mysterious, or miraculous with that bread and those fish. I’m saying, it seems to me that those hungry people, the first in line, don’t seem to have filled their pockets or stuffed their satchels, which they could have done. They didn’t claim they deserved what was theirs because they got there first or were at the front of the line or earned their place at the table because they had pulled themselves up by their sandal straps. And Jesus doesn’t ask or require any of that, either, of course.

So, I’m inclined to believe that, like Jesula, something about their experience with Jesus made them aware of and mindful about and filled with compassion for those who hadn’t eaten, yet.

I’m inclined to believe that because it’s something else I see for myself in other beautiful ways – over and over again – whenever I’m in Haiti. Yes, when we share toys or food or, especially candy, with the kids at the orphanage, they act just like the kids behave when I pass out popsicles on a “Wild, Wacky, Wonderful Wednesday” evening at Cross of Grace. That is to say, they gather around and press in and act like animals – pushing, shoving, reaching, grabbing, begging – kids are kids are kids, after all.

But they share, beautifully, too, in Haiti, the poorest kids I’ve ever met. The older ones in that orphanage always make sure the younger ones get some of the goods. And, even when we show up with gifts and goodies for particular children from their sponsors here in the states, I see them, without fail, share some of whatever has their name on it with a sibling or a friend or a classmate or a neighbor in some way. That’s a miracle of love and generosity and grace that blows me away every time.

And that’s the opportunity and our challenge in this morning’s Gospel, if you ask me.

Let’s stop minimizing Jesus’ miracle until it becomes nothing more than a magic trick or some sleight of hand that only God can manage. Let’s acknowledge and be challenged by and let’s move in the direction of something much more faithful in all of this. Let’s see that Jesus is showing his disciples – and everyone on the hillside that day – and each of us, too – that we all have a hand in making this kind of miracle run its course.

Because what if the miracle isn’t in the multiplying, at all… in God’s knack for turning scraps into a smorgasbord… in stretching the leftovers… in creating something from nothing, even? What if the miracle of what happened on that hillside lies in the hands of the people who recognized that abundance in the first place, and then decided to share it?

It’s a miracle because that’s not the way the world works. That’s not our inclination enough of the time. It’s not capitalism, it’s the Kingdom of God. And it’s a miracle when it happens.

And it’s our calling as followers of Jesus and as people on the planet – to acknowledge the abundance we enjoy; to recognize that it all comes from God’s grace; to prayerfully, faithfully, humbly, gratefully discern when we are satisfied … when we have eaten our fill… what “enough” really is and when we’ve had it… “enough” food, “enough” money, “enough” resources, “enough” whatever… and then to share the abundance that will be left, the abundance that already is, if we’re honest, with our neighbor and with a wider world that is out there watching us eat our proverbial fill at the front of the line.

Wouldn’t that be a miracle?

Amen

No Words for Holy Trinity

John 3:1-17

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, who came to Jesus, by night, and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God because no one can do the signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said, “How can one be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus said to him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh. What is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with anyone who is born of the spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?”

Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? We speak about what we know and we testify to what we have seen, yet you do not receive our testimony. If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but might have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” 

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I had some remarkably strange and difficult conversations last week with three very different people I’d never met before. One was with a man who had seen me around town and who knows what I do here at Cross of Grace. He wanted to know if I’d be willing to talk with a friend of his who was struggling with a son, of his, who was struggling, too, with suicidal thoughts – attempts, even – and a very serious experience of abuse, to boot.

I had another series of conversations with a different young man altogether – a high school kid –who’s been struggling with some drug use, problems at home and school, some severe anxiety and, to top it off, harbors some serious fear about whether or not God could love or forgive him for some of the things he’d said and done – when he was in the third grade!

And I had a short, sweet little chat with the woman who cut my hair – about how she wouldn’t be doing much for the holiday weekend – partly because her sister’s birthday is today, but her sister died last year. So my barber and her family would be trying to find a way to do both things – the holiday and the grieving – at the same time.

Of course, I wanted for these people I didn’t know to know about God’s love and grace and mercy in their lives. I wanted to describe for them something about how deep and wide that love is meant to be felt by them. I wanted to find words that would overwhelm them with hope and the power of that divine kind of love so that they could feel it in a way that was as life-affirming, as life-giving, as life-changing – as the love of God is intended to be.

So, I outlined for them the intricacies and particulars – the theological trappings – of the doctrine of the Trinity, which we are invited to worship around and to celebrate this morning.

