Feeding the Five Thousand

 

Introduction

Poor Jesus was having a very bad day.

In fact, a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

He had just learnt that his cousin John had been killed by Herod, and he badly wanted to get away by himself to talk to God about it, and to begin to come to terms with it.

He did manage to get away a bit later, and when he was feeling more peaceful, he walked across the water to rejoin the disciples.

But right now, he hasn't had a chance to get away by himself,
He went across the lake in a boat, but the crowds walked round
and because Jesus was nice like that he gave up all thoughts of going off by himself for a bit, and he healed the sick people, and I expect he taught them a bit, too.

It was getting dark, and the disciples know that Jesus really needed to eat,
and they could use a break themselves,
so they try to get him to make everyone go away.
But they've all followed Jesus further away from town than they meant, and it would be rather a long way to go back without a breather first, and some food.
But there is no food –
and nowhere to buy any,
even if they could have afforded it.
Just five loaves and two fish.
In some of the other gospels, we learn that this belonged to a small boy, who had shyly come up to Andrew and offered to share his lunch with Jesus, although Matthew doesn’t mention this.
But it appears that this was all the food there was.

Of course, I don't suppose it was all the food there was, not really.
After all, there were mothers in the crowd,
mothers with small children.
They would have made sure they were well-provisioned for the day.
Probably many of the men had lunchboxes
or whatever they carried their food in;
certainly the children would have.
Mothers do tend to see to it that their families are provisioned,
and few people would go out for the day without some sort of arrangements for a meal!

But it was, so we are told, a small boy who was the catalyst,
who offers his lunch.
And Jesus takes it,
gives thanks,
breaks it,
and shares it.
And everyone has enough food,
and there are twelve basketsful left over.
Enough for each of the disciples to take a basket of food home to Mum.

Before we think about what this story means, and why it’s still important, I want us to listen to a video I found which tells this story through puppets.

Did you enjoy that?
I did!
But we need to look at the story, and what it tells us.
I think it tells us something about Jesus,
something about God the Father,
and something about ourselves.

2. Something About Jesus
So what does the story tell us about Jesus?
This sort of food-stretching isn't unique to him, you know!
It happens in the Old Testament, too.
Elijah goes to stay with the Widow of Zarephath during a famine and promises that her oil and flour won't run out if she will feed him, too.
Which she does,
and it doesn't.

Elisha, Elijah's successor,
performs a miracle very like Jesus',
making 20 barley loaves stretch to feed 100 people, with some left over.
Which mightn't sound too bad to us, but those loaves were only about the size of a hamburger bun –
and if you were only given 1/5 of a bun,
you might well want to complain that it wasn't quite enough!

So this kind of miracle was something that prophets did.
You might have noticed that John doesn't tend to record Jesus' miracles unless they teach us something about who Jesus is.
So on one level, in John’s gospel, the story shows that Jesus was not only a prophet like Elisha, but something greater.

And did you notice something else?
Jesus took the food,
gave thanks,
broke it
and shared it.
Doesn't that sound awfully familiar?
Doesn't that sound like something we do some Sundays,
those Sundays we have a Communion service?

So the story is saying something about who Jesus is;
it is showing us that Jesus is not only a prophet,
he is more than a prophet.

3. Something About God the Father
Then secondly, the story tells us something about God the Father.
You see, Jesus says elsewhere that he only does what he sees his Father doing.
And one of the things that always strikes me about this story,
when I read it,
is the amount left over.
Twelve basketsful.

As I said earlier, enough for each of the disciples to take a basket home to Mum!

It isn't that there was just enough food to keep everyone going until they got home.
It isn't that there was enough for everyone to have a decent meal.
There was enough for everyone to have a decent meal and still have masses left over!

That seems to be so typical of Jesus, though.
When he turned the water into wine at the wedding at Cana,
he made enough wine to stock a young off-licence,
never mind be enough for a few guests at the tag-end of a party.
And when people were healed,
they were healed!
He made a proper job of it,
even if it took him two goes.

It's typical of Jesus, and it's typical of God.
I mean, look at the sort of extravagance we see in the natural world –
all those desert flowers, for instance,
and nobody knew they were there.
All those stars,
all those universes.....

This story, with the twelve basketsful left over,
reminds us that God is generous to the point of extravagance.
And also, it was Jesus who broke the bread and shared it out.
He did the serving.
It was Jesus,
elsewhere in John's gospel,
who kneels with towel and basin,
washing the disciples' feet.
It was Jesus who said of himself,
"The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve."

So this story helps to remind us that God longs
and longs
and longs
to give us, his children,
more good things than we can possibly handle.
God wants to serve us,
to heal us,
to make us whole,
to give us what we need –
not just grudgingly,
barely enough,
but pressed down, shaken together and running over!

4. Something About Us
But the third thing that this story tells us is something about us.
And I'm afraid that it isn't very flattering.
All those thousands of people –
five thousand men,
and maybe up to four times that number when you include the women and children –
all those people, and one, just one, was willing to share what he had!
One little boy who came up to Andrew and whispered, shyly,
"Jesus can have my lunch if he'd like".
Nobody else was willing to share.

