Abundance

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 8, 2015

Third Sunday in Lent

Abundance

Mark 6:30-44

It is familiar story, our lesson,

perhaps one of the most familiar stories

in the gospels: the story of the loaves and fishes.

It is a story we learn at a very young age

in Sunday School.

        

It is one of the few stories

that appears in all four gospels.

Not even Christmas can claim that:

we find the story of Jesus’ birth

in just two gospels: Matthew and Luke.

There are 6 different versions of this story!

Two in Mark (8:1-9);

two in Matthew (14:13-21; 15:32-39);

one in Luke (9:10-17);

and one in John (6:1-13).

The story line is the same,

but the details differ a bit in each version.

In our lesson we hear that

Jesus and his disciples fed “five thousand men”.

Matthew is more inclusive, telling us us that

“those who ate were about five thousand men,

besides women and children.”

In the second version of the story that appears

in Mark’s and Matthew’s gospels,

Jesus feeds four thousand.

Luke and John don’t include this story –

we don’t know why they didn’t.

Our lesson tells us that the disciples

had among themselves five loaves and two fish.

In the feeding of the four thousand

we are told they had seven loaves,

and “a few small fish”.

John’s version of this story

tells us that the disciples

apparently did not have a crumb among them,

but found a boy who had

“five barley loaves and two fish.”

In all the different texts,

Jesus has the people sit,

but in Mark’s and Luke’s gospels,

Jesus has the people sit in groups

of either fifty or one hundred.

Why?

Was it a precursor of our Protestant focus

on doing things decently and in order?

Scholars feast on the differences in the stories.

Do Mark and Matthew contain two different stories

to suggest, as some scholars believe,

that one meal was aimed at the Jewish community,

while the second was directed at Gentiles?

Is there symbolism in five loaves?

Two fish?

Seven loaves?  

Was it a miracle,

a true miracle,

in which Jesus took the little that he had,

and through the glory and majesty of God,

turned it into food for more than five thousand?

Or did Jesus simply gather the people in community,

strangers though they might have been;

And once they were in community,

did they simply begin to share what they had?

After all, travelers back in Jesus’ day

often did carry food with them –

typically bread and some salted, dried fish.

The verse that I think holds the crux of the lesson

is when Jesus says to his disciples,

“You give them something to eat.”

Matthew, Mark and Luke

all include those words

in their versions of the story:

You give them something to eat.

We can picture the reaction of the disciples,

can’t we,

as Jesus’ words settle on them:

“All these people; thousands of them,

and our Teacher is telling us

to give them something to eat?

How are we supposed to do that?”

The sheer impossibility of the task

Jesus handed them

was obvious to all the disciples,

so their response isn’t surprising:

“Are we to go and buy

two hundred denarii worth of bread,

and give it to them to eat?”

Presumably they didn’t need to explain to Jesus

that two hundred denarii

was almost a year’s wages,

and that whatever Judas might have had

in the common purse that he’d been tasked

to carry for all of them,

(John 12:6; 13:29)

it was certainly nowhere near that much.

There they were,

in what we are told is a “deserted place”,

and Jesus says to them,

“You give them something to eat.”

It doesn’t make any sense.

…Or does it?

Did any of the disciples think for a minute

about their ancestors in faith,

how they spent forty years in the wilderness,

and how they never lacked food,

wanted for food;

how God fed them with manna,

how God provided – even in the wilderness.

All of the disciples were focused on logic,

on the reality that lay before them:

all those people,

night falling,

and hardly enough food to feed the twelve,

much less the thousands.

Even a child would have understood

that there was no way the disciples

could have fed that many people.

You give them something to eat,

Oh, you of little faith.

(Matthew 8:26)

The eyes of the disciples were open,

and yet all they could see

was what they could or could not do;

None thought about what the Lord could do;

none saw in his mind’s eye

what the Lord had done

time and time again.

Why didn’t at least one think,

“If our Lord is telling us to give the people

something to eat,

then surely with God’s help,

we can do what the Lord asks of us.”

And indeed, Jesus would later rebuke them all,

“Do you not perceive or understand?

…Do you have eyes and fail to see?

Do you have ears, and fail to hear?

Do you not remember?”

(Mark 8:17ff)

God graces us with abundance all around us;

then calls us to see to it

that the abundance is shared:

that no one goes without,

that all are fed, all have their thirst quenched.

The disciples so long ago;

you and me, here and now:

we are the ones through whom

our Lord’s work is done.

We are our Lord’s hands,

guided by the Holy Spirit.

Our Lord calls us to community

where we work together, cooperatively,

collaboratively, and most important,

compassionately, our hearts leading us,

helping us to hear what our Lord calls us to do,

what our Lord teaches us to do,

and then doing it confidently and faithfully.

Pack 10,000 meals?

Who would have imagined

that we could do such a thing?

And yet today we’ll pack more than 20,000 meals;

Share 4,000 pounds of food in a year’s time?

And yet last year we shared more than 6,000 pounds.

Raise $500,000 for needs we have here at MPC?

All things are possible for God,

and all things are possible with God.

Nothing we are called to do by our Lord is impossible.

In Matthew’s, Mark’s and Luke’s

version of the story,

after Jesus blesses the loaves and fish,

he has his disciples distribute the food

so they can see that they are indeed

the ones giving the people something to eat.

God provides;

but God works through you and me.

If, in our story, Jesus simply multiplied

the loaves and fish

that would have been a miracle,

without a doubt,

God at work.

Would it have been any less of a miracle,

any less God at work,

if the people simply shared what they had?

I think we could argue that that would have been

an even greater miracle:

friends and strangers,

young and old

the faithful and the seekers,

the locals and the foreigners,

all sharing what they had,

every person reaching into a bag,

a pouch,

the folds of a tunic

for some bread,

for some dried fish each had,

the sharing begun by the disciples.

        

John the Baptizer is the voice of Lent,

calling us, as he still does

even after all these years,

to look within and repent of our waywardness.

Doesn’t he teach us,

“Whoever has two coats

must share with anyone who has none;

and whoever has food must do likewise.”

(Luke 3:11)

In this season of repentance

it should be easy to see where we go down

the wrong path when we start thinking

of all we have as ours,

thinking,

as Moses warned us so long ago we would think,

“My power and the might of my own hand

have got me this wealth.”

(Deuteronomy 8:17)

Or, as we might say today,

“I worked for what I have,

so it is all mine,

and I’ll decide when I share,

what I share,

how much I share

and with whom I share.”

                 

But all we have comes from God

who graces us with abundance.

And we are to see to it

that all share in the abundance.

And we are to do that without judging,

without criticizing those who have needs.

To pack meals on Sunday

and then on Monday criticize the poor

as lazy, unwilling to work,

that they have only themselves

to blame for their situation,

that isn’t to walk in faith,

that isn’t to live as Christ calls us to live.

The question for us as we go through our days

is not, What Would Jesus Do?

The question is,

What would Jesus have us do,

What does Jesus teach us to do;

What does Jesus call us to do:

Us – his disciples,

Us – his hands, doing his work,

speaking his words of grace and mercy.

“You give them something to eat.”

says our Lord

“You give them reason to hope.

You give them words of comfort.

You give them warmth,

You give them peace,

You give them love.”

It doesn’t matter who the “them” is.

All that matters is that we do

as our Lord teaches us to do,

give as our Lord teaches us to give,

for in giving hope,

comfort,

peace,

and love

we are giving them Christ.

AMEN