No, I didn’t do anything of the kind, because that would be ridiculous.

See, the irony of this Sunday is as funny to me as it is frustrating. Holy Trinity Sunday I mean, where we are charged with celebrating church doctrine, is always a strange proposition … this notion that God can be described and defined and defended and dumbed-down, if you ask me, into three things … three persons … three images … three identities – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the context of worship.

As if we could do that. As if that were enough. As if there’s a way to say it all, here, now.

Because if we were to pretend to say it all, it wouldn’t be enough. Because not everyone speaks the same language – literally or figuratively or spiritually, either. Not everyone holds the same regard for “Father,” or for “Son,” or understands what in the world a “Holy Spirit” is, or a “Holy Ghost” for that matter. Right?

It’s funny to me because it seems strange to wrap worship up with such academic musings.

It’s frustrating to me because there are people out there in the world – and some listening to me now, I imagine – who have had enough with words. Enough with doctrine and theological trappings. Enough defending and dumbing-down what is too big and more beautiful and embarrassingly limited by our simplest terms and most convenient definitions.

There’s a time and a place for everything, don’t get me wrong. But Jesus didn’t spend a lot of time with plying definitions or playing defense. Maybe he’s doing some of that this morning with Nicodemus, but we also heard him say that he simply spoke about what he knew. That he testified to what he had seen. And it seems to me, Jesus was at his best – most fully, most faithfully, and most loving – when he was doing the work of God – not just defining or describing or defending it.

Jesus created experiences. He told stories. He touched and loved, he held hands and welcomed. He fed and watered, he wined and dined. He walked with people, he worked alongside them, he washed their feet and let them wash his. He prayed and sang and laughed and wept, too.

Which is why this conversation with Nicodemus, under cover of darkness, never seems like enough for me either. I don’t know exactly what Jesus is getting at, of course. I’m just as confused as Nicodemus was about “being born again,” about being “born of the flesh or born of the spirit,” about where the wind comes from or where the heck it goes to next. How can these things be? And what the heaven are you talking about, Jesus?

But Jesus is just getting started, really. He goes on to do some more talking and teaching and theologizing for Nicodemus, and it all ends up with the Son of Man … on the cross … giving it all up for the sake of the world. And that’s that. We don’t really know what happens with Nicodemus. We don’t hear about how they parted ways. Did they hug it out? Did they shake hands? Did they say a prayer? Did they agree to disagree? Whatever the case, I imagine Nicodemus left with his head spinning a bit – still wondering, “How can these things be?”

And we don’t hear much about Nicodemus after this, except in Chapter 7 when he actually stands up for Jesus, in the face of some of his fellow Pharisees. And then Nicodemus shows up one more time, at the end of John’s gospel.

After the crucifixion, which it’s safe to assume he witnessed, it’s Nicodemus who helps anoint Jesus’ body and prepare it for burial. So I suspect his time with Jesus that night in the dark got his wheels spinning enough so that he was willing to get his hands dirty too.

Like all of that talk about being born again, about the wind blowing where it chooses, about the Son of Man ascending and descending, about God so loving the world that he gave his only son … all of that came together for Nicodemus when he saw it come to life – and come to death, as it were – in the flesh of Jesus, himself.

 The words weren’t enough all on their own. The definitions weren’t enough all by themselves. The doctrines of what we believe only go so far and so deep and are rarely enough to speak to everyone in a way that matters.

So for the guy who approached me this week, looking for help for his friend, I gave him my name and number so we might get together and meet. I hope that happens.

For the high school kid wondering if God could ever forgive him or still love him, I reminded him that his mom and dad still did – that they still do – and that they’ve shown him that love over and over and over again – and that God’s love was even bigger and better than that.

And for the woman who cut my hair, I gave her a bigger tip than usual and told her to have a meaningful time remembering and celebrating her sister this weekend.

All that to say, again, I’m convinced we don’t find or understand or experience or share the fullness of God – Father, Son, or Spirit – solely or supremely by wrapping our brains around doctrines and definitions. The Word of God in Christ Jesus comes alive for us when we DO – like Jesus did – the work of loving one another, forgiving one another, creating experiences where grace and generosity and good news live and breathe and move through us in undeniable, abundant, life-giving ways that surprise us and others with God’s presence in all of its forms, and always crucified and risen for the sake of the world.

Amen