Yet most people probably had more than they needed that day.
We tend to take along more food than we'll need, just in case.
And if we make a packed lunch for our family,
if they're going on an outing,
there's usually enough that we could share it,
if we wanted to,
without going hungry ourselves.

But the people in the crowd weren't willing to risk going hungry.
They weren't willing to share their food,
not even with Jesus and his disciples.
That was too great a risk.
Perhaps they wouldn't have minded missing lunch, for once,
but what about their children?

Incidentally, I'm aware that I'm sounding as though the sole source of food was from the crowd,
rather than from Jesus.
I rather suspect it was a case of "both, and" –
I'm perfectly certain that if the small boy's five loaves and two fishes were really all the food there was,
Jesus both could have and would have produced
a delicious meal for everyone from just that.
However, I find it almost impossible to believe that nobody else at all had brought any supplies with them!
Like so much of Christianity,
the truth is probably somewhere in between;
a case of "both, and", rather than "either, or".

The crowd was selfish.
Either they had come out without any food, or,
if they had brought food,
they weren't willing to share it.
Either way,
they expected Jesus to do something about it.
They weren't going to do anything.
They were going to hedge their bets,
to wait and see,
to look out for Number One.

And are we like that?
Well, yes, we are, some of the time, aren't we.
We can be extraordinarily selfish.
Look how just a quarter of the world consumes about seventy-five percent of the planet’s resources.
And even in our country, there are those of us who have plenty, and those who are reliant on the food banks to feed their children because their benefits simply won’t stretch far enough.
And if you are one of the ones who have enough, have you given anything to the food bank lately?
It’s easy enough to buy an extra tin of tuna or packet of ramen noodles and drop it in the bins the supermarkets all provide for such purposes.

We can be extraordinarily selfish,

and we can be extraordinarily faithless.
We can't offer more than ourselves to Jesus,
but how often do we offer even that?
The small boy offered what he had –
five loaves, and two fishes.
It wasn't much, but he had the courage to offer it.
Nobody else seems to have had the nerve.
But why not?

Partly, of course, it was selfishness and fear –
if I give my lunch to Jesus,
maybe I won't get any.
Maybe my kids won't get any.
I'm not going to offer;
I need what I have for myself.

But partly it was a different sort of fear.
Fear of rejection.
And that is one of the most difficult of all fears to overcome.
Been there,
done that,
read the book
bought the T-shirt
You don't go to Jesus with your five loaves and two fish because you're afraid he'll shriek with laughter and say
"Who on earth do you think you are!"
You don't go to Jesus and say
"Use me as you will",
because you're afraid he'll either send you off to work somewhere highly disagreeable,
like somewhere with a seriously nasty climate
far away from all your friends and family.
Or else we're afraid that he won't!
That he will say "Oh, I couldn't possibly use you!”
and sort of throw you aside like a used tissue.

But, you know, that's not God!
We've just seen how God longs and longs to be far more generous to us than we can possibly imagine.
And when we say "Use me as you will",
he says "Great!
Now, here's this present,
and do take some of that,
and are you sure you won't have any more of the other,
and you really need some of this, and...."
until you practically have to say,
"Hey, hang on, give me a chance to breathe!"

Oh, but, you are saying,
I've offered and offered and nothing has happened.
God doesn't want me!
Well, I have to ask two questions, then.
The first is, did you really mean your offering,
or did you pull it back as soon as you'd made it.
And the second question is,
are you sure God isn't helping you do exactly what you're meant to be doing right now?
Not all of us are called to spectacular tasks, or to go and work somewhere with a disagreeable climate, and so on.
Some of us are asked to stay right where we are, and be salt and light in our own families and communities.

Students are probably meant to be studying hard and waiting to see where the road leads to next.
Parents are probably meant to be making a safe home for their children.
The elderly are often such enormous lights to the rest of us –
we need you so much in our churches,
just for who you are and
what you have learnt about our dear Lord as you have followed him!

In fact, it's always safest to assume that God will want you to stay where you are, doing what you're doing.
If that should change, you can be quite sure you will know about it totally unmistakeably!
But God can't use you unless you offer yourself to him,
and he will use you if you do!
And if you hold back, whether from fear, or from selfishness, or from any other motive,
then not only do you prevent the Kingdom of God from going forward in the way God would like,
but you also cut yourself off from all the good things God wanted to give you!

5.Conclusion
I've gone on quite long enough for one morning!
But this story,
this central story,
of how Jesus fed a huge crowd,
does teach us that Jesus is greater even than Elijah and Elisha,
and does foreshadow the taking, blessing, breaking and sharing of bread that is so important to us.
It reminds us of how extravagantly generous God can be,
and how much he longs and longs to share that generosity with you and with me.
And it reminds us that all too often we can be selfish and afraid,
and hold back from offering what we have and who we are to Jesus.
So lets make an effort this morning to conquer our fear and selfishness, and to offer ourselves anew to the God whose response is always so infinitely greater than our terrified offerings. Amen.